John Rawls Quotes on Justice
John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) reorganized Anglophone political philosophy around the contractarian thought-experiment of the original position. Rational agents choosing principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance — ignorant of their own talents, social position, and conception of the good — would, Rawls argues, choose two principles: equal basic liberties for all, and the difference principle, which permits social and economic inequalities only insofar as they work to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. Political Liberalism (1993) refines the framework as a freestanding political conception capable of generating an overlapping consensus among reasonable comprehensive doctrines, and The Law of Peoples extends it to international justice.
Quotes
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Attributed to John Rawls:
“Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.”
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Attributed to John Rawls:
“Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.”
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“The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.”
Chapter I, Section 3, pg. 12 -
“Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.”
Chapter II, Section 11, pg. 60 -
“Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and attached to positions and offices open to all.”
Chapter II, Section 11, pg. 60 -
Attributed to John Rawls:
“Civil disobedience is a public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government.”
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Attributed to John Rawls:
“Liberty for the less articulate is enhanced by the strict enforcement of equal liberty.”
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“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.”
Chapter I, Section 2, pg. 10 -
“Social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society.”
p. 14. -
“It may be expedient but it is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper.”
Chapter I, Section 3, pg. 15 -
“A conception of justice cannot be deduced from self evident premises or conditions on principles; instead, its justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitted together into one coherent view.”
Chapter I, Section 4, p. 21