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John Rawls

John Bordley Rawls (/rɔːlz/;[2] February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the modern liberal tradition.[3][4] Rawls has been described as one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century.[5]

This article is about the American philosopher. For other people, see John Rawls (disambiguation).

John Rawls

John Bordley Rawls

(1921-02-21)February 21, 1921
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.

November 24, 2002(2002-11-24) (aged 81)

Lexington, Massachusetts, U.S.

Princeton University (BA, PhD)
Christ Church, Oxford

A Theory of Justice (1971)
Political Liberalism (1993)

Margaret Warfield Fox
​
​
(m. 1949)​

Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy (1999)
National Humanities Medal (1999)

20th-century philosophy
21st-century philosophy

Western philosophy

Princeton University
Cornell University
Harvard University

Walter Terence Stace

 

In 1990, Will Kymlicka wrote in his introduction to the field that "it is generally accepted that the recent rebirth of normative political philosophy began with the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971".[6][7] Rawls's theory of "justice as fairness" recommends equal basic liberties, equality of opportunity, and facilitating the maximum benefit to the least advantaged members of society in any case where inequalities may occur. Rawls's argument for these principles of social justice uses a thought experiment called the "original position", in which people deliberately select what kind of society they would choose to live in if they did not know which social position they would personally occupy. In his later work Political Liberalism (1993), Rawls turned to the question of how political power could be made legitimate given reasonable disagreement about the nature of the good life.


Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999. The latter was presented by President Bill Clinton in recognition of how his works "revived the disciplines of political and ethical philosophy with his argument that a society in which the most fortunate help the least fortunate is not only a moral society but a logical one".[8]


Among contemporary political philosophers, Rawls is frequently cited by the courts of law in the United States and Canada[9] and referred to by practicing politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom. In a 2008 national survey of political theorists, based on 1,086 responses from professors at accredited, four-year colleges and universities in the United States, Rawls was voted first on the list of "Scholars Who Have Had the Greatest Impact on Political Theory in the Past 20 Years".[10]

Biography[edit]

Early life and education[edit]

Rawls was born on February 21, 1921, in Baltimore, Maryland.[11] He was the second of five sons born to William Lee Rawls, a prominent Baltimore attorney, and Anna Abell Stump Rawls.[12][13] Tragedy struck Rawls at a young age:

for radio work behind enemy lines in World War II[44]

Bronze Star

Elected to the (1966)[45]

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

(1972)

Ralph Waldo Emerson Award

Elected to the (1974)[46]

American Philosophical Society

Member of the (1992)[47]

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

for Logic and Philosophy (1999)

Schock Prize

(1999)

National Humanities Medal

Asteroid is named in his honor.

16561 Rawls

In popular culture[edit]

John Rawls is featured as the protagonist of A Theory of Justice: The Musical!, an award-nominated musical comedy, which premiered at Oxford in 2013 and was revived for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.[48]

A Study in the Grounds of Ethical Knowledge: Considered with Reference to Judgments on the Moral Worth of Character. , Princeton University, 1950.

Ph.D. dissertation

. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971. The revised edition of 1999 incorporates changes that Rawls made for translated editions of A Theory of Justice. Some Rawls scholars use the abbreviation TJ to refer to this work.

A Theory of Justice

. The John Dewey Essays in Philosophy, 4. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. The hardback edition published in 1993 is not identical. The paperback adds a valuable new introduction and an essay titled "Reply to Habermas." Some Rawls scholars use the abbreviation PL to refer to this work.

Political Liberalism

: with "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited." Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999. This slim book includes two works; a further development of his essay entitled "The Law of Peoples" and another entitled "Public Reason Revisited," both published earlier in his career.

The Law of Peoples

Collected Papers. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999. This collection of shorter papers was edited by Samuel Freeman.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2000. This collection of lectures was edited by Barbara Herman. It has an introduction on modern moral philosophy from 1600 to 1800 and then lectures on Hume, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel.

Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy.

. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2001. This shorter summary of the main arguments of Rawls's political philosophy was edited by Erin Kelly. Many versions of this were circulated in typescript and much of the material was delivered by Rawls in lectures when he taught courses covering his own work at Harvard University.

Justice as Fairness: A Restatement

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007. Collection of lectures on Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Joseph Butler, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, edited by Samuel Freeman.

Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy.

A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2010. With introduction and commentary by Thomas Nagel, Joshua Cohen and Robert Merrihew Adams. Senior thesis, Princeton, 1942. This volume includes a brief late essay by Rawls entitled On My Religion.

List of American philosophers

List of liberal theorists

Philosophy of economics

A Theory of Justice: The Musical!

Freeman, S. (2007) Rawls (Routledge, Abingdon)

Freeman, Samuel (2009) "Original Position" (The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, )

Original Position

Pols, Paul (2010). (Thesis). University of Utrecht. hdl:1874/179525. Archived from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2021.

Applying Rawls in a Globalizing World

Rawls, John (1993/1996/2005) (Columbia University Press, New York)

Political Liberalism

Rawls, John (1971). (Original ed.). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674017726.

A Theory of Justice

Rawls, John (2001). (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674005112.

Justice as Fairness: A Restatement

Rogers, B. (27.09.02) "Obituary: John Rawls"

Obituary: John Rawls

Tampio, N. (2011) "A Defense of Political Constructivism" (Contemporary Political Theory, (subscription required))

A defense of political constructivism

Wenar, Leif (2008) "John Rawls" (The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, )

John Rawls

(2008). "Rawls, John (1921–2002)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 415–416. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n255. ISBN 978-1412965804. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.

Wilkinson, Will

Audio recordings of Rawls's 1983 lecture course "Modern Political Philosophy"

Cambridge Rawls Lexicon

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on John Rawls by Henry S. Richardson

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Political Constructivisim by Michael Buckley

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on John Rawls by Leif Wenar

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Original Position by Fred D'Agostino

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Reflective Equilibrium by Norman Daniels

Archived April 17, 2019, at the Wayback Machine on Google Scholar

John Rawls