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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... once we have a sound theory for this case , the remaining problems of justice will prove more tractable in the light of it . With suitable modifications such a theory should provide the key for some of these other questions . The other ...
... once and for all what is to count among them as just and unjust . The choice which rational men would make in this hypothetical situation of equal liberty , assuming for the present that this choice problem has a solution , determines ...
... Once we understand this , the apparent disparity between the utilitarian principle and the strength of these persuasions of justice is no longer a philosophical difficulty . Thus while the contract doctrine accepts our convictions about ...
... once these axes , or principles , are identified , men will in fact balance them more or less similarly , at least when they are impartial and not moved by an excessive attention to their own interests . Or if this is not so , then at ...
... in the abstract . The intuitionist and his critic will have to settle this question once the latter has put forward his more systematic account . It may be asked whether intuitionistic theories are teleological or 39 7. Intuitionism.