Rawls in the Liberal Tradition

Abstract The liberal tradition with which Rawls identifies emerged in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe largely in opposition to feudal hierarchies. Central to this tradition was a commitment to religious and economic liberty. But theorists such as Locke and Kant did not consider economic inequality in itself to be objectionable or a threat to the status of individuals as free and equal. However, the changing social and economic conditions of the nineteenth century led to a split within liberalism between so-called classical liberals and egalitarian liberals. Rawls’s justice as fairness represents a distinctive form of egalitarian liberalism. His account of political justification provides the basis for his egalitarian principles of distributive justice and a reconciliation of freedom and equality.