103 - Justification vs. proof
from J
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
Summary
In the final section of A Theory of Justice, John Rawls contrasts justification and proof. He says:
Justification is argument addressed to those who disagree with us, or to ourselves when we are of two minds. It presumes a clash of views between persons or within one person, and seeks to convince others, or ourselves, of the reasonableness of the principles upon which our claims and judgments are founded. Being designed to reconcile by reason, justification proceeds from what all parties to the discussion hold in common. Ideally, to justify a conception of justice to someone is to give him a proof of its principles from premises we both accept, these principles in turn having consequences that match our considered judgments. Thus mere proof is not justification. A proof simply displays logical relations between propositions. But proofs become justification once the starting points are mutually recognized, or the conclusions so comprehensive and compelling as to persuade us of the soundness of the conception expressed by their premises. (TJ 508)
We can draw several conclusions from this passage. For Rawls, justification is not simply about understanding logical implications or inferences. A proposition may be a logical implication of some set of premises, but realizing this is not itself a form of justification. Justification is about giving oneself or others sufficient reasons to believe some proposition. Of course, often the best way to provide someone with sufficient reasons to believe some proposition is to show that it is a logical implication of some other beliefs we already accept, and this may be why Rawls says that, ideally, to justify a conception of justice to someone is to give him a proof. But there are other ways to provide someone with sufficient reasons for belief, for example, showing that a theory’s conclusions are “comprehensive and compelling.” Proofs are thus one way, but not the only way, to pursue justification.
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- The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon , pp. 390 - 392Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
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