John Rawls Quotes on Knowledge
John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) launched the post-utilitarian renewal of Anglophone political philosophy around the method of "reflective equilibrium" — the iterative process of mutual adjustment between the principles of justice we would in principle endorse and the considered judgments we are not prepared to abandon. The method supplies Rawls's distinctive epistemological framework for moral and political knowledge: not derivation from self-evident axioms, not aggregation of preferences, but the disciplined coherence-seeking work of a moral consciousness that takes its provisional convictions as data while remaining open to their revision under the pressure of more general considerations. Political Liberalism (1993) extends the framework to the conditions of reasonable pluralism.
Quotes
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“The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.”
Chapter I, Section 3, pg. 12 -
Attributed to John Rawls:
“Reasonable persons see that the burdens of judgement set limits on what can be reasonably justified to others.”
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“This is a long book, not only in pages.”
Preface, pg. viii -
“I am particularly grateful to Nozick for his unfailing help and encouragement during the last stages.”
Preface, pg. xii -
“Chapter I, Section 1, pg. 3-4”
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole can -
“Chapter I, Section 2, pg. 10”
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 3, pg. 12”
The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. -
“Chapter I, Section 3, pg. 15”
It may be expedient but it is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper.