In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argues that any participant taking on the role as impartial spectator in his original position thought experiment would select “justice as fairness” as the most reasonable theory of justice to reorganize a basic structure’s system of institutions and public rules. In this dissertation it is my aim to outline seven criticisms of the Rawlsian account related to his method of ideal theory, the rationality and values of the impartial spectator, the instilment of a particular conception of the good and an aversion to non-liberal theories, and argue that each of them fail to be an adequate rejection of his view. Instead, I claim that Rawls fails to relativize the set of knowledge available to the impartial spectator to the basic structure in question. I call this a relativization requirement and argue that Rawls fails to incorporate necessary knowledge for optimal theory selection. Given the sophistication of basic structures and corresponding citizenries in the 21st century, and taking the American basic structure as my example, I argue that although Rawls’ account includes constitutive principles of liberalism throughout his thought experiment, he nevertheless fails to include principles special to that constitutional democracy related to republicanism.

© 2025 Clayton J. Houdeshell