John Rawls

1921-2002 · American · Political Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophy of Law, Liberal Political Theory

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.

John Rawls served in the Pacific, witnessed Hiroshima, and came back determined to answer what makes a society just. His answer revived the social contract tradition and redirected the field.

Topics John Rawls addresses

• justice as fairness
• the original position
• the veil of ignorance
• the two principles of justice
• the difference principle
• fair equality of opportunity
• the priority of liberty
• reflective equilibrium
• the basic structure of society
• primary goods
• the well-ordered society
• political liberalism
• reasonable pluralism
• overlapping consensus
• public reason
• the burdens of judgment
• reasonable comprehensive doctrines
• the liberal principle of legitimacy
• the duty of civility
• free and equal citizens
• the two moral powers
• Kantian constructivism
• the political conception of justice
• property-owning democracy

Converse with John Rawls on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in John Rawls's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.