If parties simply maximized the weighted sum of primary goods averaged across all persons, the resulting principle would be indistinguishable from utilitarianism.

The problem for Rawls, however, is to show that the principles that would be selected in such an original position are in fact recognizable as principles of justice. One might expect the parties to calculate how to weigh the primary goods (which Rawls catalogues as ‘rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and wealth’) against each other, and then to choose as their social principle ‘maximise the weighted sum of primary goods, averaged across all persons’. This, however, would brin