John Rawls Concept of Person and Society: A Critique

Kemi Anthony Emina

John Rawls Concept of Person and Society: A Critique

Kemi Anthony Emina^(1*),

(1) Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy, Delta State University, Abraka, Delta State, Nigeria.
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract

John Rawls is noted for his contribution to liberal political philosophy. Rawls’s political thought has been chosen for study because he has been very influential and his philosophy can be used in interpreting our constitution. The study is based on the “Concept of Person and Society” as exposed by John Rawls. In the “Concept of Person”, John Rawls, focuses his attention to develop his arguments are a view of society as a fair system of cooperation and a conception of the person as possessing two moral powers, that is the ability to form and revise one's own conception of the good and to live on fair terms of cooperation with others. Because these particulars conceptions of the person and of society are built into the structure of the original position, selection of principles of justice under these conditions identified them as the most suitable principles for free and equal citizens, possessing the two moral powers, who seeks to live on fair terms of cooperation with others. The complex conception of person and society that Rawls makes use of in his political philosophy is that of a moral person as a free and equal citizen who enters a well-ordered society by birth and exists by death and lives his life in it. For Rawls, his conception of a person represents how the persons conceive of themselves and their social relations in the public political culture of a liberal democratic society.

Keywords

John Rawls; Society; Personhood; Concept of Person.

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