The least-advantaged position is a technical phrase meant to identify a structurally defined place in an order of distribution. It is from the perspective of this structurally defined place that choices are made between alternative economic structures in accordance with the difference principle. It is important to note that Rawls is concerned with the least-advantaged representative person, not the actually least-advantaged person in a given society. In more technical language, Rawls says that the least-advantaged position is identified by description and not by rigid designation. Therefore, justice is owed to actual persons by virtue of their place in a defined structure and not because of who they are independently of that place or anyone’s compassion or pity for their plight.

The least advantaged are those members of society who comprise the “income class with the lowest expectations” (JF 59). They are disadvantaged by their family or class origins as well as by possibly inferior natural endowments and by bad fortune. Rawls sets aside psychological and physical handicaps as criteria for membership in the least-advantaged group, assuming that, in the ideal case, all citizens are full participants in society.

Rawls’s account of justice as fairness requires that the least-advantaged social position is identified. It enables judgments to be made about how the basic structure of society affects the life prospects of the least well-off citizens. In a well-ordered society that conforms to the two principles of justice the least-advantaged group are better off than they would be under a realizable alternative social arrangement. Taking up the point of view of the least-advantaged representative person, and arguing that this is the appropriate view for assessing the justness of society, is one of the essential features of Rawlsian philosophy.