Rawls appeals to the doctrine of public rules in order to justify several features of his view, including the idea that the principles of justice should govern the distribution of social primary goods rather than the distribution of welfare. Part of what justifies this verdict is that, because it is not feasible accurately to measure welfare, principles that refer to welfare fail the test of accessibility. Accordingly, these principles “run afoul of the [publicity] constraint”, such that “In political life citizens cannot sensibly apply or follow it” (Rawls 1996: 182 n. 11; Rawls 1999b: 13 n. 3). Because of this, principles of justice that govern the distribution of welfare abrogate their chief purpose, which is “to provide a publicly recognized point of view from which all citizens can examine before one another whether their political and social institutions are just” (Rawls 1996: 9).