Philosopher · Contemporary
John Rawls
1921–2002 · Political liberalism
Once intended for the Episcopal priesthood; lost his faith in the war, as his late essay “On My Religion” records.
A Theory of Justice revived the social contract with the “original position” behind a “veil of ignorance,” yielding equal basic liberties and the difference principle; Political Liberalism later argued that a just society must rest on an “overlapping consensus” and that citizens should argue in “public reason” without appeal to comprehensive doctrines, religious or philosophical.
Why he matters: His public reason is the dominant account of how religion may speak in a liberal state, and Catholic political thought (Murray's heirs, Finnis, MacIntyre, Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est 28) has had to answer it; the difference principle is sometimes compared with the preferential option for the poor.
Where to be careful
The exclusion of religious reasons from public justification sits against Dignitatis Humanae 1 and the Church's claim to speak on the moral order of society (CCC 2244–2246; Gaudium et Spes 76); the priority of the right over the good inverts the natural law; his contractarianism is rejected in Diuturnum Illud; he applied public reason to defend abortion rights.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.