John Rawls Quotes

A just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place.

The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.

The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.

An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.

The bad man desires arbitrary power. What moves the evil man is the love of injustice.

In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class.

The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties.

No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.

[E]ach person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.

The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well.

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions.

Justice as fairness provides what we want.

A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable.

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.

Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.

Justice is happiness according to virtue.

The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind.

Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.

Any comprehensive doctrine, religious or secular, can be introduced into any political argument at any time, but I argue that people who do this should also present what they believe are public reasons for their argument. So their opinion is no longer just that of one particular party, but an opinion that all members of a society might reasonably agree to, not necessarily that they would agree to. What's important is that people give the kinds of reasons that can be understood and appraised apart from their particular comprehensive doctrines.

The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.

I have tried to set forth a theory that enables us to understand and to assess these feelings about the primacy of justice. Justice as fairness is the outcome: it articulates these opinions and supports their general tendency.

Certainly it is wrong to be cruel to animals and the destruction of a whole species can be a great evil. The capacity for feelings of pleasure and pain and for the form of life of which animals are capable clearly impose duties of compassion and humanity in their case.

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.