John Rawls Quotes

Reason and right give the quickest despatch.

We speak of virtue, honour, reason; but our thought does not translate any one of these concepts into a substance.

That a science, which distinguishes the criterions of right and wrong; which teaches to establish the one, and prevent, punish, or redress the other; which employs in its theory the noblest faculties of the soul, and exerts in its practice the cardinal virtues of the heart; a science, which is universal in its use and extent, accommodated to each individual, yet comprehending the whole community; that a science like this should ever have been deemed unnecessary to be studied in an university, is matter of astonishment and concern.

There is no such thing as justice or injustice among those beasts that cannot make agreements not to injure or be injured. This is also true of those tribes that are unable or unwilling to make agreements not to injure or be injured.

Thus I assume that to each according to his threat advantage is not a conception of justice.

Nothing is fair. The most one can hope is for things to be logical. Justice is a rare illness in a world that is otherwise a picture of health.

The law does not generate justice. The law is nothing but a declaration and application of what is just.

Morality which is based on ideas, or on an ideal, is an unmitigated evil.

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.

Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.

Justice is nothing more than the advantage of the stronger.

The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.

Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.

Morality is either a social contract or you have to pay cash.

Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men.

The content of scientific theory itself offers no moral foundation for the personal conduct of life.

A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its greatness and beauty.

While an ethic of justice proceeds from the premise of equality—that everyone should be treated the same—an ethic of care rests on the premise of nonviolence—that no one should be hurt.

I am not advocating a morality based on evolution.

The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role.

Justice as fairness provides what we want.

No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men in their various relations with each other, in whatever circumstances they may be, that they will neither injure nor be injured.

Every human tribunal ought to take care to administer justice, as we look hereafter to have justice administered to ourselves.

O my brothers, am I then cruel? But I say: that which is falling should also be pushed!