Quote

Political philosophy is realistically utopian when it extends what are ordinarily thought to be the limits of practicable political possibility and, in so doing, reconciles us to our political and social condition. Our hope for the future of our society rests on the belief that the social world allows a reasonably just Society of Peoples.

John Rawls

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Social
Limits
Extends
Political
Possibility
Reasonably
Thought
Conditions
Utopian
World
Philosophy
Reconcile
Belief
Rests
Reconciles
Society
Peoples
Practicable
Future
Allows
Realistically
Hope
Condition
Ordinarily

More quotes by John Rawls

Image
Citizens can have their own grounding in their comprehensive doctrines, whatever they happen to be.
John Rawls
Image
The fundamental criterion for judging any procedure is the justice of its likely results.
John Rawls
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
John Rawls
Image
Justice as fairness provides what we want.
John Rawls
Image
If you compare the United States with Europe, my view is that what happened in Europe is that the church became deeply distrusted by people, because it sided with the monarchs. It instituted the Inquisition and became part of the repressive state apparatus. That never happened here. We don't have that history.
John Rawls
Image
The question is, we have a particular problem. How many religions are there in the United States? How are they going to get on together? One way, which has been the usual way historically, is to fight it out, as in France in the sixteenth century. That's a possibility.
John Rawls
Image
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
Image
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.
John Rawls
Image
Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.
John Rawls
Image
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
Image
The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.
John Rawls
Image
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.
John Rawls
Image
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.
John Rawls
Image
There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.
John Rawls
Image
The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind.
John Rawls
Image
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.
John Rawls
Image
The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.
John Rawls
Image
Public reason arguments can be good or bad just like other arguments.
John Rawls