Theory of justice

This is a long book, not only in pages. Therefore, to make things easier for the reader, a few remarks by way of guidance. The fundamental intuitive ideas of the theory of justice are presented in §§ 1-4 of Chapter I. From here it is possible to go directly to the discussion of the two principles of justice for institutions in §§11 17 of Chapter II, and then to the account of the original position in Chapter III, the whole chapter. A glance at §8 on the priority problem may prove necessary if this notion is unfamiliar. Next, parts of Chapter IV, §§ 33-35 on equal liberty and §§ 39-40 on the meaning of the priority of liberty and the Kantian interpretation, give the best picture of the doctrine. So far this is about a third of the whole and comprises most of the essentials of the theory.

There is a danger, however, that without consideration of the argument of the last part, the theory of justice will be misunder stood. In particular, the following sections should be emphasized: §§ 66-67 of Chapter VII on moral worth, and self-respect and related notions; § 77 of Chapter VIII on the basis of equality; and §§ 78-79 on autonomy and social union, § 82 on the priority of liberty, and §§ 85-86 on the unity of the self and congruence, all in Chapter IX. Adding these sections to the others still comes to considerably less than half the text.