Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part 1: Theory -- Chapter 1: Justice as fairness -- Role of justice -- Subject of justice -- Main idea of the theory of justice -- Original position and justification -- Classical utilitarianism -- Some related contrasts -- Intuitionism -- Priority problem -- Some remarks about moral theory -- Chapter 2: Principles of justice -- Institutions and formal justice -- Two principles of justice -- Interpretations of the second principle -- Democratic equality and the difference principle -- Fair equality of opportunity and pure procedural justice -- Primary social goods as the basis of expectations -- Relevant social positions -- Tendency to equality -- Principles for individuals: the principle of fairness -- Principles for individuals: the natural duties -- Chapter 3: Original position -- Nature of the argument for conceptions of justice -- Presentation of alternatives -- Circumstances of justice -- Formal constraints off the concept of right -- Veil of ignorance -- Rationality of the parties -- Reasoning leading to the two principles of justice -- Reasoning leading to the principle of average utility -- Some difficulties with the average principle -- Some main grounds for the two principles of justice -- Classical utilitarianism, impartiality, and benevolence. Part 2: Institutions -- Chapter 4: Equal liberty -- Four-stage sequence -- Concept of liberty -- Equal liberty of conscience -- Toleration and the common interest -- Toleration of the intolerant -- Political justice and the constitution -- Limitations on the principle of participation -- Rule of law -- Priority of liberty defined -- Kantian interpretation of justice as fairness -- Chapter 5: Distributive shares -- Concept of justice in political economy -- Some remarks about economic systems -- Background institutions for distributive justice -- Problem of justice between generations -- Time preference -- Further cases of priority -- Precepts of justice -- Legitimate expectations and moral desert -- Comparison with mixed conceptions -- Principle of perfection -- Chapter 6: Duty and obligation -- Arguments for the principles of natural duty -- Arguments for the principle of fairness -- Duty to comply with an unjust law -- Status of majority rule -- Definition of civil disobedience -- Definition of conscientious refusal -- Justification of civil disobedience -- Justification of conscientious refusal -- Role of civil disobedience. Part 3: Ends -- Chapter 7: Goodness as rationality -- Need for a theory of the good -- Definition of good for simpler cases -- Note on meaning -- Definition of good for plans of life -- Deliberative rationality -- Aristotelian principle -- Definition of good applied to persons -- Self-respect, excellences, and shame -- Several contrasts between the right and the good -- Chapter 8: Sense of justice -- Concept of a well-ordered society -- Morality of authority -- Morality of association -- Morality of principles -- Features of the moral sentiments -- Connection between moral and natural attitudes -- Principles of moral psychology -- Problem of relative stability -- Basis of equality -- Chapter 9: Good of justice -- Autonomy and objectivity -- Idea of social union -- Problem of envy -- Envy and equality -- Grounds for the priority of liberty -- Happiness and dominant ends -- Hedonism as a method of choice -- Unity of the self -- Good of the sense of justice -- Concluding remarks on justification -- Index. This volume is a widely-read book of political philosophy and ethics. Arguing for a principled reconciliation of liberty and equality, it attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice (this concerns what is considered to be socially just with respect to the allocation of goods in a society). The resultant theory is known as "Justice as Fairness", from which the author derives his two famous principles of justice. The first of these two principles is known as the equal liberty principle. The second principle is split into two parts; the first, known as fair equality of opportunity, asserts that justice should not benefit those with advantageous social contingencies; while the second, reflecting the idea that inequality is only justified if it is to the advantage of those who are less well-off, is known as the difference principle.