Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

Contractarians view justice as being defined by a contract made by rational individuals. No one supposes that this contract is actual, and the fact that it is merely hypothetical raises a number of questions both about the assumptions under which it would be actual and about the force of hypothetical agreement that is contingent on these assumptions.Particular contractarian theories must specify the circumstances of the agreement and the endowments, beliefs, desires, and degree and type of rationality of the agents. How (...) these issues are settled determines the force of the hypothetical agreement. The fact that ignorant people who desired only universal suffering would, under duress, agree to a certain principle gives us no reason to believe the principle is a correct moral principle or to think it rational to accept or act on it: some counterfactual assumptions undermine entirely the moral force of hypothetical agreement. On the other hand, to take people just as they are, with their current beliefs, desires, endowments, and all, is to endorse their ignorance and mistakes as well as any previous injustice that affects their bargaining power. (shrink)

A contractarian moral theory states that an action (practice, social structure, etc.) is morally permissible if and only if it (or rules to which if conforms) would be agreed to by the members of society under certain circumstances. What people will agree to depends on what their desires are like. Most contractarian theories - for example those of Rawls (1971) and Gauthier (1986) - specify that parties to the agreement are mutually unconcerned (take no interest in each other's interests). Contractarian (...) theorists, do not, of course, believe that this is true of real people, but they insist (with Kant) that the basic moral constraints on conduct (if there are any) apply independently of whether individuals care about each other. I shall here argue against the appropriateness of the assumption of mutual unconcern for contractarian theories, such as Gauthier's, that are supposed to ground morality solely in rationality. (shrink)