john rawls wrote the book a theory of justice.
john rawls wrote the book a theory of justice.
who wrote the book a theory of justice?
john rawls
bullet::::- the book deals with the most recent questions related to left-wing values. the emphasis is placed on the so-called theories of analytical marxism and social liberalism, while it critically analyzes the concepts of well-known contemporary philosophers such as john rawls, robert nozick and amartya sen. the book deals with other analytical marxists and socialist theorists as well. it focuses on the works and theories of rodney peffer, john roemer and kai nielsen. blaha contemplates the future of the left-wing thinking and the institutions of the welfare state. it offers a broad overview of the modern left-wing thinking, which can be inspiring for both the social democracy, and the radical left. the monograph is divided into three parts. the first part presents, in detail, the institution of the welfare state. the second part offers an analysis and critique of the rawlsian theory of justice as well as the neo-marxist contributions to social justice theories. the third part encompasses an analysis of the values of freedom, ownership, efficiency, economic democracy and finally the author's own concept, i.e. the anti-accidental theory of justice based on the notion of pure effort. the book is inspired by humanist marxism, egalitarian liberalism and communitarianism. the value of social justice represents the nature of left-wing thinking and politics. in his anti-accidental theory of justice, blaha develops the idea of the elimination of the "natural lottery", a term coined by john rawls. he criticizes classical liberalism, which leaves wealth distribution to the market mechanism and is not interested in additional redistribution mechanisms. blaha, on the other hand, builds on the critical analysis of marx's merit criteria of justice which marx implicitly demonstrated with the credo "to each according to his contribution". this criterion de facto refers to the skills, talent and performance of an individual, although it is not possible for him to influence his innate potential. the only thing that one can really influence is not his work, but his willingness to work, his diligence. blaha distinguishes between two types of effort in his theory – conditioned and pure. he defines diligence as pure effort, i.e. one that is not subject to material conditions or innate capacities of an individual. the author comes to the conclusion that a just wealth distribution is one based on merit and performance evaluation, i.e. when it reflects the motto "to each according to his diligence". in addition to this merit criterion, if we added the criterion of needs (which he argues is an essential component of the concept of social justice), we would come to a just distribution. that is possible only in an environment of self-governed production (or economic democracy), and thus in the context of democratic socialism. in addition to the purely philosophical reflections, the reader can find an analysis of self-governed worker cooperatives (e.g. the basque mondragón corporation), a defense of democratic socialism, the welfare state, economic democracy or positive discrimination. the author also engages right-wing theorists, particularly in connection to the values of freedom, efficiency and ownership.
ľuboš blaha
"a theory of justice" received criticism from several philosophers. robert nozick criticized rawls' account of distributive justice in his defense of libertarianism, "anarchy, state, and utopia" (1974). allan bloom, writing in "american political science review" in 1975, noted that "a theory of justice" had "attracted more attention in the anglo-saxon world than any work of its kind in a generation", attributing its popularity to its being "the most ambitious political project undertaken by a member of the school currently dominant in academic philosophy" and to rawls' "radical egalitarian interpretation of liberal democracy." bloom criticized rawls for failing to account for the existence of natural right in his theory of justice and wrote that rawls absolutizes social union as the ultimate goal which would conventionalize everything into artifice. robert paul wolff criticized rawls from a marxist perspective in "understanding rawls: a critique and reconstruction of a theory of justice" (1977), arguing rawls offers an apology for the status quo insofar as he constructs justice from existing practice and forecloses the possibility that there may be problems of injustice embedded in capitalist social relations, private property or the market economy.
a theory of justice