[Deathwatch] John Rawls, philosopher / professor, 81

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Harvard Professor John Rawls Dies at 81
Tue Nov 26, 3:01 AM ET

By JUSTIN POPE, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON (AP) - Harvard University's John Rawls, who sparked political
and philosophical debate by raising enduring questions about the nature
of freedom, liberty and responsibility, has died.

Rawls, a giant of 20th century philosophy who revived the study of
ethics and became an intellectual hero of liberalism, was best known
for his 1971 book "A Theory of Justice." He revolutionized philosophy
by returning it to questions of right and wrong, rescuing it from a
preoccupation with the questions of logic, epistemology and the
philosophy of science that had come to dominate the field.

"His work is not going to be forgotten for decades, I think for
centuries," said Hilary Putnam, his colleague at Harvard's philosophy
department for 35 years.

Rawls died of heart failure Sunday at his home in Lexington. He was 81.
He had suffered a series of debilitating strokes since the mid-1990s,
although he continued publishing until last year.

His colleagues said Rawls' greatest contribution may have been reviving
the study of ethics in philosophy, forcing it to confront head-on
questions of freedom, liberty and responsibility.

"He connected philosophy with democracy," said Joshua Cohen, a
professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news - web sites)
and a former student.

Rawls believed that the ideal society should be constructed according
to a relatively straightforward principle that came to be known as the
"Rawls test": Would the best off accept the arrangements if they
believed at any moment they might find themselves in the place of the
worst off?

Slavery, for instance, would not pass the test as slave owners could
not in good faith say they would prefer the arrangements if the roles
were reversed.

Cohen said Rawls' greatest accomplishment was not merely providing
philosophical support for socio-economic liberalism, but reconciling it
with a commitment to the rights of individuals.

Born in Baltimore, Rawls received undergraduate and graduate degrees
from Princeton University. Tall and athletic like his hero Abraham
Lincoln — Rawls was once offered a minor league baseball contract — he
served an infantryman in the Pacific during World War II.

Rawls joined Harvard's philosophy department in 1962 after teaching
stints at Princeton, Cornell and M.I.T. In 1999, he received the
National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the
Humanities.

Perhaps most notably, Putnam said, Rawls "didn't just think about how
to do good and be good, but he seemed to exemplify in his own life
doing good and being good."

"He combined profound wisdom with equally profound humanity," Harvard
University President Lawrence H. Summers said. "Few if any modern
philosophers have had as decisive an impact on how we think about
justice. Scholars in many different fields will continue to learn from
him for generations to come."

Rawls leaves his wife, Margaret Warfield Fox Rawls, four children and
four grandchildren.