Introduction: John Rawls and the crisis of American liberalism -- Justice as fairness -- The second principle of justice -- "Choosing" principles of justice in the original position -- A just constitution -- Economic justice -- Civil disobedience vs. the right of resistance -- "Goodness as...

Ordered social life requires rules of conduct that help generate and preserve peaceful and cooperative interactions among individuals. The problem is that these social rules impose costs. They prohibit us from doing some things we might see as important and they require us to do other things...

Social contract theory is incoherent and it does not work as desired. Among the most obvious disanalogies is that contracts are enforced by a third party, commonly the state. There is no such external enforcer for a constitution. Contractarian theorists typically ignore all such issues and use...