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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... natural assets and abilities , his intelligence , strength , and the like . I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities . The principles of justice are ...
... natural and plausible ; some of them may seem innocuous or even trivial . The aim of the contract approach is to establish that taken together they impose significant bounds on acceptable principles of justice . The ideal outcome would ...
... natural way . This concept should cause no difficulty if we keep in mind the constraints on arguments that it is meant to express . At any time we can enter the original position , so to speak , simply by following a certain procedure ...
... natural way : a society is properly arranged when its institutions maximize the net balance of satisfaction . The principle of choice for an association of men is interpreted as an extension of the principle of choice for one man ...
... natural right , which even the welfare of every one else cannot override . Justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others . The reasoning which balances the gains and losses of ...