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Political and Social Philosophy

Theories of Justice and Liberalism

The central twentieth-century debates over distributive justice, from Rawls's revival of social-contract theory to the libertarian, communitarian, capabilities, and luck-egalitarian responses that defined the boundaries of contemporary liberal political theory.

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  1. Rawls's A Theory of Justice and the Original Position. Rawls's original position and veil of ignorance ground principles of justice in fair, impartial agreement.
  2. The Difference Principle and Justice as Fairness. The difference principle permits inequality only when it maximally benefits society's least advantaged members.
  3. Nozick's Entitlement Theory and Libertarian Critique of Rawls. Nozick's entitlement theory grounds just holdings in history, not patterns, limiting the state to protection.
  4. Communitarian Critiques: Sandel, MacIntyre, and Walzer. Sandel, MacIntyre, and Walzer challenge liberal universalism by grounding justice in community and tradition.
  5. Sen and Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach. Sen and Nussbaum's capabilities approach evaluates justice by people's real freedoms to achieve valuable functionings.
  6. Dworkin on Equality of Resources. Dworkin's equality of resources uses a hypothetical auction and insurance market to combine ambition and compensation.
  7. Global Justice: Cosmopolitan versus Statist Positions. Cosmopolitans extend distributive justice worldwide; statists confine it to the coercive institutions of the state.
  8. Contemporary Debates on Luck Egalitarianism. Luck egalitarianism ties just inequality to choice, but relational critics fault it for stigmatizing the unlucky.

This is the starting point of Political and Social Philosophy: you don't need any prior knowledge of this subject to begin.

Key points

Visual module map

1Rawls's A Theory of Justice and the Original Position
2Nozick's Entitlement Theory and Libertarian Critique of Rawls
3Sen and Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach
4Dworkin on Equality of Resources
5Contemporary Debates on Luck Egalitarianism

Alternative visual view: a simplified sequence of some of the module's key points, in their order within the syllabus.

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Further reading

Bibliography and cited sources used to create this module.

  • Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
  • Sandel, M. (1982). Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  • Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Dworkin, R. (2000). Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.