John Rawls

Overview

John Rawls served in the Pacific in the Second World War and spent most of his career at Harvard. A Theory of Justice, published in 1971, revived systematic political philosophy in the English-speaking world by proposing a test: imagine people choosing the basic principles of their society from behind a veil of ignorance that hides their class, talents, race, sex and conception of the good life. He argues that they would choose equal basic liberties for all, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle, under which inequalities are permitted only where they work to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. Political Liberalism, twenty years later, revises the project for societies whose members hold irreconcilable religious and moral views, asking what reasons citizens can offer one another in public. Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia is the best-known reply from the right, arguing that a pattern of distribution cannot be maintained without continuous interference in free exchange; communitarian critics argue that the chooser behind the veil is too detached from any actual community to choose anything.

Where to start reading

• A Theory of Justice 1971

  The original position, the veil of ignorance, and the two principles of justice, argued at length against utilitarianism.

• Political Liberalism 1993

  A revision for deeply divided societies: overlapping consensus, public reason, and what citizens owe each other when their deepest beliefs conflict.

• The Law of Peoples 1999

  An extension of the argument to relations between societies, including when intervention and assistance are justified.

Part of

• Liberalism

Sources

1. John Rawls Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
2. Original Position Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
3. Rawls, John Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy