TY - JOUR AB - In A Theory of Justice John Rawls provides a theory of social distribution based on two principles. The Difference Principle is the second principle which states that any inequality that is permitted in society should only be permitted on the basis that it benefits the least favoured in society. Rawls argues that given a situation in which one could not choose one’s status beforehand, people would choose a system of social justice according to the Difference Principle. This paper describes three contentions with Rawls’ theory. Firstly, it does not account for the ‘free-rider problem’ whereby the worse off may benefit more by doing less at the expense of the better off. Secondly, one could solve this issue by appealing to the concept of desert which rewards people for their natural abilities, however Rawls rejects this idea. Lastly, it does not address the idea that the least advantaged are motivated by envy. Thus, this essay concludes with the idea that while Rawls’ theory of social justice is illuminating, the Difference Principle itself has some flaws. AU - Lakshmi Premchand DA - 2017/1// DO - 10.5526/esj17 IS - 1 VL - 9 PB - University of Essex Library Services PY - 2017 TI - Social Justice and Rawls’ Difference Principle T2 - Essex Student Journal UR - http://publications.essex.ac.uk/esj/article/id/17/ ER -