I spent the last few days thinking about the implications of John Rawls’ contract theory. There is no argument that Rawls left us with a theory of justice which we cannot ignore in our dialogues. However, we also need to be aware that it has shortcomings. My reflection isn’t really on the shortcomings of his views, which have been widely criticised by thinkers like Nozick, Sandel and many Marxist thinkers.  

The imaginary or ‘original position’ view of Rawls which concludes in the social contract, in my view, is impossible because it does not take the real context of humanity into consideration. It is callous for any thinker who is concerned with the present levels of injustice, to start his/her arguments by presenting an imaginary world. From this perspective, I would like to think of the original position allegory as epistemological erroneous and denying social ontologies (in which suffering, injustice, oppression, discrimination etc., are real).  

It is not just a matter of the opening allegory with which we are arguing but even the final product—the social contract. A contractarian perspective is profoundly based on the principles of self-preservation, or I do it because I stand to benefit from it. Such a view does not necessarily think of justice in terms of historical wrongs and how these wrongs have structured society in such a way that certain members will always be disadvantaged. The social order in Rawls’ conception of justice is established on the basis of shared consumption, held together by a contract. In a contract we do not have a shared humanity; it is about how I need to act so that I may survive. Justice may as well be redefined as a market culture held together by a contract. 

Block, Brueggemann and McKnight argue that “A contractual relationship is based on a specific exchange of interests”. This is exactly what Rawls’ contractarian theory suggests. The demise of a contract is that it is not sustainable when certain members of society can no longer live up to the set agreements. If anything, it is about the survival of the fittest and non-contributing members due to sickness or inability are most likely to be kicked out. Even in the creation of a welfare system, it is not because it is justice but because it is good for my own survival to have persons who live on welfare, and I am free from the obligation of sharing my ‘earned’ resources with them. 

Therefore, to do justice in the real world where suffering, inequality, oppression, poverty and effects of historical injustice are real, we need something more sustainable. A view of the world in which we’re not driven by how much we stand to benefit as individuals but by how we can promote the common good. A covenant. That is, to imagine a culture and view of justice that is ordered by promoting the human good. It is an approach that is formed in the reality of social fallibilities in which humans are susceptible to greed, abuse, selfishness, hoarding and imperfection. Thus, it takes into account the reality of human fallenness and seeks to imagine just ordering within such a volatile society.  

We seek to do justice not based on our agreed-upon production but based on what would make us all human. Covenant humanises the human society and future. In it, doing the right thing, not because it is beneficial to me, becomes the order. In the context of historical wrongs, reparations are required because it is the right thing to do, and I acknowledge the humanity of my neighbour and how my own humanity is interlinked with theirs. The beneficiary of historical injustice responds to doing right by the victim of historical injustice because that is what is beneficial for the common good. We are not judged by our ability to consume but by how we all create a social order in which the humanity of each person is affirmed. Covenant reorders our mental, cultural, and social practices, which have been subverted by contractual thinking, by making us pursue the common good. This is not something that can be voted upon, it is based on trust. A kind of trust that can only be developed when we see each other as a community rather than as people brought together by a contract. 

A covenant is only possible in a context where the world is imagined on the principle of “love your neighbour as you love yourself”. Justice found based on love for the other creates a new social imaginary which also provides us with a new epistemological framework. What we love gets priority and if that love is directed towards the common good, fellow human beings will receive the best of our gifts and efforts to create a more just society. This takes more than just politics or philosophy. We need a miracle, an intervention outside of humanity to grant us the needed predisposition to act selflessly towards fellow human beings. God, in my view, is the needed ingredient to give us the ability to create an enlivened just social order.