John Rawls – Philosopher king of the 20th Century

About this episode

This week we dive into the life and ideas of John Rawls, the most celebrated liberal philosopher of the post-war period. Even in his own lifetime he was compared to Plato and Hobbes, becoming the only figure of our era to enter the canon of Western thought alongside the greatest figures in the philosophical tradition. Rawls' work was a deadly surgical attack on neoliberalism and a rigorous defence of a more progressive form of liberalism, grounded in equality, rights and social justice. His notion of the veil of ignorance is perhaps the single most influential philosophical idea of the 20th Century and one of the most beautiful concepts in political theory. He provided a systematic justification for a centre-left worldview and policy programme, with a firm moral grounding and extremely radical repercussions. We trace his life story, from early childhood tragedy, through the battlefields of the Second World War, to a long and distinguished career in Harvard. We find a quiet, shy, unassuming man, uncomfortable in large groups and immune to self-importance, who nevertheless shook the philosophical world to its foundation. As his libertarian opponent Robert Nozick admitted: "Politic