Political philosopher who teaches at
Harvard. Rawls is probably the most widely-read philosopher of the twentieth century. His books,
Political Liberalism and
A Theory of Justice, revived American political philosophy.
Rawls bases his
theory on a
social contract. He opposes the
utilitarian position of
justice because he believes that justice is the outcome of more than pure
utility. Rawls defines justice as
fairness, and proposes a means to true fairness: the "veil of ignorance". Basically, the idea is that if everyone were behind a veil of ignorance, not knowing their position in
society, they would administer justice fairly, giving everyone in all social positions their due. Thus, the rich would be more
sympathetic to the poor, and those with the advantage of an
education would be more helpful to those without. This is also known as distributive justice.