Development and Main Outlines of Rawls's Theory of Justice

John Rawls is the pre-eminent political philosopher of our time. His 1971 masterpiece, A Theory of Justice, permanently changed the landscape of moral and political theory, revitalizing the normative study of social issues and taking stands about justice, ethics, rationality, and philosophical method that continue to draw followers and critics today. His Political Liberalism (rev. ed., 1996) squarely faced the fundamental challenges posed by cultural, religious, and philosophical pluralism. It should be no surprise, then, that turn-of-the-century searches of the periodical indices in philosophy, economics, law, the humanities, and related fields turn up almost three thousand articles devoted to a critical discussion of Rawls's theory. In these Volumes we reprint a wide-ranging selection of the most influential and insightful articles on Rawls.

This Volume presents a selection of the secondary literature most important to understanding the development and the main outlines of the view that Rawls set out in A Theory of Justice [TJ]. The articles reprinted in this Volume provide a window into the evolution of Rawls's views prior to TJ and cover the most controversial aspects of his compelling new articulation of the social-contract tradition.