Examining a Natural Duty of Justice and its Implications

John Rawls crafts a natural duty of justice to legitimize a duty to obey and support a just political institution. In creating this natural duty, Rawls assumes an objective standard of justice, which has significant implications on his natural duty. Political institutions often have aspects of justice and injustice, and in this paper I examine the implications of this gradient of justice and how it affects the resulting duty that Rawls identifies. In addition to this examination, the consequences of an imperfect duty resulting from a political institution which is not perfectly just will also be addressed and Rawls’ principle, undermined