John Rawls
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawlswas an American moral and political philosopher. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University and the Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Oxford. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by President Bill Clinton, in recognition of how Rawls's work "helped a whole generation of learned Americans revive their faith in democracy itself."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth21 February 1921
CountryUnited States of America
The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role.
It is of first importance that the military be subordinate to civilian government
Ideally citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes, supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think is most reasonable to enact.
When the basic structure of society is publicly known to satisfy its principles for an extended period of time, those subject to these arrangements tend to develop a desire to act in accordance with these principles and to do their part in institutions which exemplify them
Justice as fairness provides what we want.
[E]ach person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.
Ideally a just constitution would be a just procedure arranged to insure a just outcome.
The fundamental criterion for judging any procedure is the justice of its likely results.
A just system must generate its own support.
We may suppose that everyone has in himself the whole form of a moral conception.
If A were not allowed his better position, B would be even worse off than he is.
No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.
Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.
There are two kinds of comprehensive doctrines, religious and secular. Those of religious faith will say I give a veiled argument for secularism, and the latter will say I give a veiled argument for religion. I deny both. Each side presumes the basic ideas of constitutional democracy, so my suggestion is that we can make our political arguments in terms of public reason. Then we stand on common ground. That's how we can understand each other and cooperate.