This book originated as lectures for a course on political philosophy that Rawls taught regularly at Harvard in the 1980s. In time the lectures became a restatement of his theory of justice as fairness, revised in light of his more recent papers and his treatise Political Liberalism (1993). As Rawls writes in the preface, the restatement presents "in one place an account of justice as fairness as I now see it, drawing on all [my previous] works." He offers a broad overview of his main lines of thought and also explores specific issues never before addressed in any of his writings.

Rawls is well aware that since the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, American society has moved farther away from the idea of justice as fairness. Yet his ideas retain their power and relevance to debates in a pluralistic society about the meaning and theoretical viability of liberalism. This book demonstrates that moral clarity can be achieved even when a collective commitment to justice is uncertain.

Author photo: Courtesy of Harvard Photo Services

John Rawls was James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. He was recipient of the 1999 National Humanities Medal.

Erin Kelly is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University.

Other HUP Books by John Rawls

• Collected Papers
• The Law of Peoples: with "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited"
• A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition
• Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy
• Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy
• A Theory of Justice, Original Edition