A Theory of Justice: Original EditionJohn Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition—justice as fairness—and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the social contract as a more satisfactory account of the basic rights and liberties of citizens as free and equal persons. “Each person,” writes Rawls, “possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.” Advancing the ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Lincoln, Rawls’s theory is as powerful today as it was when first published. |
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... arrangement . Now it is evident that these three problems are connected with that of justice . In the absence of a ... arrangements are maintained . Distrust and resentment corrode the ties of civility , and suspicion and hostility ...
... arrangements . Thus the legal protection of freedom of thought and liberty of conscience , competitive markets , private property in the means of production , and the monogamous family are examples of major social institutions . Taken ...
... arrangements or procedures for making contractual agreements . The conditions for the law of nations may require different principles arrived at in a somewhat different way . I shall be satisfied if it is possible to formulate a ...
... arrangements generally , may be efficient or inefficient , liberal or illiberal , and many other things , as well as just or unjust . A complete conception defining principles for all the virtues of the basic structure , together with ...
... arrangements must not tend to generate propensities and attitudes contrary to the two principles of justice ( that is , to certain principles which are given from the first a definite content ) and they must insure that just ...