"* LONGER VERSION OF 'JUSTICE AS FAIRNESS'": FIRST SEPARATE EDITION OF RAWLS' "JUSTICE AS FAIRNESS," WITH A TYPESCRIPT OF HIS LATER "JUSTICE AS RECIPROCITY," SIGNED BY RAWLS AND WITH AN ANNOTATION IN HIS HAND

RAWLS, John. "Justice as Fairness." REPRINTED FROM: The Philosophical Review, Volume LXVII, Number 2, pp. 164-94. WITH: Typescript signed with annotation ["Justice as Reciprocity"]. Bruges, Belgium: St-Catherine Press, circa 1958. Octavo, staple-bound as issued, original cream self-wrappers; pp. 30. WITH: Folio (8-1/2 by 11 inches), stapled-bound as issued, original cream self-wrappers; pp. 28. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $18,500.

First separate edition of Rawls' landmark paper on the relationship between justice and fairness, accompanied by a typescript of his expanded and retitled version of the same paper, signed on the first page by Rawls and with an annotation in his hand reading: "* Longer Version of 'Justice as Fairness' Phil Rev Apr 1958."

John Rawls "was arguably the most important political philosopher of the 20th century" (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). "Justice as fairness is Rawls's theory of justice for a liberal society. As a member of the family of liberal political conceptions of justice it provides a framework for the legitimate use of political power. Yet legitimacy is only the minimal standard of moral acceptability; a political order can be legitimate without being just. Justice sets the maximal standard: the arrangement of social institutions that is morally best" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). This early paper marks the moment that Rawls fully elaborated his theory. While he had presented an abbreviated version with the same title—but just half the length—at a symposium of the American Philosophical Association in 1957 and subsequently published that lecture in the Journal of Philosophy, this version provides a more complete analysis of the emerging concept. Rawls remains most famous for his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice, but this paper offers a theory that is fully consistent with that later work but published over a decade earlier. The offprint is accompanied by a typescript of "Justice as Reciprocity," an expanded version of "Justice as Fairness." Though written in 1958, "Justice as Reciprocity" did not appear in print until 1971, the same year A Theory of Justice came out. The purpose of "Justice as Reciprocity" was to definitively hash out the difference between Rawls' social contract-based view of justice and the utilitarian conception of justice, while once against reiterating the core difference between justice and fairness. Rawls "will be in the canon for centuries, along with Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill" (Harvard Gazette). Rawls received the National Humanities Medal in 1999 for his body of work. Scattered marginal pencil markings and editorial annotations to typescript not in Rawls' hand.

Offprint very nearly fine, slight soiling to front and rear pages of near-fine typescript. An exceptional signed and inscribed set.