(Return to main path )

 Let me add something else about the priority of the first principle. Thomas Pogge discusses one of the problems related to priority. He makes the following point:

The lexical priority is problematic by assuming that even the smallest superiority in terms of the distribution of basic rights and liberties is more valuable than even the greatest superiority in the distribution ot the remaining social primary goods....Is it rational for the parties to assign more significance to minute reductions of basic liberties than to great losses in socioeconomic goods? Is a basic structure in which some starve, though they have a fully adequate scheme of basic liberties, really more just than one in which all are economically well-off, though some lack the full complement of basic rights -- for instance, are not allowed to own a newspaper? [Pogge, John Rawls, p. 79 and 102.]

Another way to put it is that no increase in other social goods would justify even a tiny reduction in liberty. Is that plausible? Isn't it wildly counterintuitive? If Rawls thinks that this priority corresponds to our considered moral views, I think he is simply mistaken.