(Return to main path)

Here's something I don't quite understand.

Is Rawls trying to formulate principles of justice that apply everywhere, all the time, to all rational beings? Or is he doing something else?

This is important to me. Sometimes Rawls places himself in the Kantian tradition. But I think that Kant wanted to find principles that all rational beings would agree to.

There are places where Rawls says that the principles of justice must be universal and apply to everyone all the time. That sounds a lot like Kant to me.

I think that sort of philosophical project is hopeless. Is that what Rawls is doing?