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The Liberal-Communitarian Debate And The Development Of A Political Conception Of The Person, Kenneth Howard Biggs

Dissertations and Theses

Without doubt, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice is one of the most important statements of Anglo-American political philosophy in the twentieth century. Through a revival of the social contract device, Rawls formulates a set of principles of correct political association ("the right") that he argues must be considered as prior to any conception of the good. These principles apply to all persons as free and equal beings in society, but more importantly they assume some things about the nature of persons in that society. On the institutional aspect of his theory, Rawls conceives of the state as a neutral …