Societal Cooperation in Latest Rawls

Bibliographic Data

ID20143388
AuthorsJon Garthoff (0000-0003-0599-1619, Department of Philosophy University of Tennessee Knoxville Tennessee USA, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume91
Issue5
Publication date2025-10-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheoria (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-5825 • E-ISSN: 1755-2567
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/theo.70030
OpenAlexW4411615505
LanguageEN
References cited45

This essay investigates John Rawls's understanding of societal cooperation in his latest work, where he presents a family of conceptions of political justice as the object of consensus in an ideally just society. This contrasts with both Rawls's 1971 position in A Theory of Justice and the original 1993 edition of Political Liberalism , each of which presents a single conception of justice as the focus of consensus. This change ramifies through his theory in ways that have not been fully explored. Rawls's arguments for his favoured conception of justice—justice as fairness—must also be re‐understood in light of this change. This essay explains why this is significant by explaining those ramifications and their attendant re‐understandings of Rawls's arguments. The essay furthermore clarifies the role of stability within Rawls's approach, articulating an account of both the principal aspects of Rawlsian stability and the characteristic threats to this type of stability. It closes by offering an alternative conception of a well‐ordered society which is needed to complement Rawls's own

Economics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Mathematical economics · Political science · Positive economics · Sociology · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Religion and Society Interactions · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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