Amazon.co.uk Review
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 19th 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. --
Christine Buttery
Book Description
A Theory of Justice by John Rawls is one of the books by which our age will be remembered: perhaps the most important work of moral and political philosophy of the twentieth century, a classic to stand alongside Kant and Mill. In this revised edition the work is presented as Rawls himself wishes it to be transmitted to posterity, with numerous minor revisions and amendments and a new Preface in which Rawls reflects on his presentation of his thesis and explains how and why
he has revised it.
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