Political Liberalism (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: John Rawls
- First Published: 1993
- Type of Work: Philosophy and current affairs
- Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Current affairs
- Subjects: Justice, Freedom, Power, personal or social, Politics, Social issues, Conservatism, Liberalism, Democracy
John Rawls, professor of philosophy at Harvard University, provided a signal contribution to the development of contractarian political philosophy with the publication of A Theory of Justice (1971). Writing in the spirit of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant, especially the latter, Rawls attempted to work out the implications of ’justice as fairness” and to show the inadequacy of a rival view of justice, that of the maximization of the good in society, which was sanctioned by classical utilitarianism. The principle of utility, as espoused by Jeremy Bentham,...
[The entire page is 2188 words long]
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