You hear that liberalism lacks an idea of the common good, but I think that's a mistake.

A scheme is unjust when the higher expectations, one or more of them, are excessive. If these expectations were decreased, the situation of the less favored would be improved.

Ideally a just constitution would be a just procedure arranged to insure a just outcome.

The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.

How did Madison get separation through Virginia and later Congress? The Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the smaller sects hated Jefferson; to them he was a secularist of the worst kind. But Madison could get Jefferson's bill passed because the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and smaller sects who were excluded in New England and in the South got together for their own protection.

We must choose for others as we have reason to believe they would choose for themselves if they were at the age of reason and deciding rationally.

We may suppose that everyone has in himself the whole form of a moral conception.