"In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"The intolerant can be viewed as free-riders, as persons who seek the advantages of just institutions while not doing their share to uphold them."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue.."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"Ideally citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes, supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think is most reasonable to enact."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"I'm concerned about the survival, historically, of constitutional democracy."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"It is of first importance that the military be subordinate to civilian government."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"Any comprehensive doctrine, religious or secular, can be introduced into any political argument at any time, but I argue that people who do this should also present what they believe are public reasons for their argument."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"Properly understood, then, the desire to act justly derives in part from the desire to express most fully what we are or can be, namely free and equal rational beings with the liberty to choose."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"Justice is happiness according to virtue."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"The bad man desires arbitrary power. What moves the evil man is the love of injustice."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable."
―John Bordley Rawls
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The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.
―John Bordley Rawls |
"Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"Thus I assume that to each according to his threat advantage is not a conception of justice."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties."
―John Bordley Rawls |
"The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"Justice as fairness provides what we want."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"A just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place."
―John Bordley Rawls
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"In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed."
―John Bordley Rawls
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