Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Justice is happiness according to virtue.
Justice as fairness provides what we want.
A just system must generate its own support.
Ideal legislators do not vote their interests.
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions.
The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind.
The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.
Intuitionism is not constructive, perfectionism is unacceptable.
Peace surely is a good reason, yes. But there are other reasons too.
Public reason arguments can be good or bad just like other arguments.
A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable.
I'm concerned about the survival, historically, of constitutional democracy.
Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.
An intuitionist conception of justice is, one might say, but half a conception.
If A were not allowed his better position, B would be even worse off than he is.
It is of first importance that the military be subordinate to civilian government
We may suppose that everyone has in himself the whole form of a moral conception.
The bad man desires arbitrary power. What moves the evil man is the love of injustice.
An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.
You hear that liberalism lacks an idea of the common good, but I think that's a mistake.
Ideally a just constitution would be a just procedure arranged to insure a just outcome.
The fundamental criterion for judging any procedure is the justice of its likely results.
The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.
Thus I assume that to each according to his threat advantage is not a conception of justice.
Religious faith is an important aspect of American culture and a fact of American political life.
No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.
There are various ways you might define the common good, but that would be one way you could do it.
Citizens can have their own grounding in their comprehensive doctrines, whatever they happen to be.
The hazards of the generalized prisoner's dilemma are removed by the match between the right and the good.
The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.
The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.
A just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place.
[E]ach person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.
There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.
The circumstances of justice may be described as the normal conditions under which human cooperation is both possible and necessary.
Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties.
In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed.
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.
The idea of public reason isn't about the right answers to all these questions, but about the kinds of reasons that they ought to be answered by.
The idea of public reason has to do with how questions should be decided, but it doesn't tell you what are the good reasons or correct decisions.
We must choose for others as we have reason to believe they would choose for themselves if they were at the age of reason and deciding rationally.
A political conception covers the right to vote, the political virtues, and the good of political life, but it doesn't intend to cover anything else.
Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.
An intolerant sect has no right to complain when it is denied an equal liberty... A person's right to complain is limited to principles he acknowledges himself.
People can make arguments from the Bible if they want to. But I want them to see that they should also give arguments that all reasonable citizens might agree to.
A political conception just applies to the basic structure of a society, its institutions, constitutional essentials, matters of basic justice and property, and so on.
The strength of the claims of formal justice, of obedience to system, clearly depend upon the substantive justice of institutions and the possibilities of their reform.
Of course, we know that not everyone agrees with assisted suicide, but people might agree that one has the right to it, even if they're not themselves going to exercise it.
The claims of existing social arrangements and of self interest have been duly allowed for. We cannot at the end count them a second time because we do not like the result.
The good of political life is the good of free and equal citizens recognizing the duty of civility to one another and supporting the institutions of a constitutional regime.