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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... 136 25. The Rationality of. 20. The Nature of the Argument for Conceptions of Justice 118 21. The Presentation of Alternatives 122 22. The Circumstances of Justice 126 23. The Formal Constraints of the Concept of Right 130 xiii Contents.
... circumstances . In this way the institutions of society favor certain starting places over others . These are especially deep inequalities . Not only are they pervasive , but they affect men's initial chances in life ; yet they cannot ...
... circumstances . Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to design principles to favor his particular condition , the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain . For given the circumstances of the ...
... circumstances in the choice of principles . It also seems widely agreed that it should be impossible to tailor principles to the circumstances of one's own case . We should insure further that particular inclinations and aspirations ...
... circumstances , at others withdrawing our judgments and conforming them to principle , I assume that eventually we shall find a description of the initial situation that both expresses reasonable conditions and yields principles which ...