Legitimate expectations are claims individuals acquire within just institutions by doing what those … — John Rawls

Legitimate expectations are claims individuals acquire within just institutions by doing what those publicly recognized rules encourage, and just distributive shares are determined by honoring these institutional entitlements rather than by assessing each person’s moral desert.

By John Rawls, from A Theory of Justice

Key Arguments

Rawls explains that 'as persons and groups take part in just arrangements, they acquire claims on one another defined by the publicly recognized rules. Having done various things encouraged by the existing arrangements, they now have certain rights, and just distributive shares honor these claims.'
He summarizes: 'A just scheme, then, answers to what men are entitled to; it satisfies their legitimate expectations as founded upon social institutions.'
Later he ties these entitlements to his principle of fairness and natural duty: 'The legitimate expectations that arise are the other side, so to speak, of the principle of fairness and the natural duty of justice.'
He clarifies that these expectations are what others are bound to respect: 'so a person who has complied with the scheme and done his share has a right to be treated accordingly by others. They are bound to meet his legitimate expectations.'
Thus, 'when just economic arrangements exist, the claims of individuals are properly settled by reference to the rules and precepts (with their respective weights) which these practices take as relevant', not by any independent metric of virtue.

Source Quotes

Moreover, the notion of distribution according to virtue fails to distinguish between moral desert and legitimate expectations. Thus it is true that as persons and groups take part in just arrangements, they acquire claims on one another defined by the publicly recognized rules. Having done various things encouraged by the existing arrangements, they now have certain rights, and just distributive shares honor these claims.

Thus it is true that as persons and groups take part in just arrangements, they acquire claims on one another defined by the publicly recognized rules. Having done various things encouraged by the existing arrangements, they now have certain rights, and just distributive shares honor these claims. A just scheme, then, answers to what men are entitled to; it satisfies their legitimate expectations as founded upon social institutions.

Having done various things encouraged by the existing arrangements, they now have certain rights, and just distributive shares honor these claims. A just scheme, then, answers to what men are entitled to; it satisfies their legitimate expectations as founded upon social institutions. But what they are entitled to is not proportional to nor dependent upon their intrinsic worth.

In a well-ordered society individuals acquire claims to a share of the social product by doing certain things encouraged by the existing arrangements. The legitimate expectations that arise are the other side, so to speak, of the principle of fairness and the natural duty of justice. For in the way that one has a duty to uphold just arrangements, and an obligation to do one’s part when one has accepted a position in them, so a person who has complied with the scheme and done his share has a right to be treated accordingly by others.

They are bound to meet his legitimate expectations. Thus when just economic arrangements exist, the claims of individuals are properly settled by reference to the rules and precepts (with their respective weights) which these practices take as relevant. As we have seen, it is incorrect to say that just distributive shares reward individuals according to their moral worth.

Key Concepts

Thus it is true that as persons and groups take part in just arrangements, they acquire claims on one another defined by the publicly recognized rules.
Having done various things encouraged by the existing arrangements, they now have certain rights, and just distributive shares honor these claims.
A just scheme, then, answers to what men are entitled to; it satisfies their legitimate expectations as founded upon social institutions.
The legitimate expectations that arise are the other side, so to speak, of the principle of fairness and the natural duty of justice.
when just economic arrangements exist, the claims of individuals are properly settled by reference to the rules and precepts (with their respective weights) which these practices take as relevant.

Context

Early and later parts of §48, where Rawls elaborates the notion of legitimate expectations as the correct basis for distributive entitlements within justice as fairness.