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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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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
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A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable.
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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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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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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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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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An intuitionist conception of justice is, one might say, but half a conception.
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An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.
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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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Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.
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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 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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There are various ways you might define the common good, but that would be one way you could do it.
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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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At best the principles that economists have supposed the choices of rational individuals to satisfy can be presented as guidelines for us to consider when we make our decisions.
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No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.
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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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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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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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The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.
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Religious faith is an important aspect of American culture and a fact of American political life.
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