John Rawls

John Bordley Rawls was born February 21, 1921, and spent his career working in moral, legal, and political philosophy within the modern liberal tradition. When A Theory of Justice appeared in 1971, it resurrected normative political philosophy as a serious discipline; the book argued for "justice as fairness" — equal basic liberties, equality of opportunity, and arranging inequalities to benefit the least advantaged. His method was the "original position," a thought experiment in which people choose principles for society without knowing their future place in it. Political Liberalism followed…