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.

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. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

Theoreticians of names are currently split into two camps: Fregean and Millian. Fregean theorists hold that names have referent-determining senses that account for such facts as the change of content with the substitution of co-referential names and the meaningfulness of names without bearers. Their enduring problem has been to state these senses. Millian theorists deny that names have senses and take courage from Kripke's arguments that names are rigid designators. If names had senses, it seems that their referents should vary (...) among possible worlds. However, the Millians have the enduring problem of explaining the apparent cognitive content of names. I argue that Mill's original theory, when purged of confusion, provides word-reflexive senses for names. Frege failed to notice senses of this particular sort. Moreover, it is these senses that account for names' rigid designation. When the views of Mill and Frege are understood as complementary, the problems that have faced the divided theorists of names vanish. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that Mill’s classification of names as nonconnotative terms is incompatible with Frege’s thesis that names have senses. However, Milldescribed the senses of nonconnotative terms—without being aware that he was doing so. These are the senses for names that were sought in vain by Frege. When Mill’s and Frege’s doctrines are understood as complementary, they constitute a fully satisfactory theory of names.

It is generally accepted that Mill’s classification of names as nonconnotative terms is incompatible with Frege’s thesis that names have senses. However, Milldescribed the senses of nonconnotative terms—without being aware that he was doing so. These are the senses for names that were sought in vain by Frege. When Mill’s and Frege’s doctrines are understood as complementary, they constitute a fully satisfactory theory of names.

Truth Be Told explains how truth and falsity result from relations that sentences and their constituents have to the circumstances at which they are evaluated. It offers a precise analysis of truth and a diagnosis of the Liar paradox. Current semantic theory employs generalized quantifiers as the extensions of noun phrases. The book provides simpler extensions for noun phrases. These permit intuitive compositions of truth-values and a diagnosis of the Liar and Grelling paradoxes.

Many liberal political philosophers hold that the state should not impose or even promote any particular conception of the good life or human flourishing. It should not, for instance, enact laws and policies designed to elevate citizens' tastes, to refine their sensibilities or to perfect their characters. Instead, the state should restrict itself to maintaining a fair framework of rights and opportunities within which all citizens can pursue their own beliefs about what constitutes a good life. Against this backdrop, Collis (...) Tahzib develops a version of perfectionist political philosophy. Whereas previous perfectionists have argued that the promotion of flourishing ways of life is permissible or legitimate, Tahzib casts perfectionism as a doctrine of justice. On this view, the implementation of laws and policies designed to promote sound ideals of the good life--ideals such as moral, intellectual and artistic excellence--is not merely a legitimate complement to justice but an essential constituent of justice. Over the years, perfectionism has faced various objections: that it is premised on values and judgements that are controversial within modern pluralistic societies; that it is unduly restrictive of freedom or autonomy; that it treats citizens as if they are children, unable to run their own lives; that it expresses the meddlesome mentality of a village busybody; that it mistakenly assumes that there are objective truths about human flourishing; and that it risks the abuse of power by incompetent, overzealous or corrupt state officials. These ideas represent some of the deepest, most vibrant and most powerful strains in liberal thought. In defending perfectionism against these charges, the arguments in A Perfectionist Theory of Justice make a novel and important contribution to longstanding debates about the philosophical foundations of liberalism. (shrink)

Previous edition, 1st, published in 1971.

What is justice? How do we know justice? How is justice cultivated in society? These are the three questions that guide this critical dialogue with two representatives of the Catholic and Protestant traditions: Karl Barth and Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. Though the two thought leaders are shaped within divergent theological traditions and historical contexts, they both appeal to Christian anthropology as a starting point for justice. Their explorations into the nature of humanity yield robust new (...) class='Hi'>theories of justice that remain relevant for our contemporary era. The third interlocutor brings her own voice fully into the dialogue in the third part of the book in order to address the shortcomings in their theories and build upon their insights, all the while seeking theories of humanity and social justice that result in justice for all persons. --back cover. (shrink)

Leveraging perspectives from social cognitive theory, the attention-based view, and social networks literatures, we tested the relationship between unethical choice and network unethicality, which we define as respondents’ perceptions of their peer advisors’ unethical choices. Although social cognitive theory predicts that perceptions of peer advisor unethical choice are positively associated with unethical choice, we theorize that the nature of this relationship depends on the personality of the actor and the situation. Results from a lagged study suggest that individual and situational (...) variables may act as key buffers to the adverse impact of unethical social influence on ethical choice. Strengths, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Why Two Theories at All? Why Exclude the Interests of Persons? Why Cut Out the Middle Tier? Is Each Society Master of its Own Fate? Do the Asymmetries Get Rawls the Result He Wants? Conclusion Notes.

This innovative book is the first to couch the debate about animals in the language of justice, and the first to develop both ideal and nonideal theories of justice for animals. It rejects the abolitionist animal rights position in favor of a revised version of animal rights centering on sentience.

Rawls's theory of justice has had two parallel lives in political theory. The first is framed as an alternative to utilitarianism, and in particular utilitarianism's failure to take seriously the separateness of persons and each individual's right to pursue his or her own projects in life. The second is framed as an alternative to libertarianism, and in particular libertarianism's failure to take seriously our moral obligations to the well‐being of our fellow citizens. This chapter explores where and why Rawls's (...) “justice as fairness” and libertarianism come apart. It focuses on their respective treatments of the just distribution of wealth. Finally, in the real world one would have to worry about the strains of commitment not just for those who want to defect from “justice as fairness” once they see how things turn out for them, but also from those who never accept its normative vision. (shrink)

Eine Christliche Theorie der Gerechtigkeit ist eine pluralismusfahige christliche Gerechtigkeitsethik mit globaler Reichweite. Angesichts zahlloser globaler Probleme wie die extreme Armut von fast einer Milliarde Menschen ist fur die christliche Ethik ein Paradigmenwechsel zu einer konsensorientierten Ethik der Gerechtigkeit notwendig.

Research suggests that organizational justice has important impacts on work-related attitudes and behaviors, such as organizational citizenship behavior. In this article, we explore the extent to which individualism moderates the relationship between organizational justice and OCB among citizens in Kyrgyzstan. We make additional contributions to the literature because we know very little about these constructs in this former Soviet Union country, Kyrgyzstan, an under-researched and under-represented region of the world. Results of our data collected from 402 managers and (...) employees in Kyrgyzstan offer the following new discoveries. All three justice constructs are related to OCB. Individualism moderates only the distributive and interactive justice to OCB relationships. We develop an intricate theory with provocative implications: Procedural justice produces obedience. For “individualists,” interactional justice inspires loyalty and, interestingly, distributive justice “can only buy” participation, but “can’t buy” loyalty. Therefore, for individualists, interactional justice outweighs distributive justice for organizational loyalty. Based on Kyrgyz citizens’ justice, OCB, and individualism, our theory reveals novel insights regarding culture, money attitude, and intrinsic motivation and provides critical and practical implications to the field of business ethics. (shrink)

The origination of General Systems Theory is credited to Ludwig von Bertalanffy who, two years after receiving his doctorate from the University of Vienna, published a work in 1932 entitled Theorie der Formbildung. Despite, by his own account, an exposure to and familiarity with the positivism of the Vienna circle, von Bertalanffy was dissatisfied with the reductionist and atomistic forms of explanation which this group asserted is characteristic of scientific explanation. He was particularly unhappy with attempts to pattern explanations of (...) biological phenomena after the model of classical Newtonian physics. In this early work, Models Theories of Development, von Bertalanffy maintained both that the main problem for biology is to discover patterns (laws) which are typical of biological systems and that the discovery of such patterns would produce a major change in the way the world is viewed in general. Von Bertalanffy worked out his proposed model for biological explanation in such subsequent books as Theoretische Biologie and Problems of Life and then in his later years in such works as Robots, Man and Minds and Organismic Psychology and Systems Theory, went on to apply his concepts in a cross-disciplinary way to psychology. Again, by his own account, at a somewhat later period, others, for example the economist Kenneth Boulding and the bio-mathematician A. Rapport, had arrived at, for parallel reasons, certain similar ideas relative to their own disciplines. These individuals together with others formed a joint enterprise which was to result in the interdisciplinary systems movement. Von Bertalanffy stressed the multi-dimension possibilities for fruitful research in a large number of conceptual areas, including the humanities, in his final major work, General Systems Theory Foundation, Development and Applications. (shrink)

Critics have maintained that John Rawls’s theory of justice is unrealistic and undemocratic. Andrius Gališanka’s incisive intellectual biography argues that in misunderstanding the origins and development of Rawls’s argument, previous narratives fail to explain the novelty of his philosophical approach and so misunderstand his political vision.

Book Information A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition. By John Rawls. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1999. Pp. xxii + 538. Hardback, £25.00. Paperback, £12.99.

In 1971 John Rawls's A Theory of Justice transformed twentieth-century political philosophy, and it ranks among the most influential works in the history of the subject. This volume marks the 50th anniversary of the book's publication by offering a multi-faceted exploration of this important work.

This paper argues that the future of capabilities approach lies on the theoretical development of the democratic political structure. For this purpose, we take into account Martha Nussbaum’s late theoretical works. Firstly, we argue that the capability approach can be divided into two main models: the top down and the bottom up. Nussbaum, for example, endorses a top-down model, which it begins from an abstractive theory of partial justice and then draws the issue of institutional implementation. On the other (...) hand, Amartya Sem advocates the bottom-up model, which starts from the immanent demands of justice from public sphere and then up to normative and abstract questions (like his “idea of justice”). In the second part of this paper, we present Nussbaum’s partial theory of justice, arguing that it is mainly composed by four issues: (a) the elaboration of the list of capabilities, (b) the process of normative evaluation, (c) arguments for stability, (d) the implementation of the model. About this last topic, we argue in the third part that the current theoretical advance of the capabilities approach lies on the issue of the democratic political structure. In other words, the future of capabilities approach depends on the interaction between its own theory and a theory of democracy. Finally, in the last section we provide a re-elaboration of Nussbaum’s threshold level of capabilities (the list) in order to make it more adherent with the democratic political structure. (shrink)

This paper probes theories of justice underpinning the concept of equity to deconstruct the term and ascertain how best to equitably support refugee and asylum-seeking youth in U.S. schools. Building upon theories posited by John Rawls, Michael Sandel, and Amartya Sen, the paper aims to extend beyond ideal theory into a theoretical framework of equity with operationalizing potential. Recognizing refugee and asylum-seeking youth as part of the U.S. social contract and therefore bound to government support, the paper (...) represents that equitable education for these young people in our globalized world is essential from both a human rights and economic perspective. Such equitable education will only be achieved when universal minimum standards are offered to everyone and made inclusive, so that all are invited to fully participate as culturally respected learners and knowledge producers in academic spaces. (shrink)

Forty years ago, in his landmark work A Theory of Justice, John Rawls depicted a just society as a fair system of cooperation between citizens, regarded as free and equal persons. Justice, Rawls famously claimed, ought to be “the first virtue of social institutions.” Ever since then, moral and political philosophers have expanded, expounded or criticized Rawls’s main tenets, from perspectives as diverse as egalitarianism, left and right libertarianism, and the ethics of care. The most important and influential (...) views in this ‘post-Rawlsian’ era constitute the focus of this volume, which seeks to give a general picture of the main strands in contemporary justice theorizing, as well as addressing more recent developments, especially regarding methodological issues. How to build a theory of justice and how to delineate its proper scope; the relationship between justice and equality, justice and liberty, and justice and desert; and the critique of the Rawlsian paradigm especially from the feminist perspective and from the growing strand of non-ideal theory are the main topics addressed in this selection of essays. (shrink)

John Rawls A Theory of Justice har haft ett monumentalt inflytande på den moderna politiska filosofin. Jag försöker här genom några nedslag i den nutida diskussionen förmedla en bild av detta inflytande, och av bokens fortsatta filosofiska relevans. Jag inleder med en kort presentation av huvuddragen i Rawls rättviseteori. Efter det går jag igenom, och bemöter, kritiken mot idealteori. Jag diskuterar sedan förhållandet mellan rättvisa och ekonomisk ojämlikhet, och förklarar varför teorin är radikalare än vad många kritiker insett. Slutligen (...) går jag igenom hur en kontraktsteori av detta slag kan hantera frågan om rättvisa mellan generationer. (shrink)

This article offers a perspective on the critical theory of justice by presenting a structural and processual reconstruction of Rainer Forst’s intriguing yet somewhatopaque concept of a basic structure of justification which is central to his proposed critique of justificatory relations. It shows from a cognitive-sociological perspective what a cooperative relation between a philosophical theory of justice and a social scientific approach could mean for critical theory. A basic structure of justification is revealed to be a cognitively available (...) reflexive order above the order of substantive social and political relations that allows the identifi cation, explanation and transformative critique of reflexivity deficits induced by hegemonic, ideological, repressive or obfuscating means. Far from being exclusively a theoretical and methodological tool, however, it is in principle accessible to those involved and affected on whose experience, suffering and critique critical theory vitally depends. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I II III IV V.

This first book in English by Serge-Christophe Kolm provides an overview of his far-reaching vision of distributive justice. Kolm derives justice from considerations of rationality.

:Robert Nozick allegedly introduced his liberal theory of private ownership as an objection to theories of end-state justice. Nevertheless, we show that, in a stylized framework for the allocation of goods in joint ventures, both approaches can be seen as complementary. More precisely, in such a context, self-ownership followed by voluntary transfer can lead to end-state fairness. Furthermore, under a certain solidarity condition, the only way to achieve end-state fairness, following Nozick’s procedure, is to endorse an egalitarian rule (...) for the initial assignment of rights. (shrink)

Every theory of justice presupposes a theory of agency which specifies the nature, capacities, and needs of the agents to whom it applies. Likewise, every theory of agency can serve as the basis for a theory of justice which specifies the social conditions in which persons can develop and exercise their capacities for agency. Contemporary liberal, communitarian, and feminist theories of justice all share an abstract understanding of agency as involving the capacity to pursue a conception (...) of the good and the capacity to fit that pursuit into a moral vision. Liberalism, communitarianism, and feminism do not differ primarily over what agency amounts to or whether agency is morally valuable, but over what social conditions persons require in order to develop and exercise their capacities for agency. ;I develop analytic models of a liberal and a communitarian theory of social justice, and I derive from each of these an analytic model of the theory of agency on which it tacitly depends. I show that neither the liberal nor the communitarian theory of agency can accommodate the needs of subordinate social groups such as African-Americans, women, and lesbians for a society in which denigrating racist, sexist, and homophobic cultural images are absent and in which the different needs for agency of members of different social groups can be addressed. ;I also develop a feminist dialogical theory of justice which leaves the demands of justice open to determination by an open, ongoing, egalitarian social dialogue about the social conditions required for agency. I then derive from it a theory of agency which is, I argue, better able to meet the differing needs for agency of members of different social groups, to uncover hidden forms of injustice, and to address changes in prevailing forms of domination and oppression over time. (shrink)

John Rawls's A Theory of Justice has reshaped liberal political theory, but what fruitful arguments does it generate today, fifty years after its publication? To show Theory's productive contempora...

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick contrasts entitlement theories of justice and “traditional” theories such as Rawls', utilitarianism or egalitarianism, and advocates the former against the latter. What exactly is an entitlement theory of justice? Nozick's book offers two distinct characterizations. On the one hand, he explicitly describes “the general outlines of the entitlement theory” as maintaining “that the holdings of a person are just if he is entitled to them by the principles of (...) class='Hi'>justice in acquisition and transfer, or by the principle of rectification of injustice ”. On the other hand, his famous “Wilt Chamberlain” argument against alternative theories is first said to apply to “non-entitlement conceptions”, and later to any “end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice” — which amounts to an implicit characterization of an entitlement conception as a conception of justice which is neither end-state nor patterned. (shrink)

Rawls' main aim in A Theory of Justice is to provide a viable alternative to the utilitarianism which has dominated so much modern moral philosophy. Although philosophers have long recognised the difficulties in the way of acceptance of a utilitarian account of judgments of justice, they have often responded by seeking merely to reformulate the principle of utility. Other philosophers, with a juster appreciation of the seriousness of these difficulties, have been prepared to reject utilitarianism in all its (...) guises, but they have failed “to construct a workable and systematic moral conception to oppose it”. What is needed, beyond a powerful reaffirmation of the familiar objections to utilitarian accounts of justice, is the careful elaboration of a radically non-utilitarian theory of justice. It is this need which Rawls sets out to meet in his book. (shrink)

AnsrRAcr. This is a critical analysis of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. Rawls offers a theoretical justihcation of social democratic principles of justice. He argues that they are the principles which rational men would choose, under defined constraints, in an original position of social contract. The author criticises Rawls’s assumption that men of any background, of any socialisation, would choose these principles in the original position. He argues that the choice which Rawls imputes to his contractors reflects (...) a specific socialisation — one dominant in Western democracies. The theory is useful because it systematises a particular sense of justice ; it is in no sense however a universal theory. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Gadamer's hermeneutics of historical tradition does not imply a conservative stance on ethical and political issues. My essay seeks to show that Gadamer's philosophy leaves ample room for normative criticism, objectivity, and theories of justice at odds with conventional common sense. I critically examine Walzer's Spheres of Justice, reading it as an attempt to obtain a normative account of justice based on a hermeneutical framework of interpretation. I make several criticisms (...) of Walzer's method and results, which I use to develop my own critical model for interpreting, criticizing, and revising traditional understandings, and common sense meanings. My conclusion is that we need to extend Gadamer's philosophy, in order to identify the ways that established traditions of understanding and common sense can result from, or produce, inconsistency, irrationality, hermeneutical incoherence, and meaningless deprivations or suffering. This essay thus seeks to develop an influential continental philosophy in a direction that makes fruitful contact with Anglo-American theories of justice, and normativity. (shrink)

Amartya Sen argues that for the advancement of justice identification of ‘perfect’ justice is neither necessary nor sufficient. He replaces ‘perfect’ justice with comparative justice. Comparative justice limits itself to comparing social states with respect to degrees of justice. Sen’s central thesis is that identifying ‘perfect’ justice and comparing imperfect social states are ‘analytically disjoined’. This essay refutes Sen’s thesis by demonstrating that to be able to make adequate comparisons we need to identify (...) and integrate criteria of comparison. This is precisely the aim of a theory of justice (such as John Rawls’s theory): identifying, integrating and ordering relevant principles of justice. The same integrated criteria that determine ‘perfect’ justice are needed to be able to adequately compare imperfect social states. Sen’s alternative approach, which is based on social choice theory, is incapable of avoiding contrary, indeterminate or incoherent directives where plural principles of justice conflict. (shrink)

ERIC JACOBSON, Theories of Justice, Profane and Prophetic: Scholem on the Bolshevik Revolution. with commentary drawn from Walter Benjamin's Critique of Violence) in: Gershom Scholem. In Memoriam, Vol. II. Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought, No. 21, ed. Joseph Dan, Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007, 59-75.

Political liberalism purports to be independent from any controversial philosophical presuppositions, and its basic principles and features are often presented as the most accommodating of difference and heterogeneity, so long as the latter is not illiberal, oppressive and fanatic. Educational theory welcomes this assumption and attempts to utilise it in citizenship curriculum debates, often in a receptive and arguably uncritical way. I shall critique the above by unveiling the contestable epistemological and anthropological theses underlying Rawls’ difference principle and by discussing (...) the conception of education that they ground. I shall draw especially on sociology of education and its questioning of the ‘racism of intelligence’ in order to show that political liberalism mistakes its self- and world-understanding as a reflection of general and undisputed facts. Further, I shall explain how a more critical perspective would give educational theory a more active role by challenging the so-called ‘reproductive’ conception of education. I shall conclude by assessing the significance of such a critique for teaching citizenship, putting forward some suggestions for a reorientation of political education. (shrink)

What is social justice? In _Theories of Justice_ Brian Barry provides a systematic and detailed analysis of two kinds of answers. One is that justice arises from a sense of the advantage to everyone of having constraints on the pursuit of self-interest. The other answer connects the idea of justice with that of impartiality. Though the first book of a trilogy, _Theories of Justice_ stands alone and constitutes a major contribution to the debate about social justice (...) that began in 1971 with Rawls's _A Theory of Justice_. (shrink)

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, national triage guidelines were developed to address the anticipated shortage of life‐saving resources, should ICU capacities be overloaded. Rationing and triage imply that in addition to individual patient interests, interests of population health have to be integrated. The transfer of theoretical and empirical knowledge into feasible and useful practice models and their implementation in clinical settings need to be improved. This paper analyzes how triage protocols could translate abstract theories of distributive justice into concrete (...) material and procedural criteria for rationing intensive care resources during a pandemic. We reconstruct the development and implementation of a rationing protocol at a German university hospital: describing the ethical challenge of triage, clarifying the aspirational norms, and summarizing specific norms of fair triage and allocation for developing an institutional policy and practice model and implementing it. We reflect on how critical topics are seen by clinicians and what helped manage the perceived burdens of the triage dilemma. We analyze what can be learned from this debate regarding the difficult issues around triage protocols and their potential implementation into clinical settings. Analyzing the ought‐to‐is gap of triage, integrating abstract ethical principles into practical concepts, and evaluating those should clarify the benefits and risks of different allocation options. We seek to inform debates on triage concepts and policies to ensure the best possible treatment and fair allocation of resources as well as to help protect patients and professionals in worst‐case scenarios. (shrink)

Political liberalism purports to be independent from any controversial philosophical presuppositions, and its basic principles and features are often presented as the most accommodating of difference and heterogeneity, so long as the latter is not illiberal, oppressive and fanatic. Educational theory welcomes this assumption and attempts to utilise it in citizenship curriculum debates, often in a receptive and arguably uncritical way. I shall critique the above by unveiling the contestable epistemological and anthropological theses underlying Rawls' difference principle and by discussing (...) the conception of education that they ground. I shall draw especially on sociology of education and its questioning of the ‘racism of intelligence’ in order to show that political liberalism mistakes its self- and world-understanding as a reflection of general and undisputed facts. Further, I shall explain how a more critical perspective would give educational theory a more active role by challenging the so-called ‘reproductive’ conception of education. I shall conclude by assessing the significance of such a critique for teaching citizenship, putting forward some suggestions for a reorientation of political education. (shrink)

The “Father of the United States Constitution,” James Madison, once described justice as “the end” of both government and of civil society. Yet curiously, Madison said little about justice in elaborating the principles of American federalism in The Federalist Papers and elsewhere. His fundamental concerns, to the contrary, were in contriving a system of separated, countervailing powers and in establishing a first federal principle of enumerated powers — in which federal powers “are few, and defined.” This strategy, for (...) Madison, was the most feasible way of checking the innate tendency of political power to accumulate, centralize, and trample on citizens’ liberties. (shrink)

A revised edition of John Rawls’s classic work A Theory of Justice has recently been published in English. The revisions appeared in the first foreign translation in 1975 and Rawls has made no further revisions to the text since that date, with the exception of a second preface, written for the French edition in 1987 and modestly revised in 1990. Changes are found on approximately 130 of the book’s 600 pages. Most are minor stylistic changes. About 25 percent of (...) the changes made are to some extent substantive. They do not alter the presentation of the central arguments significantly, but they do introduce some important new ideas. Replacement of the original by the revised edition is, of course, somewhat inconvenient, since the voluminous literature on Rawls refers to the page numbers in the original edition. Also, the new ideas presented in the revisions are more fully developed in Rawls’s later writings. Nevertheless, the emergence of several themes may deepen our understanding of his political philosophy. (shrink)