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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... situation characterized so as to 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 ...
... situation is just if it is such that by this sequence of hypothetical agreements we would have contracted into the general system of rules which defines it . Moreover , assuming that the original position does determine a set of ...
... situation must be characterized by stipulations that are widely accepted . In working out the conception of justice as fairness one main task clearly is to determine which principles of justice would be chosen in the original position ...
... situation of persons not so fortunate is thereby improved . The intuitive idea is that since everyone's well - being depends upon a scheme of cooperation without which no one could have a satisfactory life , the division of advantages ...
... situation would choose its principles over those of the other for the role of justice . Conceptions of justice are to be ranked by their acceptability to persons so circumstanced . Understood in this way the question of justification is ...