A Companion to Rawls

There is little doubt that John Rawls was the preeminent English speaking political philosopher of the twentieth century. His monumental 1971 book, A Theory of Justice, is often credited with revitalizing political philosophy. Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in publications on Rawls, but while the depth and significance of his work on social justice is generally acknowledged, the breadth of his contribution to philosophy is often neglected.

With the publication of A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith, Rawls′s corpus now stands at eight books, comprising some 3,500 pages of text. A Companion to Rawls provides a comprehensive and up–to–date study of the totality of Rawls′s work from informed, reliable, but diverse and sometimes critical perspectives. It is a "must–have" volume for students and scholars with a serious interest in Rawls′s work.

Notes on Contributors ix

Introduction 1
Jon Mandle and David A. Reidy

Part I Ambitions 7

1 From Philosophical Theology to Democratic Theory: Early Postcards from an Intellectual Journey 9
David A. Reidy

2 Does Justice as Fairness Have a Religious Aspect? 31
Paul Weithman

Part II Method 57

3 Constructivism as Rhetoric 59
Anthony Simon Laden

4 Kantian Constructivism 73
Larry Krasnoff

5 The Basic Structure of Society as the Primary Subject of Justice 88
Samuel Freeman

6 Rawls on Ideal and Nonideal Theory 112
Zofia Stemplowska and Adam Swift

7 The Choice from the Original Position 128
Jon Mandle

Part III A Theory of Justice 145

8 The Priority of Liberty 147
Robert S. Taylor

9 Applying Justice as Fairness to Institutions 164
Colin M. Macleod

10 Democratic Equality as a Work–in–Progress 185
Stuart White

11 Stability, a Sense of Justice, and Self–Respect 200
Thomas E. Hill, Jr

12 Political Authority, Civil Disobedience, Revolution 216
Alexander Kaufman

Part IV A Political Conception 233

13 The Turn to a Political Liberalism 235
Gerald Gaus

14 Political Constructivism 251
Aaron James

15 On the Idea of Public Reason 265
Jonathan Quong

16 Overlapping Consensus 281
Rex Martin

17 Citizenship as Fairness: John Rawls s Conception of Civic Virtue 297
Richard Dagger

18 Inequality, Difference, and Prospects for Democracy 312
Erin I. Kelly

Part V Extending Political Liberalism: International Relations 325

19 The Law of Peoples 327
Huw Lloyd Williams

20 Human Rights 346
Gillian Brock

21 Global Poverty and Global Inequality 361
Richard W. Miller

22 Just War 378
Darrel Moellendorf

Part VI Conversations with Other Perspectives 395

23 Rawls, Mill, and Utilitarianism 397
Jonathan Riley

24 Perfectionist Justice and Rawlsian Legitimacy 413
Steven Wall

25 The Unwritten Theory of Justice: Rawlsian Liberalism versus Libertarianism 430
Barbara H. Fried

26 The Young Marx and the Middle–Aged Rawls 450
Daniel Brudney

27 Challenges of Global and Local Misogyny 472
Claudia Card

28 Critical Theory and Habermas 487
Kenneth Baynes

29 Rawls and Economics 504
Daniel Little

30 Learning from the History of Political Philosophy 526
S.A. Lloyd

31 Rawls and the History of Moral Philosophy: The Cases of Smith and Kant 546
Paul Guyer

Index 567

Jon Mandle is Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University at Albany (SUNY). He has published two books on the work of John Rawls and one on global justice. His work engages in political philosophy, ethics, the philosophy of social science, and their histories.

David A. Reidy is Professor and Head in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee. He works in political and legal philosophy with special attention to the work of John Rawls and to issues of global justice and human rights. With Rex Martin he co–edited (and contributed to) a volume on Rawls′s "The Law of Peoples" recognized by the American Library Association with a "Choice Award."