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 85
... lead to an original agreement on principles of justice . I also take up , for purposes of clarification and contrast , the classical utilitarian and intuitionist conceptions of justice and consider some of the differences between these ...
... lead to the achievement of social ends in ways that are efficient and consistent with justice . And finally , the scheme of social cooperation must be stable : it must be more or less regularly complied with and its basic rules ...
... lead to a certain conception of justice . Among the essential features of this situation is that no one knows his place in society , his class position or social status , nor does any one know his fortune in the distribution of natural ...
... lead to principles of justice contrary to utilitarianism and perfectionism , and therefore that the contract doctrine provides an alternative to these views . Still , one may dispute this contention even though 6. For the formulation of ...
... lead us to make the same judgments about the basic structure of society which we now make intuitively and in which we have the greatest confidence ; or whether , in cases where our present judgments are in doubt and given with ...