Rawls, John (1921—2002)
American political philosopher best known for his work on fairness. Born in Baltimore, Rawls went to school in Baltimore and Connecticut. He did his undergraduate degree at Princeton, graduating in 1943. He then joined the army and saw active service as an infantryman in New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan, where he witnessed the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. After the war he returned to Princeton to complete a doctorate in moral philosophy. He did post-doctoral work at Oxford University in the early 1950s, where he was influenced by Isaiah Berlin. He worked then at Cornell and ANT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) before obtaining a position at Harvard in 1962, where he was to remain for the next 40 years. Rawls is best known for his 1971 magnum opus, A Theory of Justice. One of the most cited humanities books in history, A Theory of Justice focuses on the problem of distributive justice and introduces two principles which have since become famous: the principle of liberty and the principle of difference. The first principle, which Rawls regards as inviolable, holds that all people must enjoy freedom of speech, assembly, worship, and so on in order for society to be just; the second principle, which is more complicated, holds that the economy must be arranged in such a way that it is of the greatest benefit to the least well-off and that the opportunity for social advancement is made open to everyone. A Theory of Justice is a much debated work, but it has in many ways set the agenda for debate about social justice in political science since its publication nearly four decades ago. His subsequent publications, particularly Political Liberalism (1993) and The Law of Peoples (1999) extended these principles to international politics. Further Reading: C. Audard John Rawls (2006). P. Lehning John Rawls: An Introduction (2009). T. Pogge and M. Kosch John Rawls: His Life and Theory of Justice (2007).