Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- 153 Paternalism
- 154 Peoples
- 155 Perfectionism
- 156 Plan of life
- 157 Pogge, Thomas
- 158 Political conception of justice
- 159 Political liberalism, justice as fairness as
- 160 Political liberalisms, family of
- 161 Political obligation
- 162 Political virtues
- 163 Practical reason
- 164 Precepts of justice
- 165 Primary goods, social
- 166 The priority of the right over the good
- 167 Procedural justice
- 168 Promising
- 169 Property-owning democracy
- 170 Public choice theory
- 171 Public political culture
- 172 Public reason
- 173 Publicity
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
173 - Publicity
from P
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- 153 Paternalism
- 154 Peoples
- 155 Perfectionism
- 156 Plan of life
- 157 Pogge, Thomas
- 158 Political conception of justice
- 159 Political liberalism, justice as fairness as
- 160 Political liberalisms, family of
- 161 Political obligation
- 162 Political virtues
- 163 Practical reason
- 164 Precepts of justice
- 165 Primary goods, social
- 166 The priority of the right over the good
- 167 Procedural justice
- 168 Promising
- 169 Property-owning democracy
- 170 Public choice theory
- 171 Public political culture
- 172 Public reason
- 173 Publicity
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
According to John Rawls, publicity considerations constrain a theory of distributive justice in multiple ways. The most fundamental way follows immediately from his understanding of society as a “cooperative venture for mutual advantage” (TJ 4; JF 5–8). Since Rawls has in mind a relatively robust form of cooperation – mere coordination of action among mutually disinterested parties does not suffice – this conception of social justice brings with it a need for mutual understanding among persons about the terms on which they are cooperating. This mutual understanding is possible only if everyone understands the conception of justice governing their joint activity, as well as what justifies this conception. This in turn requires that this conception be publicly known and articulated. It is in this sense that Rawls claims that publicity is a “formal condition” on a conception of right. By this expression Rawls does not mean that the concept of rightness or of justice entails that a conception of rightness or of justice is publicly known. He means rather that the problem to which a conception of distributive justice is addressed – namely, constituting societal cooperation – can be solved by that conception only on the supposition that it is publicly known (TJ 112–115).
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- Information
- The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon , pp. 673 - 678Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014