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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... human community . There are other fundamental social problems , in particular those of coordination , efficiency , and stability . Thus the plans of individuals need to be fitted together so that their activities are compatible with one ...
... of opposing views of the natural necessities and opportunities of human life . Fully to understand a conception of justice we must make explicit the conception of social cooperation from which it derives . But in 9 2. The Subject of ...
... human tendency to violate them in ways not sanctioned by utility . Once we understand this , the apparent disparity between the utilitarian principle and the strength of these persuasions of justice is no longer a philosophical ...
... human societies , we should not expect the principles of social choice to be utilitarian . To be sure , it has not been shown by anything said so far that the parties in the original position would not choose the principle of utility to ...
... human attitudes , we may be in a position to decide whether substantive and formal justice are tied together . 11. TWO PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE I shall now state in a provisional form the two principles of justice that I believe would be ...