Rawls’ Theory of Justice

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) 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
• 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, 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 (Political science)