SOURCE: "Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory," in The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. LXXVII, No. 9, September, 1980, pp. 515-72.

In this essay, originally presented as three lectures at Columbia University in April, 1980, Rawls explores Kantian constructivism in moral theory (as illustrated by justice as fairness and adopted in A Theory of Justice, by which objectivity is established through "a suitably constructed social point of view."

Rational and Full Autonomy

In these lectures I examine the notion of a constructivist moral conception, or, more exactly, since there are different kinds of constructivism, one Kantian variant of this notion. The variant I discuss is that of justice as fairness, which is presented in my book A Theory of Justice.¹ I have two reasons for doing this: one is that it offers me the opportunity to consider certain aspects of the conception of justice as fairness which I have not previously emphasized and...