Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Abstract
John Rawls has delineated his "A theory of Justice" fundamentally in contrast with the utilitarianism, because he thinks that utilitarianism is ready to sacrifice the freedom and justice for the common people's utility and happiness. To present a theory which could be far from any vitiations of utilitarianism and its extremist individualism, Rawls found that it must be necessary to review the functions and the essential notions of Hegel's Philosophy of Right once again, since Hegel himself in confront with the ideas of the thinkers of Enlightenment Age had been concerned with the same problems in the utilitarianism, too. In fact, Rawls appreciates the advantage of Hegel's approach for his theory of justice and its basic conceptions. In this paper, the writers want to show that how Rawls offers a distinctive account of the most important elements of Hegel's Philosophy of Right to achieve his own intention, which introduces it according to the liberalism. In this way, Rawls recognizes two versions of liberalism and realizes his own theory along with Kant and Hegel's standpoints. It seems that to attain his aim, Rawls, despite his elementary argument about the Kantian character of his theory, has to leave Kantian aspects behind and embrace Hegelian attitudes at least in some main principles. Explicating the basic sides of this thought turn is the other purpose of the paper.
Keywords
)