Persistence of fraternity and justice in communism (against Rawls)

Abstract

Within the framework set by contemporary debates on social justice, in this article we look into John Rawls’s vision of communism as a society beyond justice, in which people have lost their sense of justice and moral obligation. We hold that Rawls fails to offer a convincing account of the evanescence of the sense of justice and of the sudden elimination of the laws that govern moral psychology. Moreover, we demonstrate that, according to Rawls’s own general statements on moral psychology, Marxian communism vannot be inhabited but by persons who support institutions inspired in egalitarian and fraternal principles. In communist society, thus, there is the rule of justice and morality, there is a just institutional scheme –as Rawls himself so acknowledges– and there exists a shared understanding and a public recognition of institutional justice.