key thinker: john rawls

a theory of justice: society must be just n guarantee each citizen a life worth living

the veil of ignorance: a hypothetical scenario where individuals agree on the type of society they want from a position where they lack knowledge of their own position in society

quote: “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.”

main ideas:

• to the traditional liberal idea of formal equality, Rawls added the need for equal social n political rights

• believed that people would prefer a society where there is little inequality and there is equality of opportunity, if asked to choose what kind of society they preferred without knowing in advance where they would stand in such a society

• his conception of social justice (“distributive justice”) was that inequality in a modern capitalist-based society could be justified as long as those who do well economically do not do so @ the expense of the least well-off in society

  • aka » we should not be allowed to prosper at the expense of others

• strongly supported individual liberty but insisted that freedom - formal, society n economic - should be available to all in society on an equal basis

  • has influenced many modern politicians on the cntre-left