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

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
Doubt
Theorems
Situation
Variations
Moral
Initial
Many
Initials
Variation
Geometry
Infinitely
Therefore
Indefinitely

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A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
John Rawls
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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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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.
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Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.
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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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An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.
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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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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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An intuitionist conception of justice is, one might say, but half a conception.
John Rawls
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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.
John Rawls
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Citizens can have their own grounding in their comprehensive doctrines, whatever they happen to be.
John Rawls
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The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind.
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[E]ach person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.
John Rawls
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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.
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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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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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