In TJ Rawls does not mention a “principle of basic needs,” although he does speak of “needs” and the “precept of needs” (as one of the competing traditional canons of distributive justice) (TJ 244, 271–273).

However, even though Rawls clearly believes that the application of the difference principle will ensure that people’s basic needs are met (in all but the poorest societies), this is not stated or required in his two principles themselves.

Neither does TJ speak of “subsistence rights” (or a right to have the opportunity to meet one’s basic needs) or even of a right to life (in general) in his two principles. Nevertheless, it is arguable that Rawls’s theory of natural duties implicitly promulgates a right to life in both its negative and positive aspects (TJ 98–101, 293–301). His duty not to harm (i.e. not to cause unjustiied avoidable substantial harm to people) seems clearly to correlate to the “negative” right to life (i.e. to security rights), while his proposed duty to aid the severely deprived (if one can do so without great risk or cost to oneself) seems clearly to correlate to the “positive” aspects of the right to life (i.e. to subsistence rights). (See Peffer 1990, 20.)