Authors: John Rawls, Erin Kelly
ISBN-13: 9780674005112, ISBN-10: 0674005112
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Date Published: May 2001
Edition: (Non-applicable)
John Rawls was James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. He was recipient of the 1999 National Humanities Medal.
Erin Kelly is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University.
This book originated as lectures for a course on political philosophy that Rawls taught regularly at Harvard in the 1980s. In time the lectures became a restatement of his theory of justice as fairness, revised in light of his more recent papers and his treatise Political Liberalism (1993). As Rawls writes in the preface, the restatement presents "in one place an account of justice as fairness as I now see it, drawing on all [my previous] works." He offers a broad overview of his main lines of thought and also explores specific issues never before addressed in any of his writings.
Rawls is well aware that since the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, American society has moved farther away from the idea of justice as fairness. Yet his ideas retain their power and relevance to debates in a pluralistic society about the meaning and theoretical viability of liberalism. This book demonstrates that moral clarity can be achieved even when a collective commitment to justice is uncertain.
There have been millions of words written about A Theory of Justice and many articles and several books by Rawls defending and expanding its doctrines. Justice as Fairness will almost certainly be the last of these, and it should take its place as the best and most comprehensive statement of Rawls's eventual position. It is an exemplary work in every way. Rawls's own virtues shine through. He follows the argument where it leads. He listens to his critics and acknowledges his supporters; he gives way when it is necessary, but remains firm where he can take a stand. Anybody convinced that political thought is all about disguised power, or rhetoric, or ideology in the bad sense of the word, should confront this book.
Editor's Foreword | ||
Preface | ||
Pt. I | Fundamental Ideas | 1 |
1 | Four Roles of Political Philosophy | 1 |
2 | Society as a Fair System of Cooperation | 5 |
3 | The Idea of a Well-Ordered Society | 8 |
4 | The Idea of the Basic Structure | 10 |
5 | Limits to Our Inquiry | 12 |
6 | The Idea of the Original Position | 14 |
7 | The Idea of Free and Equal Persons | 18 |
8 | Relations between the Fundamental Ideas | 24 |
9 | The Idea of Public Justification | 26 |
10 | The Idea of Reflective Equilibrium | 29 |
11 | The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus | 32 |
Pt. II | Principles of Justice | 39 |
12 | Three Basic Points | 39 |
13 | Two Principles of Justice | 42 |
14 | The Problem of Distributive Justice | 50 |
15 | The Basic Structure as Subject: First Kind of Reason | 52 |
16 | The Basic Structure as Subject: Second Kind of Reason | 55 |
17 | Who Are the Least Advantaged? | 57 |
18 | The Difference Principle: Its Meaning | 61 |
19 | Objections via Counterexamples | 66 |
20 | Legitimate Expectations, Entitlement, and Desert | 72 |
21 | On Viewing Native Endowments as a Common Asset | 74 |
22 | Summary Comments on Distributive Justice and Desert | 77 |
Pt. III | The Argument from the Original Position | 80 |
23 | The Original Position: The Set-Up | 80 |
24 | The Circumstances of Justice | 84 |
25 | Formal Constraints and the Veil of Ignorance | 85 |
26 | The Idea of Public Reason | 89 |
27 | First Fundamental Comparison | 94 |
28 | The Structure of the Argument and the Maximin Rule | 97 |
29 | The Argument Stressing the Third Condition | 101 |
30 | The Priority of the Basic Liberties | 104 |
31 | An Objection about Aversion to Uncertainty | 106 |
32 | The Equal Basic Liberties Revisited | 111 |
33 | The Argument Stressing the Second Condition | 115 |
34 | Second Fundamental Comparison: Introduction | 119 |
35 | Grounds Falling under Publicity | 120 |
36 | Grounds Falling under Reciprocity | 122 |
37 | Grounds Falling under Stability | 124 |
38 | Ground against the Principle of Restricted Utility | 126 |
39 | Comments on Equality | 130 |
40 | Concluding Remarks | 132 |
Pt. IV | Institutions of a Just Basic Structure | 135 |
41 | Property-Owning Democracy: Introductory Remarks | 135 |
42 | Some Basic Contrasts between Regimes | 138 |
43 | Ideas of the Good in Justice as Fairness | 140 |
44 | Constitutional versus Procedural Democracy | 145 |
45 | The Fair Value of the Equal Political Liberties | 148 |
46 | Denial of the Fair Value for Other Basic Liberties | 150 |
47 | Political and Comprehensive Liberalism: A Contrast | 153 |
48 | A Note on Head Taxes and the Priority of Liberty | 157 |
49 | Economic Institutions of a Property-Owning Democracy | 158 |
50 | The Family as a Basic Institution | 162 |
51 | The Flexibility of an Index of Primary Goods | 168 |
52 | Addressing Marx's Critique of Liberalism | 176 |
53 | Brief Comments on Leisure Time | 179 |
Pt. V | The Question of Stability | 180 |
54 | The Domain of the Political | 180 |
55 | The Question of Stability | 184 |
56 | Is Justice as Fairness Political in the Wrong Way? | 188 |
57 | How Is Political Liberalism Possible? | 189 |
58 | An Overlapping Consensus Not Utopian | 192 |
59 | A Reasonable Moral Psychology | 195 |
60 | The Good of Political Society | 198 |
Index | 203 |