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Alternative Perspectives on Justice and Fairness

• Social Contract Traditions – Thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau laid foundational ideas that influenced later theories, including Rawls’s. Their work explores how society’s rules are agreed upon to maintain order and protect individual rights.

• Libertarian Critiques – Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia challenges Rawls by emphasizing minimal state intervention and the inviolability of individual rights over redistributive justice, arguing against the difference principle.

• Capabilities Approach – Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum develop theories focusing on what individuals are actually able to do and be, suggesting that fairness should be measured by real opportunities rather than just the distribution of primary goods.

• Communitarian Perspectives – Thinkers like Michael Sandel critique Rawls’s abstract individualism and argue that community values and shared understandings are critical in forming just societies.

• Feminist Critiques – Philosophers such as Susan Moller Okin argue that Rawls’s theory insufficiently addresses gendered power dynamics, prompting reexaminations of justice that incorporate family and care ethics.

These ideas collectively enrich debates on fairness and social justice, offering alternative lenses to Rawls’s original position and principles.

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