Applying Rawls in the Twenty-First Century Race, Gender, the Drug War, and the Right to Die

by Carcieri, Martin D.

• ISBN13: 9781137456489
• ISBN10: 1137456485
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-07-16
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

John Rawls is the most influential political thinker of the twentieth century. Most of the scholarly literature on Rawls defends, critiques, or elaborates on some aspect of his theory. These writings are often valuable, yet this book goes beyond them. Like a few scholars, rather than debating whether and how Rawls got things right or wrong, Martin Carcieri take his well-defended principles of justice - especially the equal liberty, fair equality of opportunity, and difference principles at the core of his theory - as given and apply them to aspects of four major, enduring, concrete domestic policy, ethical, and constitutional issues. These applications yield counter-intuitive implications that will challenge the ideological left and right alike, contributing to our understanding both of Rawls and of these issues. At the core, this book deepens our understanding of these issues and points the way toward rational, just policy reform.

Author Biography

Martin D. Carcieri is Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, USA. He holds a JD from University of California, Hastings, USA and a PhD from University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He has won four teaching awards and is the author of twenty-five journal articles and book chapters on Constitutional Law and Political Theory.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. An Overview of Rawls
I) Race
2. Affirmative Action and Reparations
3. The Fourteenth Amendment, Public Education, and the Supreme Court
II) Gender
4. Gender Discrimination and Professional Ethics
III) Autonomy
5. The Fourteenth Amendment and Marijuana Prohibition 
6. Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die