Rawls does not explicitly discuss “threshold deontology” as a labeled position. Still, parts of his theory bear on the idea of thresholds in a deontological framework.

Rawls as a deontologist

Rawls is usually classified as a broadly deontological theorist because he gives lexical priority to certain basic rights and liberties over considerations of aggregate welfare. For example, in his first principle of justice, equal basic liberties cannot be sacrificed for greater economic or social advantages, which looks like a near-absolute constraint rather than a trade‑off governed by maximizing outcomes. This structure is often contrasted with consequentialism and shows Rawls’s sympathy for strong side‑constraints on how people may be treated.​

Lexical priority vs thresholds

However, Rawls’s way of handling conflicts is not through explicit “thresholds” where, once enough good is at stake, constraints give way. Instead, he builds his view around lexical ordering: first secure basic liberties, then within that framework apply the second principle (fair equality of opportunity and the difference principle). Lexical priority means the first principle is not traded off against gains in the second, which is in tension with the core threshold‑deontological idea that catastrophic outcomes can at some point override constraints.​

Indirect relevance to threshold deontology

Later discussions of moderate or threshold deontology sometimes use Rawls as a model of a deontological framework that nevertheless has some structured sensitivity to outcomes (through the difference principle) while still insisting that certain rights are non‑negotiable. Yet Rawls himself does not offer a worked‑out view about when, if ever, catastrophic gains in welfare would justify violating basic liberties, nor does he frame his theory as one with explicit catastrophe thresholds. So the most accurate summary is that Rawls provides a lexically ordered, rights‑prioritizing deontology that inspired later work, but he does not directly endorse or analyze threshold deontology as such.​

Can you show how Rawlsian would lexical priority would handle a threshold type scenario?

Rawls’s lexical priority is designed to avoid standard threshold trade‑offs, so in a “threshold scenario” a strict Rawlsian typically refuses the move that threshold deontology makes. The key idea: basic liberties are not to be sacrificed, even for very large gains in social or economic goods.

Simple catastrophe-style case

Imagine a stylized threshold case:

• If the state violates the basic liberty of an innocent person (say, jailing or executing them without due process), it can prevent a very large economic collapse or save a huge number of people from serious but non‑liberty‑threatening harms.

• If it respects that person’s liberty, the bad outcome occurs.

A threshold deontologist says: normally you must not violate basic rights, but once the stakes are high enough, you may or must override that constraint. A Rawlsian applies lexical priority differently:

• First principle (equal basic liberties) has lexical priority over the second principle (fair equality of opportunity and the difference principle).​

• Economic losses, reductions in primary goods short of liberty, and even large aggregate welfare costs all fall under the second principle’s domain.​

So, as long as the threat concerns goods handled below the first principle (income, wealth, opportunities, welfare), the Rawlsian says: do not violate the innocent person’s basic liberty, even if this leads to enormous economic harm or non‑liberty deprivations for many. Lexical priority blocks the threshold move.​

Cases where liberty is at stake on both sides

A harder case is where violating one person’s basic liberty would prevent massive violations of basic liberties for many others (for example, coercing or punishing one innocent person would prevent a coup that would abolish constitutional liberties for millions).

Here, Rawls’s lexical ordering does not simply say “never touch any basic liberty,” but: arrange the basic structure so that the system of equal liberties is secured for all. In institutional design:​

• The principles are applied at the level of constitutional rules and basic institutions, not one-off intuitive case judgments.​

• The question becomes: which set of rules for emergencies, security, due process, etc., would parties in the original position choose to best secure a stable scheme of equal basic liberties over time?​

Rawls might then allow narrowly defined emergency powers or wartime measures if and only if they are part of a just constitutional framework that, in the long run, better secures equal basic liberties for everyone. But that is not a threshold “numbers vs. a single right” calculation; it is a comparative assessment of which institutional scheme better realizes the first principle as a whole.

Why this is not threshold deontology

In threshold deontology, the same type of constraint (e.g., “do not kill the innocent”) holds up to a certain level of stakes and then is overridden by the size of the bad outcome. Rawls’s lexical priority works differently:

• Conflicts involving non‑liberty goods vs basic liberties: non‑liberty goods always lose; no amount of them justifies violating basic liberties.​

• Conflicts among liberties: are resolved by designing institutions so that the overall system of equal basic liberties is best protected; this is not a “when the numbers get big enough, violate” rule, but a structural choice guided by the first principle itself.​

So in a threshold scenario framed as “violate a basic liberty or allow a huge loss in welfare,” the Rawlsian answer is: do not violate the basic liberty, because lexical priority forbids trading it off against gains governed by the second principle, however large those gains are.