The revival of political philosophy in the 20th century is to no small extended due to the work of John Rawls. Published in 1971, A Theory of Justice first offered a conception of justice as fairness that Rawls later works – Political Liberalism (1993) and The Law of Peoples (1999) – further developed, refined and generalized to the international sphere. Thirty years later, in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, Rawls integrates his later work systematically into to a restatement of his theory of justice. Thus, this book serves as an ideal entry into Rawls’ thought.
The seminar is designed as a reading class: Although we will of course pay attention to important criticisms and developments, the focus is on reading and discussing Rawls’ book.
Allgemeine Literatur zur Vorbereitung
Daniels, Norman (ed.) (1975): Reading Rawls. Critical studies on Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. New York: Basic Books.
Freeman, Samuel (ed.) (2003): The Cambridge Companion to Rawls. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pogge, Thomas W. (2007): John Rawls. His Life and Theory of Justice. Translated by Michelle Kosch. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (This is a translation of: Pogge, Thomas W. (1994): John Rawls. München: Beck.)
Rawls, John (2001): Justice as Fairness. A Restatement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Rawls, John (2003 [1999]): The Law of Peoples. With »The Idea of Public Reason Revisited«. 5. edn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, John (2005 [1993]): Political liberalism. Expanded edn. New York: Columbia University Press.
Voice, Paul (2011): Rawls Explained. From Fairness to Utopia. Chicago/La Salle: Open Court.