"Rawls's work, for better or worse, is not inspired by this kind of epic ambition. His very modesty and lack of speculative curiosity are what exclude him from the ranks of the great philosophers. Rawls is not an Isaiah Berlin with his anguished sense of the conflict of goods which besets human life; nor is he a Leo Strauss with his vivid awareness of the forces of persecution with which philosophy has always to contend; nor is he a Michael Oakeshott with his diagnosis of the dangers posed by excessive rationalism to the goals of a free society. Rawls is a philosopher for our time. His desire is to render both theoretically and practically legitimate the redistributivist policies of the prosperous North Atlantic welfare states. There is already more than a whiff of nostalgia about this project. This is by no means a contemptible goal, but it is well to remember that this project of rationalization is one — but only one — way in which philosophy can be practiced."
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Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesLogicians from the United States
Original Language: English
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Steven M. Smith, "The Philosopher of Our Times", The New York Sun (May 11, 2007)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Rawls
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John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls (21 February 1921 – 24 November 2002) was an American philosopher, and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University and the Fulbright Fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford. His magnum opus, A Theory of Justice (1971), was hailed at the time of its publication as "the most important work in moral philosophy since the end of World War II, and is now regarded as one of the primary texts in politic
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