Abstract
John Rawls’s theory of justice, which he calls ‘justice as fairness’, is perhaps the most influential work in moral and political philosophy produced in the twentieth century. It has stimulated an enormous interest in political philosophy, particularly in the theory of social justice. Rawls aimed to develop social contract theory to offer a systematic account of justice as a superior alternative to utilitarianism.1 That is, he asks which principles of justice would rational people agree to, for their own advantage, from a position of equality?
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Notes
J. Cohen, ‘Taking People as They Are?’ Philosophy and Public Affairs, 30 (2002), p. 366.
J. Cohen, ‘Democratic Equality’, Ethics, 99 (1989), p. 729.
T. Pogge, ‘The Incoherence between Rawls’s Theories of Justice’, Fordham Law Review, 72 (2004), pp. 1742f.
T. Pogge, ‘Equal Liberty for All?’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXVIII (2004), pp. 272–4, 280.
G. A. Cohen, ‘Facts and Principles’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 31 (2003), pp. 241f, 244f.
A. Williams, ‘Incentives, Inequality, and Publicity’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 27 (1998), pp. 234, 237.
P. Smith, ‘Incentives and Justice: G. A. Cohen’s Egalitarian Critique of Rawls’, Social Theory and Practice, 24, 2 (1998), pp. 211–16
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© 2008 Paul Smith
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Smith, P. (2008). John Rawls’s Theory of Justice. In: Moral and Political Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-59394-7_12
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