John Rawls Quotes

79 Sourced Quotes

Ideally citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes, supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think is most reasonable to enact.

John Rawls
The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.

John Rawls
Certainly it is wrong to be cruel to animals and the destruction of a whole species can be a great evil. The capacity for feelings of pleasure and pain and for the form of life of which animals are capable clearly impose duties of compassion and humanity in their case.

John Rawls
In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed.

John Rawls
When the basic structure of society is publicly known to satisfy its principles for an extended period of time, those subject to these arrangements tend to develop a desire to act in accordance with these principles and to do their part in institutions which exemplify them

John Rawls
Different political views, even if they're all liberal, in the sense of supporting liberal constitutional democracy, undoubtedly have some notion of the common good in the form of the means provided to assure that people can make use of their liberties, and the like.

John Rawls
How did Madison get separation through Virginia and later Congress? The Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the smaller sects hated Jefferson; to them he was a secularist of the worst kind. But Madison could get Jefferson's bill passed because the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and smaller sects who were excluded in New England and in the South got together for their own protection.

John Rawls
People can make arguments from the Bible if they want to. But I want them to see that they should also give arguments that all reasonable citizens might agree to.

John Rawls
Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties.

John Rawls
Of course, we know that not everyone agrees with assisted suicide, but people might agree that one has the right to it, even if they're not themselves going to exercise it.

John Rawls
You hear that liberalism lacks an idea of the common good, but I think that's a mistake.

John Rawls
There are various ways you might define the common good, but that would be one way you could do it.

John Rawls
That persons have opposing interests and seek to advance their own conception of the good is not at all the same thing as their being moved by envy and jealousy.

John Rawls
I have assumed throughout that the persons in the original position are rational.

John Rawls
Men resign themselves to their position should it ever occur to them to question it; and since all may view themselves as assigned their vocation, everyone is held to be equally fated and equally noble in the eyes of providence.

John Rawls
I have tried to set forth a theory that enables us to understand and to assess these feelings about the primacy of justice. Justice as fairness is the outcome: it articulates these opinions and supports their general tendency.

John Rawls
The fundamental criterion for judging any procedure is the justice of its likely results.

John Rawls
The circumstances of justice may be described as the normal conditions under which human cooperation is both possible and necessary.

John Rawls
The suppression of liberty is always likely to be irrational.

John Rawls
The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.

John Rawls
A scheme is unjust when the higher expectations, one or more of them, are excessive. If these expectations were decreased, the situation of the less favored would be improved.

John Rawls
A conception of justice cannot be deduced from self evident premises or conditions on principles; instead, its justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitted together into one coherent view.

John Rawls
The difference principal, for example, requires that the higher expectations of the more advantaged contribute to the prospects of the least advantaged.

John Rawls
Being happy involves both a certain achievement in action and a rational assurance about the outcome.

John Rawls
The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role.

John Rawls
The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.

John Rawls
No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.

John Rawls
The hazards of the generalized prisoner's dilemma are removed by the match between the right and the good.

John Rawls
Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.

John Rawls
At best the principles that economists have supposed the choices of rational individuals to satisfy can be presented as guidelines for us to consider when we make our decisions.

John Rawls