John Rawls - Contribution To Political and Moral Philosophy

Contribution To Political and Moral Philosophy

Rawls is noted for his contributions to liberal political philosophy. Among the ideas from Rawls' work that have received wide attention are:

  • Justice as Fairness
  • The original position
  • Reflective equilibrium
  • Overlapping consensus
  • Public reason
  • Veil of ignorance
  • Political constructivism

There is general agreement in academia that the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971 was important to a revival, following its release, in the academic study of political philosophy. His work has crossed disciplinary lines, receiving serious attention from economists, legal scholars, political scientists, sociologists, healthcare resource allocators, and theologians. Rawls has the unique distinction among contemporary political philosophers of being frequently cited by the courts of law in the United States and Canada and referred to by practicing politicians in the United States and United Kingdom.

Read more about this topic:  John Rawls

Famous quotes containing the words contribution to, contribution, political, moral and/or philosophy:

    “Parents are used to being made to feel guilty about...their contribution to the population problem, the school tax burden, and declining test scores. They expect to be blamed by teachers and psychologists, if not by police. And they will be blamed by the children themselves. It is hardy a wonder, then, that they withdraw into what used to be called “permissiveness” but is really neglect.”
    —C. John Sommerville (20th century)

    “Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.”
    —F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    “I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.... It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”
    —Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    “... moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false.”
    —René Descartes (1596–1650)

    “The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a sign,—is it not? of new vigor, when the extremities are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)