John Rawls

"This book consists of two parts: the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," first published in 1997, and "The Law of Peoples," a major reworking of a much shorter article by the same name published in 1993. Taken together, they are the culmination of more than fifty years of reflection by John Rawls on liberalism and on some of the most pressing problems of our times."--BOOK JACKET.

The principles of justice Rawls set forth in this book are those that free and rational people would accept in an initial position of equality. In this hypothetical situation, which corresponds to the state of nature in social contract theory, no one knows his or her place in society; his or her class position or social status; his or her fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities; his or her intelligence, strength, and the like; or even his or her conception of the good. Thus, deliberating behind a veil of ignorance, people determine their rights and duties. The first section of A Theory of Justice addresses objections to the theory and discusses alternative positions, especially utilitarianism. Rawls then applies his theory to the philosophical basis of constitutional liberties, the problem of distributive justice, and the grounds and limits of political duty and obligation. He includes here a discussion of civil disobedience and conscientious objection. Finally, he connects his theory of justice with a doctrine of the good and of moral development. This enables him to formulate a conception of society as a social union of social unions, and to use his theory of justice to explain the values of community. Since its first appearance in 1971, A Theory of Justice has been continuously taught and debated, and translated into twenty-four languages. This revised edition includes changes, discussed in the preface, which Rawls considered to be significant, especially to the discussions of liberty and primary social goods. - Back cover.

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). Rawls offers a broad overview of his main lines of thought and also explores specific issues never before addressed in any of his writings. He 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

"Selected Tanner lectures on moral philosophy."--T.p.

The story of Samson, Judges 13-16 / Anonymous Selected poems / John Dunne Meditations on first philosophy / René Descartes The nose / Nikolai Gogol Grand Inquisitor / Fyodor Dostoevsky [Fall of the House of Usher]( / Edgar Allen Poe [Bartleby the scrivener : a story of Wall Street]( / Herman Melville Goblin market / Christina Rossetti Philosophy and physics / Max Planck The playboy of the western world / John M. Synge The road to serfdom / Friedrich Hayek Collected papers / John Rawls Guests of the nation / Frank O'Connor Which era would that be? / Nadine Gordimer What we talk about when we talk about love / Raymond Carver.

"This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in A Theory of Justice but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines - religious, philosophical, and moral - coexist within the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines?"--Pub. desc.

Rawls' senior thesis, in which he defines faith as community with God and sin as breaking with the community by expressing ego. Includes a pair of preliminary essays and brief later reflection by Rawls backtracking on the more organizational parts of his earlier constructs.