Born: 2/21/1921   Died: 11/24/2002

Rawls was a contemporary social contract theorist at Harvard University and arguably the most important political philosopher of the 20th century. In his best known work, A Theory of Justice, Rawls' guiding idea is that in a just society the laws and institutions would not confer advantages on some people at the expense of others based on natural and social contingencies that are arbitrary from a moral standpoint. In developing his own account of "justice as fairness," Rawls asks us to imagine ourselves choosing principles of justice from an original position of equality in which we lack knowledge of our social and economic standing, race, sex, natural abilities, and other socially relevant facts. Rawls argues that we would put priority, first, on providing equal liberties and fair opportunities for all and, second, on maximizing the share of income and wealth of those least advantaged.