Rawls, John (1921–2002)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Main Work ◽  
Moral Conception ◽  
Social Unity ◽  
Original Argument ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The Stability

Rawls’ main work, A Theory of Justice (1971), presents a liberal, egalitarian, moral conception – ‘justice as fairness’ – designed to explicate and justify the institutions of a constitutional democracy. The two principles of justice outlined in this text affirm the priority of equal basic liberties over other political concerns, and require fair opportunities for all citizens, directing that inequalities in wealth and social positions maximally benefit the least advantaged. Rawls develops the idea of an impartial social contract to justify these principles: Free persons, equally situated and ignorant of their historical circumstances, would rationally agree to them in order to secure their equal status and independence, and to pursue freely their conceptions of the good. In Political Liberalism (1993), his other major text, Rawls revises his original argument for justice as fairness to make it more compatible with the pluralism of liberalism. He argues that, assuming that different philosophical, religious and ethical views are inevitable in liberal society, the most reasonable basis for social unity is a public conception of justice based in shared moral ideas, including citizens’ common comception of themselves as free and equal moral persons. The stability of this public conception of justice is provided by an overlapping consensus; all the reasonable comprehensible philosophical, religious and ethical views can endorse it, each for their own specific reasons.

POLITICAL LIBERALISM AND TRUTH

Legal Theory ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jody S. Kraus
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Order Theory ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
First Order ◽  
First Order Theory ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Principles Of Justice

Every theory of justice requires a first-order theory specifying principles of justice, and a second-order view explaining why those principles constitute the correct principles of justice. According to John Rawls, political liberalism is committed to the two principles of justice specified in its first-order theory, “justice as fairness.” Justice as fairness, according to Rawls, in turn presupposes the second-order view that justice is a political conception. A political conception of justice treats the principles derived from the fundamental ideas in the public political culture as the correct principles of justice. Political liberalism, however, nowhere offers a defense of the view that justice is a political conception. Indeed, it even strives to avoid the admission that it presupposes that justice is a political conception by stating only that it uses a political conception of justice, while allowing that justice might not actually be a political conception. As to the truth of its second-order presupposition, political liberalism chooses to remain agnostic. Rawls claims that political liberalism has no choice at all. To do otherwise, he argues, would lead to an internal contradiction.

Justice as Fairness: For Groups?

1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 607-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon Van Dyke
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Homogeneous State ◽  
Dominant Form ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
The Social ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Almost All

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls assumes that the principles of justice are for individuals in a society, and in general he assumes that the society is an ethnically homogeneous state. He thus follows the tradition associated with the dominant form of the social contract theory, which focuses on the individual and the state. His assumptions neglect the fact that almost all states are ethnically plural or heterogeneous, and that many of them confer special status and rights on ethnic groups as collective entities; for example, many of them confer special status and rights on indigenous groups, on groups disadvantaged by prior discrimination, and on minorities and other groups conceded a right to survive as distinct cultural entities. Status and rights for groups necessarily mean differentiation among individuals depending on their membership; and this in turn means that a theory of justice that focuses on the individual and neglects the group both fails to account for existing practices and fails to give guidance where the practices are at issue.

O Liberalismo em John Rawls e a Resposta aos Comunitaristas

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (30) ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
Denis Coitinho Silveira ◽  
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Theory Of Justice

The aim of this article is to characterize the John Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness developed in A Theory of Justice (1971), Political Liberalism (1993), Replay to Habermas (1995) and Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001), with a view to identifying the convergent points between deontological conception with teleological characteristics and identify a substantive conception of justice, not purely procedural, which is universalist albeit not transcendental, making possible an approach between communitarian and liberal ethical theories.

scholarly journals Posição original e equilíbrio reflexivo em John Rawls: o problema da justificação

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-157
Author(s):  
Denis Coitinho Silveira
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Theory Of Justice

O objetivo deste artigo é estabelecer algumas considerações sobre o papel dos procedimentos de posição original e equilíbrio reflexivo na teoria da justiça como equidade de John Rawls, nas obras A Theory of Justice, Political Liberalism e Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Eu pretendo mostrar que Rawls faz uso de um modelo coerentista-pragmático de justificação dos princípios de justiça em um âmbito público, que é não-fundacionalista em razão da interconexão entre estes procedimentos.

Morality, Rational Choice, and Semantic Representation

1988 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gauthier
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
New Venture ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Historical Antecedents

(1) In his recent paper, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical,” John Rawls makes use of a footnote to disown what to many readers must have seemed one of the most striking and original underlying ideas of his theory of justice, that it “is a part, perhaps the most significant part, of the theory of rational choice.” That Rawls should issue this disclaimer indicates, at least in my view, that he has a much clearer understanding of his theory, and its relationship to rational choice than he did at the time that he wrote A Theory of Justice. As I note in Morals by Agreement (pp.4–5), Rawls does not show that principles of justice are principles of rational choice. Hence, in appropriating the idea, I can claim diat I am undertaking a pioneering enterprise. No doubt Thomas Hobbes would have undertaken it had the resources of the theory of rational choice been at his disposal, but I do not intend to pursue counterfactuals in a search for historical antecedents. Moral theory as rational choice theory is, I claim, a new venture.

Rawls's Practical Conception of Justice: Opinion, Tradition and Objectivity in Political Liberalism

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Alexander Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
The Political ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Liberal Conception ◽  
The Stability

AbstractIn Political Liberalism, Rawls emphasizes the practical character and aims of his conception of justice. Justice as fairness is to provide the basis of a reasoned, informed and willing political agreement by locating grounds for consensus in the fundamental ideas and values of the political culture. Critics urge, however, that such a politically liberal conception of justice will be designed merely to ensure the stability of political institutions by appealing to the currently-held opinions of actual citizens. In order to evaluate this concern, I suggest, it is necessary to focus on the normative character of Rawls's analysis. Rawls argues that justice as fairness is the conception of justice that citizens of modern democratic cultures should choose in reflective equilibrium, after reflecting fully upon their considered judgments regarding justice. Since judgments in reflective equilibrium are grounded in considered judgment, rather than situated opinions, I argue that the criticism fails.

Anti-Perfectionism and Rawlsian Liberalism

1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Caney
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Unity ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Major Argument

This article examines the justifications of anti-perfectionism given by John Rawls in his recent work Political Liberalism. Rawls, I argue, gives one major argument in defence of anti-perfectionism (what I shall call the ‘reasonableness among free and equal persons' argument) and two subsidiary arguments (what I shall call the ‘social unity’ argument and the ‘stability’ argument). None of these arguments, I claim, are persuasive. Rawls's most recent justification of anti-perfectionism is therefore unsuccessful.

scholarly journals APRESENTAÇÃO – DOSSIÊ RAWLS

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Denis Coitinho Silveira
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Law Of Peoples ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
The Law

A edição especial da Revista Dissertatio pretende refletir sobre a importância da filosofia moral e política de John Rawls no cenário filosófico atual no ano em que sua obra mais conhecida, A Theory of Justice (TJ), completa quarenta anos. Esta data comemorativa é apenas um pretexto para uma avaliação integral do projeto de Rawls, o que inclui obras posteriores, como, por exemplo, Political Liberalism (PL) e The Law of Peoples (LP). Os artigos aqui reunidos procuram tematizar tanto a estrutura quanto o conteúdo da teoria da justiça como equidade (justice as fairness), avaliando atentamente as suas virtudes e, também, as suas fraquezas

scholarly journals Political morality and neutrality

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-414
Author(s):  
Michal Sládecek
Keyword(s):  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Ethical Action ◽  
Political Morality ◽  
Moral Conception ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Moral Grounding

The article gives the reasons why a distinction between political morality and ethical conceptions needs to be drawn, as well as the reasons for which political liberalism is a substantial moral conception, and as such in tension with certain understandings of the neutrality. Further, the text analyzes the definition of personality through capacity for action (above all ethical). Recognition of this capacity is necessary, but not sufficient to attribute to a person a special status from the standpoint of political morality, since individuals also must be capable to coordinate their ethical actions with moral principles of others. Further, the text critiques Charles Larmore?s moral grounding of the theory of justice on respect of persons by arguing that the concept of respect should be considered as part of the complex interrelationships with other moral concepts, such as equality. In this way, neutrality regarding content of respect, as well as neutrality regarding capacity for ethical action turns out to be insufficient.

Rawls’ traces in contemporary philosophy of education

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-300
Author(s):  
M. Victoria Costa (William & Mary)
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Educational Implications ◽  
The Many ◽  
Proper Balance

This article examines the many traces of John Rawls’ theory of justice in contemporary philosophy of education. Beyond work that directly explores the educational implications of justice as fairness and political liberalism, there are many interesting debates in philosophy of education that make use of Rawlsian concepts to defend views that go well beyond those advocated in justice as fairness. There have also been methodological debates on Rawls’ distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory which concern the proper balance between empirically informed discussion and fruitful normative reflection.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document