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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 78
Original Edition John Rawls. tion , give the best picture of the doctrine . So far this is about a third of the whole and comprises most of the essentials of the theory . There is a danger , however , that without consideration of the ...
... gives to justice , and from which the most familiar formulations derive , is that of refraining from pleonexia , that is ... give rise . There is no reason to 3. Nicomachean Ethics , 1129b_1130b5 . I have followed the interpretation of ...
... give a certain priority , if not absolute weight , to the former . Each member of society is thought to have an inviolability founded on justice or , as some say , on natural right , which even the welfare of every one else cannot ...
... give much indication of what these desires and propensities are . This is not , by itself , an objection to utilitarianism . It is simply a feature of utilitarian doctrine that it relies very heavily upon the natural facts and ...
... give contrary directives in particular types of cases ; and second , they include no explicit method , no priority rules , for weighing these principles against one another : we are simply to strike a balance by intuition , by what ...