John Rawls - A Theory of Justice (1971)

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The strength of the claims of formal justice, of obedience to system, clearly depend upon the substantive justice of institutions and the possibilities of their reform.

John Rawls
There is a divergence between private and social accounting that the market fails to register. One essential task of law and government is to institute the necessary conditions.

John Rawls
To each according to his threat advantage does not count as a principle of justice.

John Rawls
The intolerant can be viewed as free-riders, as persons who seek the advantages of just institutions while not doing their share to uphold them.

John Rawls
Greater intelligence, wealth and opportunity, for example, allow a person to achieve ends he could not rationally contemplate otherwise.

John Rawls
Properly understood, then, the desire to act justly derives in part from the desire to express most fully what we are or can be, namely free and equal rational beings with the liberty to choose.

John Rawls
I am particularly grateful to Nozick for his unfailing help and encouragement during the last stages.

John Rawls
The claims of existing social arrangements and of self interest have been duly allowed for. We cannot at the end count them a second time because we do not like the result.

John Rawls
Indeed, it is tempting to suppose that it is self evident that things should be so arranged so as to lead to the most good.

John Rawls
The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.

John Rawls
An intuitionist conception of justice is, one might say, but half a conception.

John Rawls
Ideally a just constitution would be a just procedure arranged to insure a just outcome.

John Rawls
We must choose for others as we have reason to believe they would choose for themselves if they were at the age of reason and deciding rationally.

John Rawls
The first statement of the two principals reads as follows. First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.

John Rawls
Essentially the fault lies in the fact that the democratic political process is at best regulated rivalry; it does not even in theory have the desirable properties that price theory ascribes to truly competitive markets.

John Rawls
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

John Rawls
Let us now consider whether justice requires the toleration of the intolerant, and if so under what conditions. There are a variety of situations in which this question arises. Some political parties in democratic states hold doctrines that commit them to suppress the constitutional liberties whenever they have the power. Again, there are those who reject intellectual freedom but who nevertheless hold positions in the university. It may appear that toleration in these cases is inconsistent with the principles of justice, or at any rate not required by them.

John Rawls
There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.

John Rawls
Thus I assume that to each according to his threat advantage is not a conception of justice.

John Rawls
We may suppose that everyone has in himself the whole form of a moral conception.

John Rawls
An intolerant sect has no right to complain when it is denied an equal liberty. … A person's right to complain is limited to principles he acknowledges himself.

John Rawls
In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class.

John Rawls
Justice does not require that men must stand idly by while others destroy the basis of their existence.

John Rawls
If A were not allowed his better position, B would be even worse off than he is.

John Rawls
First of all, principles should be general. That is, it must be possible to formulate them without use of what would be intuitively recognized as proper names, or rigged definite descriptions.

John Rawls
An individual who finds that he enjoys seeing others in positions of lesser liberty understands that he has no claim whatever to this enjoyment.

John Rawls
Intuitionism is not constructive, perfectionism is unacceptable.

John Rawls
In justice as fairness society is interpreted as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage.

John Rawls
Inequalities are permissible when they maximize, or at least all contribute to, the long term expectations of the least fortunate group in society.

John Rawls
Yet it seems extraordinary that the justice of increasing the expectations of the better placed by a billion dollars, say, should turn on whether the prospects of the least favored increase or decrease by a penny.

John Rawls