Author

• Vahab Ghelich

Abstract

John Rawls is one of the biggest political philosophers in social justice field and
Shahid Morteza Motahari is one of the Islamic Scholars in 20st century. Although
none of them is economist, there are noteworthy criterions of economic just
distribution in their works. Rawls believed the initial facilities-particularly basic
freedoms-should be distributed equally. He accepted the unequally distributions
provided that incomes and efforts move proportional to each other and his
inclination was toward the lowest income levels. Furthermore, Shahid Motahari
described equal initial facilities distribution, distribution according to the people’s
merit and assets redistribution based on social harmony as three stages of
distribution system.
Considering the nature of justice as something beyond religion, the equal initial
facilities distribution, according merit distribution and the regard to the low-income
people are the important similar points; and the origin of legitimacy of justice,
economic redistribution role and concepts of freedoms are the important different
points of these two thinkers’ viewpoints.

Keywords

• Rawls
• Shahid Motahari
• Income Distribution
• Justice
• merit
• Freedom