Rawls’ Theory of Justice

19 Jan, 2023 320 Political science

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss A Theory of Justice by John Rawls (1921 - 2002) which has been called the most influential book in twentieth century political philosophy. It was first published in 1971. Rawls (pictured above) drew on his own experience in WW2 and saw the chance in its aftermath to build a new society, one founded on personal liberty and fair equality of opportunity. While in that just society there could be inequalities, Rawls’ radical idea was that those inequalities must be to the greatest advantage not to the richest but to the worst off.

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Guests

  • Fabienne Peter No other episodes
    Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick
  • Martin O'Neill No other episodes
    Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of York
  • Jonathan Wolff No other episodes
    The Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and Fellow of Wolfson College

Reading list

  • Rawls
    Samuel Freeman (Routledge, 2007)
  • The Cambridge Companion to Rawls
    Samuel Freeman (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
  • The Tyranny of the Ideal
    Gerald Gaus (Princeton University Press, 2016)
  • Political Philosophy
    Jean Hampton (Westview Press, 1996)
  • Sources of Normativity
    Christine M. Korsgaard (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
  • The Racial Contract
    Charles Mills (Cornell University Press, 1997)
  • Justice, Gender, and the Family
    Susan Moller Okin (Basic Books, 1991)
  • Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond
    Martin O'Neill and Thad Williamson (eds.) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)
  • Beyond the Welfare State: Rawls's Radical Vision for a Better America
    Martin O'Neill and Thad Williamson
  • Towards Justice and Virtue: A Constructive Account of Practical Reasoning
    Onora O'Neill (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
  • A Theory of Justice: Original Edition
    John Rawls (Harvard University Press, 2005)
  • A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition
    John Rawls (Harvard University Press, 1999)
  • Political Liberalism
    John Rawls (Columbia University Press, 2005)
  • Justice as Fairness: A Restatement
    John Rawls (Harvard University Press, 2001)
  • The Rawlsian Diagnosis of Donald Trump
    Samuel Scheffler (Boston Review, Feb 12, 2019)
  • Inequality Reexamined
    Amartya Sen (Oxford University Press, 1995)
  • An Introduction to Political Philosophy
    Jonathan Wolff (Oxford University Press, 2022)

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Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello, a theory of justice by John Rawls has been called the most influential book in 20th century political philosophy.