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 79
... regulated by a public conception of justice . That is , it is a society in which ( 1 ) everyone accepts and knows that the others accept the same principles of justice , and ( 2 ) the basic social institutions generally satisfy and are ...
... regulate the choice of a political constitution and the main elements of the economic and social system . The justice of a social scheme depends essentially on how fundamental rights and duties are assigned and on the economic ...
... regulate a well - ordered society . Everyone is presumed to act justly and to do his part in upholding just institutions . Though justice may be , as Hume remarked , the cautious , jealous virtue , we can still ask what a perfectly just ...
... regulate all further agreements ; they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into and the forms of government that can be established . This way of regarding the principles of justice I shall call justice as ...
... regulate all subsequent criticism and reform of institutions . Then , having chosen a conception of justice , we can suppose that they are to choose a constitution and a legislature to enact laws , and so on , all in accordance with the ...