john rawls (1921-2002), american moral and political philosopher, whose major work, a theory of justice, had a profound impact on ethics and political theory after its publication in 1971.
john rawls was born in baltimore, maryland. he earned a ph.d. in philosophy from princeton university in 1950. rawls joined the faculty at harvard university in 1962, where he served as a professor of philosophy until his retirement in 1991. he also taught at princeton, cornell university, and the massachusetts institute of technology (mit).
in his work rawls sought to develop an alternative conception of justice to that of utilitarianism--the doctrine that humans should always act in a way that provides the greatest benefits for the most people. rawls considered this doctrine a threat to individual rights and aligned himself instead with social and political philosophers such as thomas hobbes, john locke, jean jacques rousseau, and immanuel kant, who viewed society in terms of a social contract.
the principles of justice, rawls argued, determine how the benefits and burdens of society are to be distributed among individuals in a fair manner. thus for rawls, justice is fairness. yet how can people determine what is fair, especially in a society of great inequalities and diverse interpretations of the good life? rawls theorized that the principles of fairness are those that would be agreed upon by people in a hypothetical situation he referred to as the “original position.”
imagine, rawls said, that humans are disinterested moral agents who do not know the particulars of their situation in life, including race, sex, or economic status. rawls believed that in this original position people would agree on two principles. the first is that basic rights and liberties should be as extensive as possible for each individual without infringing on the rights and liberties of other individuals. the second is that any social and economic inequalities should be equally available to any position and should provide the greatest benefit for the least advantaged.
rawls’s resulting view, known as the difference principle, implied that no advantage can morally exist if it does not benefit the most highly disadvantaged. critics have attacked this view for a variety of reasons. some critics claim, for example, that an obligation to others is not created if an advantage is gained without harming anyone.
rawls’s first book, a theory of justice, has been translated into many languages. in 1993 rawls published his second book, political liberalism. this work extends his earlier concepts more fully into the political realm by focusing on the question of justice within a strongly pluralistic society--that is, a society made up of many diverse groups.
other writings by rawls include the law of peoples (1999) and justice as fairness (2001). he received the national humanities medal in 1999.
(encarta encyclopedia)
约翰·罗尔斯（john rawls，1921年2月21日－2002年11月24日），美国政治哲学家、伦理学家。普林斯顿大学哲学博士，哈佛大学教授，写过《正义论》（a theory of justice（1971））、《政治自由主义》、《作为公平的正义：正义新论》、《万民法》等名著，是20世纪英语世界最著名的政治哲学家之一。
20世纪70年代西方新自然法学派的主要代表之一，同时也是20世纪最伟大的哲学家之一。他培养的许多学生现今都成了道德和政治哲学的重要人物，如：纳格尔（thomas nagel）和科恩（joshua cohen）等。