The late Harvard philosopher, John Rawls, wrote one of the most influential works in 20th century political thought — his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice. Twenty-two years later, he updated some of his ideas from A Theory of Justice with in Political Liberalism. In both of those works, Rawls seeks to lay out a comprehensive philosophical framework for an egalitarian / social justice conception of liberalism. As part of that, he covers the twin concepts of rationality and what it means to be reasonable.
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Income Inequality and Rawlsian Justice
John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971) provides an interesting perspective on how we might organize society. Rawls asks how we would do that if we could do so from an “original position.” This hypothetical original position denies us any knowledge about where we fit in society. This should allow us to deal fairly with things like social or income inequality.
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