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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... claims may be adjudicated . If men's inclination to self - interest makes their vigilance against one another necessary , their public sense of justice makes their secure association together possible . Among individuals with disparate ...
... claims from a conception of justice as a set of related principles for identifying the relevant considerations which determine this balance . I have also characterized justice as but one part of a social ideal , although the theory I ...
... claims . The definition I adopt is designed to apply directly to the most important case , the justice of the basic structure . There is no conflict with the traditional notion . 3. THE MAIN IDEA OF THE THEORY OF JUSTICE My aim is to ...
... claims upon the advantages won by social cooperation ; they apply to the relations among several persons or groups . The word " contract " suggests this plurality as well as the condition that the appropriate division of advantages must ...
... claims of desert , seem to contradict this contention . But from a utilitarian standpoint the explanation of these precepts and of their seemingly stringent character is that they are those precepts which experience shows should be ...