Revisions to the original English text have been included in translations since 1975. Since the appearance ofthe book in 1971, A Theory of Justice has been translated into 23 languages. This enables him to formulate a conception of society as a social union of social unions and to use the theory of justice to explain the values of community. Finally, he connects the theory of justice with a doctrine of the good and of moral development.

He includes here discussion of the issues of civil disobedience and conscientious objection. The author then applies his theory to the philosophical basis of the constitutional liberties, the problem of distributive justice, and the definition of the ground and limits of political duty and obligation. The first, theoretical, section of the book addresses objections to the theory and alternative positions, especially utilitarianism. Thus, deliberating behind a veil of ignorance, people determine their rights and duties.

In this hypothetical situation, which corresponds to the state of nature in social contract theory, no one knows his or her place in society his or her class position or social status his or her fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities his or her intelligence, strength, and the like or even his or her conception of the good. The principles of justice he sets forth are those that free and rational persons would accept in an initial position of equality. Rawls attempts to account for these propositions, which he believes express our intuitive convictions of the primacy of justice. Therefore in a just society the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests'.

'Each person' writes John Rawls, 'possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.

A theory of justice by john rawls