Quote

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

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
Justice
Constitutional
Society
Conception
Political
Basic
Matter
Essentials
Matters
Institutions
Structure
Property
Applies

More quotes by John Rawls

Image
Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.
John Rawls
Image
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.
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
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
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
The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind.
John Rawls
Image
There are various ways you might define the common good, but that would be one way you could do it.
John Rawls
Image
An intuitionist conception of justice is, one might say, but half a conception.
John Rawls
Image
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.
John Rawls
Image
The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.
John Rawls
Image
The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.
John Rawls
Image
No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.
John Rawls
Image
Public reason arguments can be good or bad just like other arguments.
John Rawls
Image
Citizens can have their own grounding in their comprehensive doctrines, whatever they happen to be.
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
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.
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
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 fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.
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