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.

Biographical Sketch

John Borden (Bordley) Rawls was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the second of five sons to William Lee Rawls and Anna Abell Stump. Rawls only attended school in Baltimore for a short time before transferring to a renowned Episcopalian preparatory school in Connecticut called Kent. Upon graduation in 1939, Rawls went on to Princeton University where he became interested in philosophy. In 1943, he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree and joined the Army. During this time (World War II), Rawls served as an infantryman in the Pacific where he toured New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan and witnessed the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima. After this experience, Rawls turned down the offer of becoming an officer and left the army as a private in 1946. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Princeton to pursue a doctorate in moral philosophy. Rawls then married Margaret Fox, a Brown graduate, in 1949. Margaret and John had a shared interest in indexing - they spent their first holiday together writing the index for a book on Nietzsche, and Rawls wrote the index for A Theory of Justice himself. After earning his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1950, Rawls decided to teach there until 1952 when he received a Fulbright Fellowship to Oxford University (Christ Church), where he was influenced by the liberal political theorist and historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin. Next, he returned to the United States, serving first as an assistant and then associate professor at Cornell University. In 1962, he became a full professor of philosophy at Cornell, and soon achieved a tenured position at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1964 he moved to Harvard University, where he remained for almost forty years. Rawls suffered the first of several strokes in 1995, which severely impeded his ability to continue working. Nonetheless, he was still able to complete a work entitled The Law of Peoples, which contains the most complete statement of his views on international justice.

Related Topics:
Baltimore, Maryland - William Lee Rawls - Anna Abell Stump - Episcopal - Preparatory school - Connecticut - 1939 - Princeton University - 1943 - Bachelor of Arts - Army - World War II - Infantry - New Guinea - Philippines - Japan - Hiroshima - 1946 - Brown - 1949 - Nietzsche - A Theory of Justice - Ph.D. - 1950 - 1952 - Fulbright Fellowship - Oxford University - Christ Church - Isaiah Berlin - Cornell University - 1962 - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Harvard University - Stroke - 1995

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