Since it appeared in 1971, John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice has become a classic. The author has now revised the original edition to clear up a number of difficulties he and others have found in the original book.

Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition—justice as fairness—and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the social contract as a more satisfactory account of the basic rights and liberties of citizens as free and equal persons. “Each person,” writes Rawls, “possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.” Advancing the ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Lincoln, Rawls’s theory is as powerful today as it was when first published.

Table of Contents

Part One. Theory

Chapter I. Justice as Fairness
1. The Role of Justice
2. The Subject of Justice
3. The Main Idea of the Theory of Justice
4. The Original Position and Justification
5. Classical Utilitarianism
6. Some Related Contrasts
7. Intuitionism
8. The Priority Problem
9. Some Remarks about Moral Theory
Chapter II. The Principles of Justice
10. Institutions and Formal Justice
11. Two Principles of Justice
12. Interpretations of the Second Principle
13. Democratic Equality and the Difference Principle
14. Fair Equality of Opportunity and Pure Procedural Justice
15. Primary Social Goods as the Basis of Expectations
16. Relevant Social Positions
17. The Tendency to Equality
18. Principles for Individuals: The Principle of Fairness
19. Principles for Individuals: The Natural Duties
Chapter III. The Original Position
20. The Nature of the Argument for Conceptions of Justice
21. The Presentation of Alternatives
22. The Circumstances of Justice
23. The Formal Constraints of the Concept of Right
24. The Veil of Ignorance
25. The Rationality of the Parties
26. The Reasoning Leading to the Two Principles of Justice
27. The Reasoning Leading to the Principle of Average Utility
28. Some Difficulties with the Average Principle
29. Some Main Grounds for the Two Principles of Justice
30. Classical Utilitarianism, Impartiality, and Benevolence

Part Two. Institutions

Chapter IV. Equal Liberty
31. The Four-Stage Sequence
32. The Concept of Liberty
33. Equal Liberty of Conscience
34. Toleration and the Common Interest
35. Toleration of the Intolerant
36. Political Justice and the Constitution
37. Limitations on the Principle of Participation
38. The Rule of Law
39. The Priority of Liberty Defined
40. The Kantian Interpretation of Justice as Fairness
Chapter V. Distributive Shares
41. The Concept of Justice in Political Economy
42. Some Remarks about Economic Systems
43. Background Institutions for Distributive Justice
44. The Problem of Justice between Generations
45. Time Preference
46. Further Cases of Priority
47. The Precepts of Justice
48. Legitimate Expectations and Moral Desert
49. Comparison with Mixed Conceptions
50. The Principle of Perfection
Chapter VI. Duty and Obligation
51. The Arguments for the Principles of Natural Duty
52. The Arguments for the Principle of Fairness
53. The Duty to Comply with an Unjust Law
54. The Status of Majority Rule
55. The Definition of Civil Disobedience
56. The Definition of Conscientious Refusal
57. The Justification of Civil Disobedience
58. The Justification of Conscientious Refusal
59. The Role of Civil Disobedience

Part Three. Ends

Chapter VII. Goodness and Rationality
60. The Need for a Theory of the Good
61. The Definition of Good for Simpler Cases
62. A Note on Meaning
63. The Definition of Good for Plans of Life
64. Deliberative Rationality
65. The Aristotelian Principle
66. The Definition of Good Applied to Persons
67. Self-Respect, Excellences, and Shame
68. Several Contrasts between the Right and the Good
Chapter VIII. The Sense of Justice
69. The Concept of a Well-Ordered Society
70. The Morality of Authority
71. The Morality of Association
72. The Morality of Principles
73. Features of the Moral Sentiments
74. The Connection between Moral and Natural Attitudes
75. The Principles of Moral Psychology
76. The Problem of Relative Stability
77. The Basis of Equality
Chapter IX. The Good of Justice
78. Autonomy and Objectivity
79. The Idea of Social Union
80. The Problem of Envy
81. Envy and Equality
82. The Grounds for the Priority of Liberty
83. Happiness and Dominant Ends
84. Hedonism as a Method of Choice
85. The Unity of the Self
86. The Good of the Sense of Justice
87. Concluding Remarks on Justification