Leilani Merrill
John Rawls
1921-2002
John Rawls was an extremely prominent 20th century moral and political philosopher from Baltimore, Maryland.
He was exposed to injustice his whole life which led him to pursue the Academic world. His major work was his book ‘ The Theory of Justice’
Recognizing the unfairness in society. He drafted the essential metaphor of the Veil of Ignorance. The idea being it you were not you how would you want your life to be?
That is, this is a world before your birth, and you’d have no knowledge of how your life would be, how would you like it? What would you want it to be?
How should the schools, judicial system, and your parents to be? This brilliant thought experiment paved history for Rawls’s powerful influence on political thought.
The idea here is, what kind of society would it be safe to enter? To Rawls, one would want the schools to be good, easy access to hospitals, fair access to law, decrease in air pollution.
Rawls is considered to be the most
Influential political and moral philosophers of the 20th century.
Taught at:
Princeton 1950-1952
Cornell 1952-1959
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1960-1962
Harvard University, appointed James Bryant Conant University Professor in 1979.
Resource:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Rawls
Philosophy Forever 