John Rawls

J. Donald Moon

doi:10.5771/9781442238282

Summary

Donald Moon’s John Rawls: Liberalism and the Challenges of Late Modernity is distinguished not only by the originality of its contribution to the literature on one of the most important political philosophers of the 20th century, but for an argument that will be accessible to students as well as scholars of justice and its complex array of controversial issues at the heart of our hyper-modern globalized world. Rawls’s work is often viewed primarily through the lens of liberal theories of social justice focusing on issues of income distribution and economic inequality. Moon allows for a more complete understanding of Rawls’ legacy by setting his account of social justice in the context of modern and increasingly pluralistic democracies. Moon’s reading of Rawls shows how his work breaks with political theory’s traditional aspiration to provide a general theory of politics, including a theory of justice, which can be rationally vindicated. Instead, Rawls views theorizing as itself a practical, political form of engagement, which offers a specifically political conception of justice and political principles more generally that speak to the conditions of modern, democratic citizens.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2014
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4422-3827-5
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4422-3828-2
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 139
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Preface and Acknowledgments No access
1. Rawls No access
2. Grounding Political Principles No access
3. Religion and Public Reason No access
4. Democracy and Class Inequality No access
5. Global Justice No access
6. Notes No access
1. Justice as Grounded in Comprehensive Doctrines No access
2. Political Conceptions of Justice No access
3. 1. The Basic Structure of Society and the “Institutional Division of Labor” No access
  2. Reciprocity, Legitimacy, and Public Reason No access
  3. The Scope of Public Reason No access
  4. Overlapping Consensus No access
4. 1. Moral Powers, Primary Goods, and the Basic Structure No access
  2. The Original Position and the Two Principles of Justice No access
5. Conclusion No access
6. Notes No access
1. Restraint and Privatization No access
2. The Need for Consensus No access
3. The Question of Priority No access
4. Toleration and Exclusion No access
5. Conclusion No access
6. Notes No access
1. 1. Justice as Fairness No access
  2. Justifying the Difference Principle No access
2. Incentives and Inequality No access
3. Pluralism and Social Justice No access
4. Merit and Desert No access
5. Notes No access
1. Rawls’s Law of Peoples No access
2. 1. Extension to Decent Peoples No access
  2. Objections No access
  3. Reply to Objections No access
  4. The Problem of “Liberal Imperialism” No access
3. 1. Solidarity versus Social Coordination No access
  2. A Global Basic Structure? No access
4. Globalization, Democracy, and Domestic Basic Structures No access
5. Conclusion: Justice and Global Inequality No access
6. Appendix No access
7. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
Bibliography No access Pages 131 - 136
Index No access Pages 137 - 139