John Rawls

John Rawls (February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American philosopher, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard University and author of A Theory of Justice (1971), Political Liberalism, and The Law of Peoples.

Political Liberalism

Main article:"Political Liberalism"

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Rawls's later work focused on the question of stability: could a society ordered by the two principles of justice endure? His answer to this question is contained in a collection of lectures titled Political Liberalism. In Political Liberalism, Rawls introduced the idea of an overlapping consensus—or agreement on justice as fairness between citizens who hold different religious and philosophical views (or conceptions of the good). Political Liberalism also introduced the idea of public reason—the common reason of all citizens.

Related Topics:
Overlapping consensus - Public reason

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In Political Liberalism Rawls addressed the most common criticism levelled at Theory—the criticism that the principles of justice were simply an alternative systematic conception of justice that was superior to utilitarianism or any other comprehensive theory. This meant that justice as fairness turned out to be simply another reasonable comprehensive doctrine that was incompatible with other reasonable doctrines. It failed to distinguish between a comprehensive moral theory which addressed the problem of justice, and that of a political conception of justice that was independent of any comprehensive theory.

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The political conception of justice that Rawls introduces in Political Liberalism is the view of justice that people with conflicting, but reasonable views, would agree on to regulate the basic structure of society (note the new limits on the scope of justice of fairness). As such the political conception of justice would be the overlapping consensus about justice.

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Rawls also modified the principles of justice to become the following (with the first having priority over the second):

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a) Each person has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of basic rights and liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme for all; and in this scheme the equal political liberties, and only those liberties, are to be guaranteed their fair value.

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b) Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.

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These principles are subtly modified from the principles in Theory. The first principle now reads 'equal claim' instead of 'equal right', and he also replaces the phrase 'system of basic liberties' with 'a fully adequate scheme of equal basic rights and liberties.'

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