John Rawls (1921–2002): Harvard philosopher who revived political philosophy with justice as fairness

Life and thought

John Rawls (1921–2002) grew up in Baltimore, where two of his younger brothers died of illnesses caught from him. He served as an infantryman in the Pacific in the Second World War, an experience that ended his plans for the priesthood, and after a doctorate at Princeton he taught at Harvard from 1962. A Theory of Justice (1971), twenty years in the making, revived political philosophy in the English-speaking world.

Rawls asks which principles of justice we would choose if we did not know our place in society: our talents, class, race or idea of the good life. In this “original position”, behind a “veil of ignorance”, he argued, we would choose, first, equal basic liberties for everyone, and second, that social and economic inequalities are acceptable only under fair equality of opportunity and only if they benefit the least advantaged (the “difference principle”). Against utilitarianism, no one’s basic rights may be sacrificed for a greater total good. Nozick replied from the right and Nussbaum from the left; Political Liberalism (1993) asked how people with deeply different beliefs can share one just society.

Works

1971A Theory of Justice

1993Political Liberalism

Shaped by

1724–1804Immanuel KantKönigsberg professor whose critical philosophy redrew modern thought 1712–1778Jean-Jacques RousseauGeneva-born writer who blamed society, not nature, for human corruption 1632–1704John LockeEnglish physician and philosopher of experience, consent and toleration

Students

born 1937Thomas NagelRawls supervised Nagel’s doctoral thesis at Harvard.

Argued against

1748–1832Jeremy BenthamRawls built his theory as an alternative to classical utilitarianism.

Criticised by

1938–2002Robert NozickNozick, Rawls’s Harvard colleague, answered A Theory of Justice three years later with a defence of the minimal state.born 1947Martha NussbaumFrontiers of Justice argues that Rawls’s contract leaves out people with disabilities, foreigners and animals.

Meanwhile, in other traditions

1913–1960Albert CamusAlgerian-born French writer of the absurd and of revolt 1915–1980Roland BarthesFrench critic who read everyday culture as signs 1924–1998Jean-François LyotardFrench philosopher who defined the postmodern condition 1925–1961Frantz FanonMartinican psychiatrist and theorist of anticolonial liberation 1925–1995Gilles DeleuzeFrench philosopher of difference, desire and becoming 1926–1984Michel FoucaultFrench historian of madness, prisons and sexuality