The Original Position in Rawls

Animals in the Original Position

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls l defends two principles of justice by means of an appeal to a hypothetical "original position." However, these principles are strictly principles of justice by and for human beings, or at least by and for persons. Several philosophers have recently argued that tllis argument is flawed-is "speciesist"-in tllat there is no adequate justification for excluding a...

Rawls on Race/Race in Rawls

John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) is widely credited with having revived post–World War II Anglo American political philosophy. This book together with his later writings are routinely judged to constitute the most important body of work in that field. Indeed, with the collapse of Second World and Third World socialist ideologico-political alternatives, liberalism in one form or another h...

Rawls’ Concept of Reflective Equilibrium and Its Original Function in A Theory of Justice

Revisiting Rawls

The present paper revisits the issue of rational decision making in John Rawls’ original position. Drawing on Isaac Levi’s theory of decision, I discuss how we can defend Rawls against John C. Harsanyi’s charge that maximin reasoning in the original position is irrational. The discussion suggests that systematic application of Levi’s theory is likely to have important consequences for ethics an...

Rawls, Constructivism, and the Tragic

In 1980, the liberal political philosopher John Rawls delivered a remarkable series of lectures at Columbia University. The Dewey Lectures, subsequently published in the Journal of Philosophy as “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory,” detailed a metaethical procedure–or method for formulating principles–that informed his earlier A Theory of Justice (1971) and that would make possible its sequ...