This essay begins by offering a brief, but perhaps needed, biographical sketch of John Rawls, so as to foreground very unique personal dimensions of his approach to the question of justice as fairness in terms of the “sense of justice.” It is argued that Rawls philosophical motivation was guided by an embodied and felt sense of justice. Then, the author discusses four striking aspects of A Theory of Justice in light of the most recent scholarship on Rawls’s development and historical background. The author then discusses the Kantian sources of Rawls project, but also how the both differ. The essay concludes with a consideration of Rawls’ claim that A Theory of Justice should be understood as “a philosophical conception for a constitutional democracy.” Should we read A Theory of Justice as a theory of justice tout court, or merely as a philosophical explication of the principles that guide constitutional democracies?
