A Macat Analysis of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice

By: Filippo Diongi, Jeremy Kleidosty

Narrated by: Macat.com

Issues of human rights and freedoms always inflame passions, and John Rawls's A Theory of Justice will do the same.

Published in 1971, it links the idea of social justice to a basic sense of fairness that recognizes human rights and freedoms. Controversially, though, it also accepts differences in the distribution of goods and services - as long as they benefit the worst off in society.

To justify his theory, Rawls asks listeners to indulge in a thought experiment, the "original position". Here, members of an imaginary society create their idea of justice behind a "veil of ignorance" - not knowing where they would be placed in terms of class, wealth, intelligence, and so on. The result, Rawls argues, would be a society with rules that offer basic liberties to all citizens and that does ensure the greatest benefit for the less well off.

A Theory of Justice has caused huge debate, prompting both criticism and support. It remains one of the most influential publications in the fields of political theory and political philosophy.

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The most logical political and social moral guide

This is a brilliant book. I was unaware of A Theory of Justice until I read about it in a textbook. Based on this brief synopsis I would like very much to read the whole book.

Good Overview and Context

This provided a great overview and context for the book as well as Rawls' second, which is at the moment the only one available on Audible. It doesn't go too deep in explaining the mechanics of Rawls' framework like a SparkNotes would, but it's a good jumping-off point for anyone interested in tackling A Theory of Justice.

One negative that I think must be related to Macat using this in their online courses is the titles that the narrator reads out at the beginning of every section/subsection. They probably make sense in the context of a syllabus or index, but are a little out of place in the audiobook.

Narrator was pretty legit.

NLP reader but the points were mostly a good summary

The voice of the reader is definitely computer generated, and the way it automatically read all of the subheadings in the text was annoying. However, the main points in the content were generally good and helpful to get a good overview and summarized analysis of "A Theory of Justice". The content was a bit repetitive on a few points that I heard two or three times in different sections of the book. Overall, this can help you understand the main points and the impact of "A Theory of Justice", but just barely.

There was two little meat on the bone

I was counting on this book to better explain the practical usage of Rawls’ original position and Rawls’ veil ignorance. How can these principles be applied in the real world? Does Rawls not give them real world examples in his book? I don’t know and I wish this book would’ve told us.

Buy the original, NOT THIS

This "macat" analysis is a joke. I have no idea why it's a thing. Do not buy this!!!!

So short, yet so repetitious.

The purpose of this audiobook is to condense Rawls and yet things that one would quickly pass over in the printed book are repeated needlessly, for example, “Coming up, Section 1, Module 1 —(music) — Section 1, Module 1”. Every Section and Module is repeated this way. Holy Cow, Macat, why???