Rawls’s Difference Principle

For someone who adopts Rawls s Difference Principle, the attempt to invoke rule R1 to justify proceeding with the Three Gorges Dam, or to justify its construction after the fact, should be rejected, because the harm/risk burden was unjustly distributed. Adherents of Rawls s Difference Principle might view it as a trumping factor, that is, as an aspect of the situation that, when it is not satisfied, deserves to take precedence over any attempt to ethically justify a decision on a project by invoking rule Rl, which requires only that there be positive net benefit, that is, more benefit than harm (or a benefit-harm ratio greater than 1). 

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