John Rawls was an American philosopher whose A Theory of Justice (1971) marked a major renaissance for normative political philosophy within the analytic tradition. His work constructed a systematic defence of liberal egalitarianism using the hypothetical device of the “original position” and the “veil of ignorance.”
Justice as fairness
Rawls argued that principles of justice should be those that rational individuals would choose under conditions of fairness—specifically, behind a “veil of ignorance” where they don’t know their place in society, their talents, or their conception of the good. This thought experiment aimed to ensure impartiality by preventing people from designing principles that favour their particular circumstances.
From this framework, Rawls derived two principles:
- Equal basic liberties: Each person has an equal right to the most extensive basic liberties compatible with similar liberties for all
- The difference principle: Social and economic inequalities are just only if they benefit the least advantaged members of society
Cold War rationality and capitalist realism
Rawls’s training and early intellectual environment were deeply shaped by RAND Corporation thinking and Cold War rationality. His model of justice as fairness—constructed through hypothetical, idealised rational agents making choices under constraints—arguably reflects the technocratic ethos that analytic philosophy had absorbed during this period through direct institutional connections to military-funded research.
Rather than reintroducing historically situated critique or engaging with radical political traditions, Rawls framed political philosophy as a quasi-formal problem of rational choice behind a veil of ignorance. This approach effectively naturalised liberal capitalism as the background against which justice claims could be made, rather than questioning the fundamental organisation of economic and political power. Political philosophy returned to analytic philosophy, but in a way that preserved the discipline’s commitment to neutrality, methodological individualism, and detachment from structural critique of capitalism itself.
Even Rawls’s apparently egalitarian “difference principle” operates within capitalist realism: it accepts private property, market allocation, and class hierarchy as givens, asking only whether inequalities benefit the worst-off within that system. This makes Rawls’s work paradigmatic of how counter-hegemonic gestures (concern for the worst-off) can remain safely within hegemonic bounds (never questioning whether capitalism itself produces and requires such inequalities).
Influence and critique
A Theory of Justice became one of the most influential works in 20th-century political philosophy, generating extensive debate and spawning numerous responses from libertarian, communitarian, feminist, and critical perspectives. His work revitalised normative political theory whilst also demonstrating how analytic philosophy’s methodological commitments shaped even its “return” to political questions.