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Justice is the first virtue of social institutions.

John Rawls

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John Rawls
Age: 81 †
Born: 1921
Born: February 21
Died: 2002
Died: November 24
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Political Scientist
University Teacher
Baltimore
Maryland
Rawls
John Bordley Rawls
Institutions
Virtue
Justice
Social
Firsts
First

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Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties.
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I live in a country where 90 or 95 percent of the people profess to be religious, and maybe they are religious, though my experience of religion suggests that very few people are actually religious in more than a conventional sense.
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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.
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The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.
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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.
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A political conception just applies to the basic structure of a society, its institutions, constitutional essentials, matters of basic justice and property, and so on.
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A political conception covers the right to vote, the political virtues, and the good of political life, but it doesn't intend to cover anything else.
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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
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Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.
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Justice as fairness provides what we want.
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The good of political life is the good of free and equal citizens recognizing the duty of civility to one another and supporting the institutions of a constitutional regime.
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There are various ways you might define the common good, but that would be one way you could do it.
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An intuitionist conception of justice is, one might say, but half a conception.
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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.
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Now the good of political life is a great political good. It is not a secular good specified by a comprehensive doctrine like those of Kant or Mill. You could characterize this political good as the good of free and equal citizens recognizing the duty of civility to one another: the duty to give citizens public reasons for one's political actions.
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Public reason arguments can be good or bad just like other arguments.
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The idea of public reason isn't about the right answers to all these questions, but about the kinds of reasons that they ought to be answered by.
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Citizens can have their own grounding in their comprehensive doctrines, whatever they happen to be.
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Religious faith is an important aspect of American culture and a fact of American political life.
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The idea of public reason has to do with how questions should be decided, but it doesn't tell you what are the good reasons or correct decisions.
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