Description:

Since it appeared in 1971, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice has become a classic. The author has now revised the original edition to clear up a number of difficulties he and others have found in the original book.
Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition—justice as fairness—and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the social contract as a more satisfactory account of the basic rights and liberties of citizens as free and equal persons. "Each person," writes Rawls, "possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override." Advancing the ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Lincoln, Rawls's theory is as powerful today as it was when first published.

Review

John Rawls's A Theory of Justice is one of the most important works of political philosophy produced in the twentieth century, and it remains one of those rare academic texts that genuinely shifted the terms of public debate. Published in 1971 and revised in 1999, it set out to provide a systematic alternative to utilitarianism as the philosophical foundation for democratic institutions. The ambition alone is staggering; that Rawls largely succeeded in this undertaking is what makes the book a landmark.

The core innovation is the device of the "original position" and its accompanying "veil of ignorance." Rawls asks us to imagine choosing the basic principles for organizing society without knowing what position we would occupy in it — without knowing our class, talents, intelligence, gender, race, or even our conception of what makes life worth living. From behind this veil, Rawls argues, rational persons would choose two principles: first, that each person should have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberties compatible with similar liberties for others; and second, that social and economic inequalities should be arranged to benefit the least advantaged members of society (the "difference principle") and attached to positions open to all under fair equality of opportunity. The first principle takes strict priority over the second — no amount of economic gain can justify curtailing fundamental freedoms.

What distinguishes Rawls from so many political theorists is the architectonic rigor of the construction. This is not a book of slogans or intuitions; it is a painstaking, sometimes demanding philosophical system. The three-part structure moves from the abstract theory (the original position, the two principles, the argument against utilitarianism) through institutional applications (constitutional design, distributive justice, civil disobedience) to questions of moral psychology and stability (how a just society generates its own support through the development of citizens' sense of justice). Each part depends on what precedes it, and the cumulative effect is formidable.

The argument against utilitarianism is perhaps the book's most enduring contribution. Rawls contends that utilitarian thinking, by aggregating welfare across persons, fails to take seriously the distinction between individuals. It treats persons as vessels for utility rather than as ends in themselves. The original position is specifically designed to prevent this conflation: because the parties do not know their particular circumstances, they cannot rationally gamble on being among those whose welfare might be sacrificed for the greater sum. The result is a conception of justice that gives each person an inviolability that "even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override."

The institutional chapters reveal a thinker deeply engaged with practical questions. Rawls's discussion of the "four-stage sequence" — from the original position through constitutional convention to legislation and adjudication — shows how abstract principles can be progressively applied with increasing knowledge of particular circumstances. His treatment of civil disobedience as a stabilizing mechanism within constitutional democracy remains one of the most careful analyses of the subject. And his distinction between a "property-owning democracy" and a mere welfare state — the former dispersing ownership of productive assets at the outset rather than merely redistributing income after the fact — is an insight whose political implications are still being worked out.

Part Three, on moral psychology and the "good of justice," is often overlooked but may be the most philosophically daring section. Rawls argues that a well-ordered society is itself "a social union of social unions," in which the collective activity of maintaining just institutions constitutes "the preeminent form of human flourishing." He sketches a developmental account of moral psychology — moving from the morality of authority in childhood through the morality of association to the morality of principles — and argues that justice as fairness, unlike utilitarianism, generates its own motivational support. The final pages, concluding that to see our situation from the perspective of the original position is to regard it sub specie aeternitatis, carry an almost spiritual weight unusual in analytical philosophy.

The book is not without difficulties. The prose, while precise, can be taxing over nearly a thousand pages; some sections, particularly the technical discussions of rational choice and the comparison with average utility, demand considerable patience. Critics from the libertarian right (Nozick) and the communitarian left (Sandel, MacIntyre) have raised penetrating objections — about the priority of the self over its ends, about the adequacy of purely procedural justice, about whether the veil of ignorance strips away too much of what makes us who we are. Rawls himself acknowledged in the revised edition's preface that the accounts of basic liberties and primary goods needed strengthening, and he spent much of his subsequent career refining these elements.

Yet the basic framework has proved remarkably durable. The original position remains the most influential thought experiment in modern moral philosophy. The difference principle continues to set the terms for debates about economic inequality. And the overall vision — of a society of free and equal persons cooperating on terms that all can accept — articulates something deep about the democratic aspiration. Whether one ultimately agrees with Rawls or not, A Theory of Justice is a book that demands engagement. It is political philosophy at its most serious and most humane.

Reviewed 2026-03-26

Notable Quotes

Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.

Rawls's foundational statement of what distinguishes justice as fairness from utilitarianism: individual rights cannot be sacrificed for aggregate benefit. — individual rights, anti-utilitarianism, inviolability, justice

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others.

The first principle of justice, establishing the priority of equal basic liberties as the bedrock of a just society. — liberty, equality, first principle, basic rights

Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.

The second principle of justice in its initial formulation, later refined into the difference principle and fair equality of opportunity. — inequality, difference principle, equal opportunity, second principle

All social values -- liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the social bases of self-respect -- are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to everyone's advantage.

The general conception of justice from which the two principles are a special case, establishing equality as the baseline from which departures must be justified. — equality, distribution, primary goods, general conception

Injustice, then, is simply inequalities that are not to the benefit of all.

Rawls's concise definition of injustice, following directly from the general conception of justice. — injustice, inequality, reciprocity

No one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like.

Describing the veil of ignorance in the original position, the device that ensures the principles chosen will be fair to all. — veil of ignorance, original position, fairness, impartiality

The idea of the original position is to set up a fair procedure so that any principles agreed to will be just. The aim is to use the notion of pure procedural justice as a basis of theory.

Rawls explaining the methodological purpose of the original position as a thought experiment in pure procedural justice. — original position, procedural justice, fairness, method

Those who have gained more must do so on terms that are justifiable to those who have gained the least.

The intuitive core of the difference principle: inequalities are legitimate only when they can be justified to the worst-off members of society. — difference principle, justification, reciprocity, inequality

The priority of liberty means that whenever the basic liberties can be effectively established, a lesser or an unequal liberty cannot be exchanged for an improvement in economic well-being.

Rawls's lexical ordering of the two principles, establishing that freedom cannot be traded for material advantage once a certain threshold of development is reached. — priority of liberty, lexical ordering, freedom, economic welfare

Racial and sexual discrimination presupposes that some hold a favored place in the social system which they are willing to exploit to their advantage. From the standpoint of persons similarly situated in an initial situation which is fair, the principles of explicit racist doctrines are not only unjust. They are irrational.

Rawls arguing that behind the veil of ignorance, no rational person would endorse discrimination since no one knows their own race or sex. — discrimination, racism, rationality, veil of ignorance

In an association of saints agreeing on a common ideal, if such a community could exist, disputes about justice would not occur. Each would work selflessly for one end as determined by their common religion, and reference to this end would settle every question of right. But a human society is characterized by the circumstances of justice.

Explaining why justice is the virtue needed specifically under conditions of moderate scarcity and conflicting interests -- the conditions that actually characterize human societies. — circumstances of justice, conflict, scarcity, human nature

Property-owning democracy avoids this, not by redistributing income to those with less at the end of each period, so to speak, but rather by ensuring the widespread ownership of productive assets and human capital at the beginning of each period.

Rawls distinguishing his preferred institutional form from the welfare state, emphasizing ex ante distribution of productive capacity over ex post redistribution of income. — property-owning democracy, welfare state, distribution, institutions

To deny justice to another is either to refuse to recognize him as an equal, or to manifest a willingness to exploit the contingencies of natural fortune and happenstance for our own advantage. In either case deliberate injustice invites submission or resistance.

In the discussion of civil disobedience, explaining what injustice communicates to those who suffer it and why resistance can be a legitimate response. — injustice, equality, civil disobedience, recognition

Civil disobedience used with due restraint and sound judgment helps to maintain and strengthen just institutions. By resisting injustice within the limits of fidelity to law, it serves to inhibit departures from justice and to correct them when they occur.

Rawls's argument that civil disobedience is a stabilizing device within constitutional democracy, not a threat to it. — civil disobedience, stability, constitutional democracy, fidelity to law

The final court of appeal is not the court, nor the executive, nor the legislature, but the electorate as a whole.

On the ultimate source of democratic authority in settling questions of justice, affirming popular sovereignty as the foundation of legitimate government. — democracy, popular sovereignty, constitutional authority, political legitimacy

Acting autonomously is acting from principles that they would acknowledge under conditions that best express their nature as free and equal rational beings.

The Kantian interpretation of justice as fairness, where moral autonomy consists in living by principles one would choose under conditions of freedom and equality. — autonomy, Kant, freedom, moral agency

Thus to respect persons is to recognize that they possess an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. It is to affirm that the loss of freedom for some is not made right by a greater welfare enjoyed by others.

Rawls articulating what respect for persons means within justice as fairness, connecting it to Kant's idea that persons have a dignity beyond all price. — respect for persons, inviolability, Kant, individual rights

A well-ordered society, corresponding to justice as fairness, is itself a form of social union. Indeed, it is a social union of social unions.

Rawls's vision of how a just society constitutes a community, not through a single shared conception of the good but through the shared commitment to just institutions. — social union, community, well-ordered society, cooperation

The collective activity of justice is the preeminent form of human flourishing.

Rawls's striking claim that cooperating to maintain just institutions is itself the highest expression of human nature, drawing on the Aristotelian Principle. — flourishing, justice, Aristotelian Principle, community

The division of labor is overcome not by each becoming complete in himself, but by willing and meaningful work within a just social union of social unions in which all can freely participate as they so incline.

Rawls's response to the problem of human incompleteness: no individual can realize all human capacities, but through just cooperation we participate in the full range of human excellence. — division of labor, social union, human nature, cooperation

When institutions are just, those taking part in these arrangements acquire the corresponding sense of justice and desire to do their part in maintaining them.

The stability thesis: a just society generates its own motivational support through the psychological development of its members. — stability, sense of justice, moral psychology, institutions

The acceptance of the principles of right and justice forges the bonds of civic friendship and establishes the basis of comity amidst the disparities that persist.

On how shared principles of justice enable social cohesion despite the inevitable disagreements that remain in a pluralistic society. — civic friendship, pluralism, social cohesion, comity

Purity of heart, if one could attain it, would be to see clearly and to act with grace and self-command from this point of view.

The closing lines of the book, where Rawls describes what it would mean to fully inhabit the moral perspective defined by justice as fairness -- to see the human situation sub specie aeternitatis. — moral ideal, perspective, sub specie aeternitatis, virtue

A person is unjust to the extent that from character and inclination he is disposed to such actions.

Defining individual injustice in terms of character rather than isolated acts, linking it to the failure of judges and authorities to adhere to established rules. — injustice, character, rule of law, formal justice

We cannot at the end count them a second time because we do not like the result.

On the finality of moral principles: once claims of self-interest and existing social arrangements have been properly weighed in the system of justice, they cannot be reintroduced as further objections. — finality, moral principles, practical reasoning, authority of justice