John Rawls is dead

Harvard press release ^

[Garak]

John Rawls, influential political philosopher, dead at 81: Author of "A Theory of Justice" was James Bryant Conant University Professor Emeritus By Ken Gewertz Gazette Staff

John Rawls, the James Bryant Conant University Professor Emeritus, whose 1971 book, "A Theory of Justice" argued persuasively for a political philosophy based on equality and individual rights, died Sunday (Nov. 24) at the age of 81.

Rawls is considered by many to be the most important political philosopher of the second half of the 20th century and a powerful advocate of the liberal perspective. His work continues to be a major influence in the fields of ethics, law, political science, and economics, and has been translated into 27 languages.

Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers said, "I am deeply saddened by the death of John Rawls. He combined profound wisdom with equally profound humanity. Few if any modern philosophers have had as decisive an impact on how we think about justice. Scholars in many different fields will continue to learn from him for generations to come."

Charles Fried, the Beneficial Professor of Law at Harvard, said of Rawls, "He was the dominant figure in political and moral philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He developed an approach to the questions of moral and political philosophy which was substantive and analytic at the same time, proposing concrete answers to many questions."

In "A Theory of Justice," Rawls sets forth the proposition that "Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. Therefore, in a just society the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests."

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Rawls attended the Kent School in Kent, Conn., and earned a B.A. degree from Princeton in 1943. From 1943 to 1945 he served in New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan as an enlisted man in the U.S. infantry, later describing his military career as "singularly undistinguished." He returned to Princeton in 1946 to take up graduate studies, receiving his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1950.

Before joining the Harvard Philosophy Department in 1962, he was an instructor at Princeton (1950-52), assistant and associate professor of philosophy at Cornell (1953-59), and professor of philosophy at M.I.T. (1960-62). He was appointed the Conant University Professor at Harvard in 1979.

University professors hold Harvard's highest professorial posts. These special endowed positions were established in 1935 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College for "individuals of distinction ... working on the frontiers of knowledge, and in such a way as to cross the conventional boundaries of the specialties."

In addition to "A Theory of Justice" (nominated for a National Book Award), his publications include "Political Liberalism" (1993), "The Law of Peoples" (1999), "Collected Papers" (1999), "Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy" (2000), and "Justice as Fairness: A Restatement" (2001).

He was a member of the American Philosophical Association (president, 1974), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association of Political and Legal Philosophy (president, 1970-72), the American Philosophical Society, the British Academy, and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences. In 1999, he received the National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Rawls died of heart failure at his home in Lexington, Mass. He had suffered a series of debilitating strokes that eventually left him unable to work. He leaves his wife, Margaret Warfield Fox Rawls, four children – Anne Warfield, Robert Lee, Alexander Emory, and Elizabeth Fox – and four grandchildren.

[alrea]

big frigging fig leaf for communism

Boom. Boom. Pow.

Is it not funny how humans continue to figure out ways to try to redistribute and take the property of others?

The first rule of Marxism is deception by the political class.

[Sam Cree]

Yeah, Toohey and all his admirers were certainly a good illustration of "the emporer with no clothes." I guess it's fitting that similar remarks about Rawls (by SkyPilot) appear in this discussion.

One of my favorite things about "The Fountainhead" is that Rand points out that socialism destroys people's personal dreams and their ability to follow them, instead, substituting an "official" state dream for them. Eerily similar to the thinking of the Democrats.

[Cosmo]

Absolutely right. If you want to understand the theory behind modern-day penchant for wealth redistribution, A Theory of Justice is where you must turn. It's a terrible book -- predicated on misguided assumptions about the nature of man. But perhaps the best condemnation came from the great political philosopher James Ceaser , who , when I asked him about Rawls, said that " tried to attend his lectures, but decided that no one had a right to bore him for two hours at a time."

[Doctor Stochastic]

In "A Theory of Justice," Rawls sets forth the proposition that "Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. Therefore, in a just society the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests."

It's good to see that you understand that individual liberties are the foundation are liberalism.

[diotima]

Ping

[cornelis]

Looking at the dead body of the hero Ajax, King Agamemnon exclaims, my enemy is still my enemy, even in death. And to this Oedipus replies,

I pity his wretchedness, though he is my enemy

For the terrible yoke of blindness that is on him

I think of him, yet also of myself

For I see the true state of all of us that live

We are dim shapes, no more, and weightless shadow

RIP

[Jim Noble]

>>argued persuasively for a political philosophy based on equality and individual rights<<

A political system based on equality cannot allow any individual rights.

[Inkie]

I don't mind colleges requiring reading like this. The problem comes when they do not balance it with other views. And I mean sound thinkers, not the idiot representatives of conservativism they sometimes throw in just to discredit it.

[Revelation 911]

buh-bye

[verity]

Kind of sickening to read how many honors academia piled on this guy.

Validates the phrase Piled High and Deep.

[beckett]

Mundus vult decipi (All the world wants to be deceived)

RIP John Rawls

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

Rawls was part of the academic leftist Mutual Admiration Society. His work is highly over-rated and built on faulty assumptions. I spent several pages of a paper for Business Ethics in grad school refuting this guy. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

[laredo44]

A political system based on equality cannot allow any individual rights.

Precisely the mistake the French made: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. This makes sense to Europeans and is what holds them back.

[Snickersnee]

I was in law school when his magnum opus came out, and every professor praised it to the skies. For them, it was the Declaration, the Constitution and the Federalist all rolled into one -- and in fact, if they thought they could substitute them with "A Theory of Justice" they would have gladly done it.

[WOSG]

"You don't get it" ...famous last words to stop a reasoned debate dead.

I just read an article about the internet bubble where they asked the question: How did so many supposedly smart people just run off a cliff and make so many bad investment decisions and pretend the laws of economics didnt exist? How did $3 Trillion get smoked by the bubble?

One answer came through clearly. When a skeptic raised a reasoned objection, the simple, easy retort from the 'enlightened' who "drank the kool aid" was: You just don't get it.

Eventually even the skeptics succumbed, thinking they 'didnt get' something that was going on. All they were missing was a sense that human psychology often rationalizes the irrational.

[aristeides]

. The highest priority should be to serve the most disadvantaged member. The interests of the most advantaged member of society should be government's lowest priority.

Insane priorities. So, if bums don't benefit from a policy (say, cutting taxes,) it should not be adopted, even if it were to have an effect like multiplying by a factor of ten the real income of 95% (or even 99%) of the population.

[FreeTheHostages]

This is a sad day.

John Rawls was a great man. He wrote in the tradition of Kant and John Stuart Mills. He was a liberal in the 18th century English sense -- I imagine a lot of libertarians on this thread would enjoy and agree with portions of his work.

I had the opportunity to study with him at Harvard. As a human being, he was just the most wonderful guy around. A real mensch.

I've no doubt he's gone to see the Lord. God Bless him.

[FreeTheHostages]

Permit me to add, for those who would quarrel with portions of his philosophy, 3 points:

John Rawls himself was always frustrated that people took his work for a political prescription. He often noted he just proposing a theory of "justice," but that he knew that goal and value might be weighed against others. He believed himself -- and many people, including politically right professors of political philosophy -- to have a philosophically rigourous structure to his work. So those of you who post that his stuff was sill and stupid will have to deal with the facts that the leading conservative thinkers felt the need to comment and address his stuff. People (like Ronald Dworkin) I'd be more inclined to agree with. He was a great mind. No amounting of posting here to the contrary can undo that.

Second point. On a personal level, he was a really great guy. He was just very nice. There are people here who have expressed approval of his death. That's just not nice. We should all have more respect for each other. Someone else has posted here that he won't be welcome in Heaven. I met the man, I knew the man, and I find that extremely unlikely.

Third, for Prof. Rawls, part of being liberal in the classical sense (think, again, John Stuart Mills) is being open to new ideas and ways of thought. I took his class, Phil 171. Much of the grade depending on the final paper. Mine was not written from his political perspective. Not only did he give me an "A," but he sent a message through a teaching assistant that if I were to choose to major in philosophy (I did not), he thought that might be a good selection for me. So he was an open-minded guy. He recognized the merit of challenges from other political philosophy. He didn't just throw mud at people he disagreed with. He really was an intellectual. There should be room everywhere for such people, IMHO.