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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... ideal place for me to complete my work . I should like to express my deep appreciation for its support in 1969–1970 , and for that of the Guggenheim and Kendall foundations in 1964–1965 . I am grateful to Anna Tower and to Margaret ...
... ideal theory is that it provides , I believe , the only basis for the systematic grasp of these more pressing ... ideal . The principles of justice are but a part , although perhaps the most important part of such a conception . A social ...
... ideal , although the theory I shall propose no doubt extends its everyday sense . This theory is not offered as a description of ordinary meanings but as an account of certain distributive principles for the basic structure of society ...
... ideal outcome would be that these conditions determine a unique set of principles ; but I shall be satisfied if they suffice to rank the main traditional conceptions of social justice . One should not be misled , then , by the somewhat ...
... ideal powers of sympathy and imagination , the impartial spectator is the perfectly rational individual who identifies with and experiences the desires of others as if these desires were his own . In this way he ascertains the intensity ...