Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition.

A critical evaluation of Rawlsian and Habermasian paradigms of political philosophy that offers an interpretation and defense of Habermas's theory of law and ...

Previous edition, 1st, published in 1971.

With the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, John Rawls not only rejuvenated contemporary political philosophy but also defended a Kantian form of Enlightenment liberalism called “justice as fairness.” Enlightenment liberalism stresses the development and exercise of our capacity for autonomy, while Reformation liberalism emphasizes diversity and the toleration that encourages it. These two strands of liberalism are often mutually supporting, but they conflict in a surprising number of cases, whether over the accommodation of group difference, the design (...) of civic education, or the promotion of liberal values internationally. During the 1980’s, however, Rawls began to jettison key Kantian characteristics of his theory, a process culminating in the 1993 release of Political Liberalism and completing the transformation of justice as fairness into a Reformation liberalism. -/- Reconstructing Rawls argues that this transformation was a tragic mistake because it jeopardized the most important features of his theory, viz. the lexical priorities of right, liberty, and fair equality of opportunity as well as the difference principle. Controversially, this book contends that Rawls’s so-called “political turn,” motivated by a newfound interest in diversity and the accommodation of difference, has been unhealthy for autonomy-based liberalism and has pushed liberalism more broadly towards cultural relativism, be it in the guise of liberal multiculturalism or critiques of cosmopolitan distributive-justice theories. The book then demonstrates that the central elements of justice as fairness can only be defended within the context of a Kantian Enlightenment liberalism and that Rawls’s hope for a more pluralistic grounding for his theory, endorsed by a wide variety of belief systems present in modern democratic societies, is illusory. -/- Reconstructing Rawls is the first book to systematically compare Rawls’s and Kant’s theories and the first to offer an internal critique and reconstruction of justice as fairness, reconceiving it as a comprehensive, universalistic Kantian liberalism. By doing so, it gives us both the vision of a liberal world order—“a republicanism of all states, together and separately,” as Kant put it—and a mode of justification addressed to all men and women, not as members of particular nations, races, and faiths, but as human beings, as citizens of the world. In short, it reclaims Rawls for the Enlightenment. (shrink)

This book originated as lectures for a course on political philosophy that Rawls taught regularly at Harvard in the 1980s.

Contemporary society involves a number of different persons, groups, and ways of life that are deeply divided and very often opposed on fundamental matters of deep concern. Today, many contemporary philosophers regard this 'fact of diversity' as a problem that needs to be addressed when assessing the principles employed to organize society. In this paper, I discuss the fact of diversity, as it is understood by the notion of reasonable pluralism, and explain why it is thought by some to challenge (...) the stability of a society's political morality. I examine the leading attempt to offer an account of the stability of a political morality and I argue that John Rawls's attempt to account for the stability of Justice as Fairness fails for reasons applicable to all political moralities because the very notion of a stable political morality is implausible. Diversity, as reasonable pluralism understands it, is not a problem that can be solved either by identifying a stable political morality or by modifying a political morality in some way that will make it more stable. Instead, the fact of diversity indicates only that disagreements on all aspects of society's organization, including its organizing principles and matters of value, is a permanent feature of social life that cannot be ignored, wished away, or solved. (shrink)

It is only through the duality of the `masculine' and the `feminine' that the `human' finds full realization.Pope John Paul IISee the power of national emblems. Some stars, lilies, leopards, a crescent, a lion, an eagle, or other figure, which came into credit, God knows how, on an old rag of bunting, blowing in the wind, on a fort, at the ends of the earth, shall make the blood tingle under the rudest or the most conventional exterior. The people fancy (...) they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics! Ralph Waldo Emerson. (shrink)

In recent years, political theorists have come to recognize the central role of affect in social and political life. A host of scholars, coming from a number of distinct traditions, have variously drawn our attention to the importance of the emotions to the tradition of the history of political thought, as well as to normative political theory. This attentiveness to affect is often cast as a break with earlier, Enlightenment-inspired liberal approaches towards politics, approaches that marginalized the emotions, dismissing the (...) passions as potentially dangerous, or neglected them altogether. According to the conventional liberal view, emotions are said to have no place in the public sphere, while proceduralist institutions abstract away from citizens’ affective attachments, now cast as private preferences of individuals qua citizens. In this paper we challenge this prevalent view. We argue that no less a liberal theorist than John Rawls is deeply attentive to the place of emotions in his account of liberalism. This may seem counterintuitive given that Rawls' work has been frequently criticized for epitomizing some of the deepest problems of contemporary liberal theory, as a result of the emphasis on rationalism and reasonableness in his account of liberal justice. However, against this prevalent reading, we demonstrate that Rawls is in fact highly concerned with the role of affect and presents us with an account of the embedded liberal subject. By drawing out these dimensions of Rawls' thought, we hope to contribute to upending the conventional view of liberalism as affect-blind in order to encourage a more nuanced reading of the liberal tradition. (shrink)

Paul Weithman offers a fresh, rigorous, and compelling interpretation of John Rawls's reasons for taking his so-called "political turn.".

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? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls' plans to revise _Political Liberalism,_ which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on _A Theory of Justice_...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." --_Times Literary Supplement_. (shrink)

Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics, and Aesthetics examines the philosophy of Burke in view of its contribution to our understanding of modernity. Burke's relevance, until recently, has lain in how his critique of the French Revolution bolstered arguments against revolutionary communism. As that threat recedes, should we allow Burke's significance to recede as well? Stephen K. White argues that Burke remains important because he shows us how modernity engenders an implicit forgetfulness of human finitude. White illustrates this theme by showing how (...) Burke's political thought, his judgment of the 'modern system of morality and policy,' and its taste for a 'false sublime' are structured by his aesthetics. In the late 20th century, an undemocratic thinker such as Burke may not have answers to our problems, but we might do well to let him deepen the questions that we ask. (shrink)

In this ground-breaking study, George Klosko combines a theoretical discussion of liberalism with an empirical analysis of the conditions under which people give their support to liberal democratic regimes and regard policies as legitimate.

In this work, Paul Weithman offers a fresh, rigorous and compelling interpretation of John Rawls' reasons for taking his so-called 'political turn'.

Some of these essays articulate views of justice and liberalism distinct from those found in the two books.

In this essay I argue that Rawls does not establish the priority of the right over the good, and that his notion of the original position creates more problems than it solves. I further argue that Rawls, even in his recent proposal for an overlapping consensus, misdiagnoses the problems of modern society and our capacity for justice. I suggest that what we need is not so much theories of justice or methods to abstract from conceptions of the good as discriminating (...) patterns to judge whether, and to what extent, our institutions are sustaining or corroding our social practices that might serve justice and/or make us more just people. (shrink)