Edmundson W. John Rawls: Reticent Socialist

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017. — 220 p. — ISBN10: 1107173191; ISBN13: 978-1107173194.This book is the first detailed reconstruction of the late work of John Rawls, who was perhaps the most influential philosopher of the twentieth century. Rawls's 1971 treatise, A Theory of Justice, stimulated an outpouring of commentary on 'justice-as-fairness,' his conception of justice for an ideal, self-contained, modern political society. Most of that commentary took Rawls to be defending welfare-state capitalism as found in Western Europe and the United States. Far less attention has been given to Rawls's 2001 book, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. In the Restatement, Rawls not only substantially reformulates the 'original position' argument for the two principles of justice-as-fairness but also repudiates capitalist regimes as possible embodiments. Edmundson further develops Rawls's non-ideal theory, which guides us when we find ourselves in a society that falls well short of justice.Conceptions of property in the original position
Property-owning democracy versus liberal socialism
Fair value and the fact of domination
The four-stage sequence
The circumstances of politics
Rescuing the difference principle
The special psychologies
Socialism and stability
The common content
The property question
Religion and reticence
Non-ideal theory: the transition to socialism