Editing John Rawls (section)

==Influence and reception==
{{See also|Original position#Criticisms}}
Despite the exacting, academic tone of Rawls's writing and his reclusive personality, his philosophical work has exerted an enormous impact on not only contemporary moral and political philosophy but also public political discourse. During the [[Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests of 1989|student protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989]], copies of ''A Theory of Justice'' were brandished by protesters in the face of government officials.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/with-neh-grant-notre-dame-philosopher-paul-weithman-planning-conference-on-enduring-impact-of-john-rawls/|title=With NEH grant, Notre Dame philosopher Paul Weithman planning conference on enduring impact of John Rawls // College of Arts and Letters // University of Notre Dame|date=September 23, 2020|access-date=September 9, 2021|archive-date=April 26, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230426222344/https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/with-neh-grant-notre-dame-philosopher-paul-weithman-planning-conference-on-enduring-impact-of-john-rawls/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Korsgaard |first1=Christine |last2=Sen |first2=Amartya |last3=Thompson |first3=Dennis |last4=Scanlon |first4=Thomas |date=May 19, 2005 |title=John Rawls |newspaper=Harvard Gazette |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2005/05/john-rawls/ |access-date=September 9, 2021 |archive-date=June 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230602090122/https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2005/05/john-rawls/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=April 2, 2013 |title=More Than Just a Theory &#124; Quest Research Magazine |url=https://quest.utk.edu/2013/more-than-just-a-theory/ |access-date=September 9, 2021 |archive-date=April 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230426065717/https://quest.utk.edu/2013/more-than-just-a-theory/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Despite being approximately 600 pages long, over 300,000 copies of that book have been sold,<ref>{{cite web |title=A Theory of Justice, 1971 |url=https://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2013/04/john-rawls-a-theory-of-justice-1971.html |website=Harvard University Press |access-date=September 9, 2021 |archive-date=April 22, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230422034816/https://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2013/04/john-rawls-a-theory-of-justice-1971.html |url-status=live }}</ref> stimulating critical responses from [[Utilitarianism|utilitarian]], [[Feminism|feminist]], conservative, [[Libertarianism|libertarian]], [[Catholic theology|Catholic]], [[Communitarianism|communitarian]], [[Marxist]] and [[Green anarchism|Green]] scholars.

Although having a profound influence on [[Distributive justice|theories of distributive justice]] both in theory and in practice, the generally anti-[[meritocratic]] sentiment of Rawls's thinking has not been widely accepted by the political left. He consistently held the view that naturally developed skills and endowments could not be neatly distinguished from inherited ones, and that neither could be used to justify [[moral desert]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Rogers |first=Ben |date=June 1999 |title=John Rawls |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/who-was-john-rawls-political-philosopher-justice |access-date=September 9, 2021 |archive-date=May 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210521214737/https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/who-was-john-rawls-political-philosopher-justice |url-status=live }}</ref> Instead, he held the view that individuals could "legitimately expect" entitlements to the earning of income or development of abilities based on institutional arrangements. This aspect of Rawls's work has been instrumental in the development of such ideas as [[luck egalitarianism]] and [[unconditional basic income]], which have themselves been criticized.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Anderson |first=Elizabeth S. |date=January 1999 |title=What is the Point of Equality? |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2989479 |journal=Ethics |volume=109 |issue=2 |pages=287–337 |doi=10.1086/233897 |jstor=2989479 |s2cid=144596596 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=|jstor=2265291|title=Why Surfers Should be Fed: The Liberal Case for an Unconditional Basic Income|last1=Van Parijs|first1=Philippe|journal=Philosophy & Public Affairs|year=1991|volume=20|issue=2|pages=101–131}}</ref> The strictly [[egalitarian]] quality of Rawls's second principle of justice has called into question the [[Social equality|type of equality]] that fair societies ought to embody.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Sen-1979_Equality-of-What.pdf |title=Amartya Sen (May 22,1979). "Equality of What?" ''The Tanner Lecture on Human Values'', Stanford University |access-date=September 9, 2021 |archive-date=June 22, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230622102515/https://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Sen-1979_Equality-of-What.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=|jstor = 40723932|last1 = Cohen|first1 = G. A.|title = Equality of What? On Welfare, Goods and Capabilities|journal = Recherches Économiques de Louvain / Louvain Economic Review|year = 1990|volume = 56|issue = 3/4|pages = 357–382| doi=10.1017/S0770451800043943 | s2cid=150858493 }}</ref>

In a 2008 national survey of political theorists, based on 1,086 responses from professors at accredited, four-year colleges and universities in the United States, Rawls was voted first on the list of "Scholars Who Have Had the Greatest Impact on Political Theory in the Past 20 Years".<ref name="auto"/>

=== Communitarian critique ===
[[Charles Taylor (philosopher)|Charles Taylor]], [[Alasdair Macintyre]], [[Michael Sandel]], and [[Michael Walzer]] produced a range of critical responses contesting the [[Universalism|universalist]] basis of Rawls' [[original position]]. While these criticisms, which emphasize the cultural and social roots of normative political principles, are typically described as [[Communitarianism|communitarian]] critiques of Rawlsian liberalism, none of their authors identified with philosophical [[communitarianism]]. In his later works, Rawls attempted to reconcile his theory of justice with the possibility that its normative foundations may not be universally applicable.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url = https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/communitarianism/|title = The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|chapter = Communitarianism|year = 2020|publisher = Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date = August 15, 2021|archive-date = September 24, 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230924210602/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/communitarianism/|url-status = live}}</ref>

=== September Group ===
The late philosopher [[G. A. Cohen]], along with political scientist [[Jon Elster]], and [[John Roemer]], used Rawls's writings extensively to inaugurate the [[Analytical Marxism]] movement in the 1980s.

=== Frankfurt School ===
In the later part of Rawls's career, he engaged with the scholarly work of [[Jürgen Habermas]] (see [[Habermas-Rawls debate]]). Habermas's reading of Rawls led to an appreciation of Rawls's work and other [[analytical philosophers]] by the [[Frankfurt School]] of [[critical theory]], and many of Habermas's own students and associates were expected to be familiar with Rawls by the late 1980s.<ref>https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/scholaractivists/00JoelAnderson3rdGeneration.html {{Dead link|date=February 2022}}</ref> The [[Leibniz Prize]]-winning political philosopher [[Rainer Forst]] was advised by both Rawls and Habermas in completing his PhD.<ref>{{cite web |title=Rainer Forst |url=https://jeanmonnetprogram.org/fellow/rainer-forst/ |website=The Jean Monnet Program |access-date=August 15, 2021 |archive-date=June 5, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605135520/https://jeanmonnetprogram.org/fellow/rainer-forst/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url = https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520232259/contexts-of-justice|title = Contexts of Justice|year = 2002|isbn = 978-0520232259|last1 = Forst|first1 = Rainer|last2 = Forst|first2 = Professor Rainer|publisher = University of California Press|access-date = August 15, 2021|archive-date = June 3, 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230603080110/https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520232259/contexts-of-justice|url-status = live}}</ref> [[Axel Honneth]], [[Fabian Freyenhagen]], and [[James Gordon Finlayson]] have also drawn on Rawls's work in comparison to Habermas.

=== Feminist political philosophy ===
Philosopher [[Eva Kittay]] has extended the work of John Rawls to address the concerns of women and cognitively disabled people.<ref>{{Citation |last1=McAfee |first1=Noëlle |title=Feminist Political Philosophy |date=2022 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/feminism-political/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Spring 2022 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=March 1, 2022 |last2=Howard |first2=Katie B. |archive-date=January 11, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111121942/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/feminism-political/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Later developments in liberalism===
[[Amartya Sen]] critiques and attempts to revitalize ''A Theory of Justice'' in ''[[The Idea of Justice]]'' (2009). He praises Rawls for revitalizing interest in the topic of justice and defends his focus on fairness, but also argues that a focus on abstract, ideal scenarios detracts from finding practical solutions to injustice, as well as arguing for alternatives to Rawls's thought experiments and focus on institutions.<ref>{{cite book |author=Sen, Amartya |author-link=Amartya Sen |title=The Idea of Justice |publisher=Belknap Press (Harvard University Press) |location=New York |year=2009 |pages=52–74 |isbn=978-0-674-06047-0 }}</ref> In his book ''[[Free and Equal (book)|Free and Equal]]'' (2023), the economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler argued that Rawls had been "overlooked within mainstream political debate" despite his profound influence in academia, which he attributed to Rawls's reclusive personality, the abstract nature of his work and the rise of [[neoliberalism]] in the 1980s. Chandler argued that Rawls's foremost achievement was creating a theory that could support both freedom and equality, respectively the core tenets of [[classical liberalism]] and [[socialism]], and that his ideas remain relevant today.<ref>{{cite book |author=Chandler, Daniel |author-link= |title=Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like? |publisher=Allen Lane |location=London |year=2023 |pages=3–8 |isbn=9780141991948 }}</ref>