Rawlsian Education: Preliminary Observations

Abstract

This chapter provides an analysis of the aspects of John Rawls’ political philosophy that are relevant for questions of education. It starts with giving an overview of the sparse occasions where Rawls himself writes about the relevance of these concepts for liberal education and then discusses the three major claims about education that can be found there: the idea of political liberal minimal civic education and its aims, the development of a sense of justice as political virtue, and education as a political institution to which the requirements of public reason apply.