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 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
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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
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Rawls
Samuel Freeman (Routledge, 2007) Google Books → -
The Cambridge Companion to Rawls
Samuel Freeman (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2002) Google Books → -
The Tyranny of the Ideal
Gerald Gaus (Princeton University Press, 2016) Google Books → -
Political Philosophy
Jean Hampton (Westview Press, 1996) Google Books → -
Sources of Normativity
Christine M. Korsgaard (Cambridge University Press, 1996) Google Books → -
The Racial Contract
Charles Mills (Cornell University Press, 1997) Google Books → -
Justice, Gender, and the Family
Susan Moller Okin (Basic Books, 1991) Google Books → -
Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond
Martin O'Neill and Thad Williamson (eds.) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) Google Books → -
Beyond the Welfare State: Rawls's Radical Vision for a Better America
Martin O'Neill and Thad Williamson (Boston Review, 24 October 2012) -
Towards Justice and Virtue: A Constructive Account of Practical Reasoning
Onora O'Neill (Cambridge University Press, 1996) Google Books → -
A Theory of Justice: Original Edition
John Rawls (Harvard University Press, first published 1971; 2005) Google Books → -
A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition
John Rawls (Harvard University Press, 1999) Google Books → -
Political Liberalism
John Rawls (Columbia University Press, 2005) Google Books → -
Justice as Fairness: A Restatement
John Rawls (Harvard University Press, 2001) Google Books → -
The Rawlsian Diagnosis of Donald Trump
Samuel Scheffler (Boston Review, Feb 12, 2019) -
Inequality Reexamined
Amartya Sen (Oxford University Press, 1995) Google Books → -
An Introduction to Political Philosophy
Jonathan Wolff (Oxford University Press, 2022) Google Books →
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Programme ID: m001h4bz
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001h4bz
Auto-category: 320.01 (Political science—philosophy and theory)
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.