Wisdom And Philosophy

The Choptiany–Reiman Debate: From Rational Contractarianism to Moral Obligation in Rawls’s Theory of Justice

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

hamidreza mahboobi arani 1
Koosha Khalkhali 2

1 Associate Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Logic, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

2 M.A. Student in Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Logic, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.22054/wph.2026.90278.2368
Abstract
This study seeks to clarify the ground of moral obligation in Rawls’s theory of justice and to challenge purely contractual interpretations. It argues that Rawls’s theory must be understood within a two-level framework: the rational justification of the principles of justice in the original position, and the moral internalization of those principles through the sense of justice. The problem is framed through the debate between Leonard Choptiany and Jeffrey Reiman, which demonstrates that a rational contract alone cannot generate moral obligation. Using an explanatory-analytic method and a direct reading of Rawls, the article reconstructs Choptiany’s threefold critique (methodological, substantive, and inferential) and, through Rawls’s texts and Samuel Freeman’s Kantian interpretation, shows that moral obligation is not grounded in the contract but in the educative formation of the sense of justice. The article concludes that Rawls’s theory of justice is defensible only if the link between its contractual and moral levels is acknowledged; otherwise, Choptiany’s critique remains valid. Thus, education is not merely a consequence of justice but a condition of its possibility, since the stability of justice depends on the internalization of the value of fairness through public institutions.

Keywords

Contractarianism
Moral obligation
Kantian ethics
Rawls’s theory of justice
Sense of justice
Subjects
Choptiany, Leonardo. (1973). “A critique of John Rawls’s principles of justice”. Ethics, 83(2), 146–150. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1086/291872.
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Rawls, John. (2005). Political Liberalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
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Wolff, Robert Paul. (1977). Understanding Rawls: A Reconstruction and Critique of A Theory of Justice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
References [In Persian & In Arabic]
Karimzadeh, Omid. (2017). “A Defense of Imperativeness of the Hypothetical Contract in Rawls’s Theory of Justice”. Philosophia and Theologia: Dialogues in Criticism and Reflection, 22(88), 129-151. doi: 10.22081/jpt.2017.65405 . [In Persian]
Rawls, John. (2017). A theory of justice. Translated by Morteza Nouri. Tehran: Markaz Publication. [In Persian]
Rawls, John. (2023). Political Liberalism. Translated by Mousa Akrami. Tehran: Sales Publication. [In Persian]
Wisdom And Philosophy
Volume 22, Issue 85
Winter 2026
Pages 245-282

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