A Theory of Justice
John Rawls 

John Rawls, Eine Theorie der Gerechtigkeit, 22. Auflage, Suhrkamp 2020.
Please note, that the reading sample is only available in German

John Rawls (*1921 Baltimore, †2002) was an American philosopher and professor at Harvard University who is considered a central and widely discussed representative of 20th-century political philosophy. In his major work, A Theory of Justice (1971), he developed a position of social equality from which members of a society are supposed to agree on specific principles of justice. In his approach, socially disadvantaged groups, as well as questions of the distribution of material resources and education, play a crucial role. At the same time, he represents a liberal self-understanding in which the freedom of the individual within democracy is a high good. Despite his efforts to achieve social and political justice, Rawls’ theory has been increasingly hijacked by neoliberal discourse and used as legitimation for an accentuated economic liberalism.