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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... example of such an ordering is that of words in a dictionary . To see this , substitute numerals for letters , putting " 1 " for " a " " 2 " for " b " and so on , and then rank the resulting strings of numerals from left to right ...
... example , unless the earlier principles have but a limited application and establish definite requirements which can be fulfilled , later principles will never come into play . Thus the principle of equal liberty can assume a prior ...
... example , those of utility and perfection ; and that these principles give a better match with our considered judgments on reflection than these recognized alternatives . Thus justice as fairness moves us closer to the philosophical ...
... example , the extraordinary deepening of our understanding of the meaning and justification of statements in logic and mathematics made possible by developments since Frege and Cantor . A knowledge of the fundamental structures of logic ...
... example , the ritual sacrifice of the first - born or of prisoners of war . A general theory of justice would consider when rituals and other practices not commonly thought of as just or unjust are indeed subject to this form of ...