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

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
Fundamentals
Likely
Judging
Results
Criterion
Justice
Procedure
Procedures
Criteria
Fundamental

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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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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.
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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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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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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.
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The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.
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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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Public reason arguments can be good or bad just like other arguments.
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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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There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.
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A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable.
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An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.
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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.
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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.
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No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.
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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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You hear that liberalism lacks an idea of the common good, but I think that's a mistake.
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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.
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The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind.
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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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