The priority of liberty for Rousseau and Rawls

Journal title RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Author/s Gabriella Lamonica
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/1
Language Italian Pages 13 P. 79-91 File size 557 KB
DOI 10.3280/SF2015-001007
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Both Rousseau and Rawls see extreme inequality as a condition which undermines political liberties. By looking into the relationship between bondage and inequality as it unfolds in Rousseau’s Discours sur l’Inégalité and in Rawls’s reply to Hart on liberty and its priority, a coextension between liberty and the individual can be found, in which liberty plays a normative role. This explains why both Rousseau and Rawls insist on ruling out trade-offs between liberty (or the basic liberties in Rawls’s first principle) and other advantages.

Keywords: Rousseau, Rawls, liberty, advantages, equality, priority.

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Gabriella Lamonica, Llibertà contro vantaggi in Rousseau e Rawls in "RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA" 1/2015, pp 79-91, DOI: 10.3280/SF2015-001007