Rawls

Achieving a graceful balance of accessibility and rigor, Maffettone's insightful and substantial study expounds Rawls's thought as unified by the priority of the right over the good and offers a sober critical appraisal of it and its intellectual opponents. Thomas W. Pogge, Yale University John Rawls was the leading political philosopher of the past century. In this illuminating book, Sebastiano Maffettone gives us a complete, coherent, and compelling picture of Rawls's leading ideas: his liberal-egalitarian theory of justice, his ideas about legitimacy in a pluralistic democracy, and his account of the moral basis of global politics. Maffettone understands that the focus of Rawls's work shifted, but he sees the deeper continuities in Rawls's emphasis on the priority of the right and his distinction between the justice of a society and its capacity to elicit the willing support of its members. The book casts a powerful light on Rawls's work, both clarifying his ideas and explaining their plausibility. Joshua Cohen, Stanford University This is for its size the best introduction to all of Rawls's major works available. It is also a significant work of scholarship in its own right, with an especially strong emphasis on the continuity of Rawls's thought. Maffettone's acumen, expertise and dedication to his subject are in evidence on every page. Leif Wenar, King's College London