The idea of public reason isn't about the right answers to all these questions, but about the kinds of reasons that they ought to be answered by.
John RawlsI have tried to set forth a theory that enables us to understand and to assess these feelings about the primacy of justice. Justice as fairness is the outcome: it articulates these opinions and supports their general tendency.
John RawlsThe fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.
John RawlsWhat's important is that people give the kinds of reasons that can be understood and appraised apart from their particular comprehensive doctrines: for example, that they argue against physician-assisted suicide not just by speculating about God's wrath or the afterlife, but by talking about what they see as assisted suicide's potential injustices.
John Rawls