Social Contract And The Currency Of Justice

Samuel Freeman was a student of the influential philosopher John Rawls, he has edited numerous books dedicated to Rawls' work and is arguably Rawls' foremost interpreter. This volume collects new and previously published articles by Freeman on Rawls. Among other things, Freeman places Rawls within historical context in the social contract tradition, and thoughtfully addresses criticisms of this position. Not only is Freeman a leading authority on Rawls, but he is an excellent thinker in his own right, and these articles will be useful to a wide range of scholars interested in Rawls and the expanse of his influence.

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Politics - Political Theory and the History of Ideas Journal, grade: A (85%), University of British Columbia (Department for Political Science), course: Modern Political Thought: John Rawls and his Critics, language: English, abstract: In “A Theory of Justice” (Rawls, 1971), John Rawls tries to develop a conception of justice that is based on a social contract. His approach, doubtlessly, led to a revival of the contract theory in modern political theory. However, his peculiar conception of a hypothetical contract has also evoked a wave of severe criticism. Some of his critics settle for condemning special features of Rawls’s contractual concept, while others maintain that Rawls’s theory is, in effect, no real contract theory. In this paper, I will therefore focus on two research questions: Is Rawls’s theory a genuine contract theory at all? If yes, does the contract play a crucial role in this theory or is there a preferable alternative available to Rawls?

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

After an old university friend and fellow archeologist's murdered, forensic archeologist Ruth Galloway travels to Lancashire to examine the bones he found, which reveal a shocking fact about King Arthur, and discovers a campus living in fear of a sinister right-wing group called the White Hand.

Very diverse societies pose real problems for Rawlsian models of public reason. This is for two reasons: first, public reason is unable accommodate diverse perspectives in determining a regulative ideal. Second, regulative ideals are unable to respond to social change. While models based on public reason focus on the justification of principles, this book suggests that we need to orient our normative theories more toward discovery and experimentation. The book develops a unique approach to social contract theory that focuses on diverse perspectives. It offers a new moral stance that author Ryan Muldoon calls, "The View From Everywhere," which allows for substantive, fundamental moral disagreement. This stance is used to develop a bargaining model in which agents can cooperate despite seeing different perspectives. Rather than arguing for an ideal contract or particular principles of justice, Muldoon outlines a procedure for iterated revisions to the rules of a social contract. It expands Mill's conception of experiments in living to help form a foundational principle for social contract theory. By embracing this kind of experimentation, we move away from a conception of justice as an end state, and toward a conception of justice as a trajectory. Listen to Robert Talisse interview Ryan Muldoon about Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World on the podcast, New Books in Philosophy: http://tinyurl.com/j9oq324 Also, read Ryan Muldoon’s related Niskanen Center article, "Diversity and Disagreement are the Solution, Not the Problem," published Jan. 10, 2017: https://niskanencenter.org/blog/diversity-disagreement-solution-not-problem/