John Rawls: Introduction to Rawls’s Project
This entry introduces John Rawls and his theory of justice. The main components of Rawls’s theory are discussed in fuller detail in the additional entries listed at the end of this introductory entry.
The Basic Question
“Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.” So begins John Rawls’s highly influential A Theory of Justice (1971, revised 1999). Justice is not the only virtue of social institutions – efficiency and stability, for example, matter too. But as virtues, these depend on justice to a degree that justice does not in turn depend on them. For example, under anything like normal conditions, social stability achieved through deception or manipulation is no virtue at all.
While justice is the first virtue of social institutions, “the basic structure of society is the first subject of justice.” The basic social structure is not the only subject of justice – interpersonal and international...
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References
Books by Rawls
Rawls J (1996a). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, revised, Cambridge, MA
Rawls J (1996b) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, 1993, expanded, New York, NY
Rawls J (1999a) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rawls J (1999b) Collected papers. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rawls J (2000) In: Herman B (ed) Lectures on the history of moral philosophy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rawls J (2001) In: Kelly E (ed) Justice as fairness: a restatement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rawls J (2007) In: Freeman S (ed) Lectures on the history of political philosophy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rawls J (2009) In: Nagel T (ed) A brief inquiry into the meaning of sin & faith. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Books About Rawls
Audard C (2007) John Rawls. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Ithaca, NY
Barry B (1973) The liberal theory of justice. Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Brooks T, Freyenhagen F (eds) (2005) The legacy of John Rawls. Continuum, New York, NY
Daniels N (ed) (1989) Reading Rawls. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA
Davion V, Wolf C (eds) (2000) The idea of political liberalism. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD
Dombrowski D (2001) Rawls and religion. SUNY Press, Albany, NY
Freeman S (ed) (2003) The Cambridge companion to Rawls. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY
Freeman S (2007a) Rawls. Routledge, New York, NY
Freeman S (2007b) Justice and the social contract. Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Kukathas C, Petit P (1990) A theory of justice and its critics. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA
Lehning PB (2006) John Rawls: an introduction. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY
Maffettone S (2010) Rawls: an introduction, Polity, Malden, MA
Mandle J (2009) Rawls’s ‘a theory of justice’: an introduction. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY
Mandle J, Reidy D (eds) (2014) A companion to Rawls. Wiley-Blackwell, West Sussex, UK
Mandle J, Reidy D (eds) (2015) The Rawls lexicon. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY
Martin R (1985) Rawls and rights. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Martin R, Reidy D (eds) (2006) Rawls’s law of peoples: a realistic utopia? Blackwell, Malden, MA
Moon JD (2014) John Rawls: liberalism and the challenges of late modernity. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MA
Pogge T (1989) Realizing Rawls. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY
Pogge T (2007) John Rawls: his life and theory of justice. Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Talisse R (2001) On Rawls. Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont, CA
Weithman P (2010) Why political liberalism? Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Wolff, Robert Paul. Understanding Rawls, Princeton University Press, 1977. Princeton, NJ
Young S (2009) Reflections on Rawls. Ashgate, Burlington, VT
Edited Collections of Journal Articles About Rawls
Kukathas C (ed) (2003) John Rawls: critical assessments, vol 4. Routledge, New York, NY
Reidy D (ed) (2008) John Rawls. Ashgate Publishing, Burlington, VT
Richardson H, Weithman P (eds) (1999) The philosophy of Rawls, vol 5. Garland, New York, NY
Other Internet Resources on Rawls
Richardson H “John Rawls.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/rawls.htm
Wenar L “John Rawls.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/
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Reidy, D.A. (2019). Rawls, John. In: Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_237-1
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