Constantly revised and refined over three decades, Rawls's lectures on various historical figures reflect his developing and changing views on the history of liberalism and democracy. With its careful analyses of the doctrine of the social contract, utilitarianism, and socialism, this volume has a critical place in the traditions it expounds.

Editor's Foreword Introductory Remarks Texts Cited Introduction: Remarks on Political Philosophy Lectures on Hobbes Lecture I: Hobbes's Secular Moralism and the Role of His Social Contract Lecture II: Human Nature and the State of Nature Lecture III: Hobbes's Account of Practical Reasoning Lecture IV: The Role and Powers of the Sovereign Appendix: Hobbes Index Lectures on Locke Lecture I: His Doctrine of Natural Law Lecture II: His Account of a Legitimate Regime Lecture III: Property and the Class State Lectures on Hume Lecture I: "Of the Original Contract" Lecture II: Utility, Justice, and the Judicious Spectator Lectures on Rousseau Lecture I: The Social Contract: Its Problem Lecture II: The Social Contract: Assumptions and the General Will (I) Lecture III: The General Will (II) and the Question of Stability Lectures on Mill Lecture I: His Conception of Utility Lecture II: His Account of Justice Lecture III: The Principle of Liberty Lecture IV: His Doctrine as a Whole Appendix: Remarks on Mill's Social Theory Lectures on Marx Lecture I: His View of Capitalism as a Social System Lecture II: His Conception of Right and Justice Lecture III: His Ideal: A Society of Freely Associated Producers APPENDIXES Four Lectures on Henry Sidgwick Lecture I: Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics Lecture II: Sidgwick on Justice and on the Classical Principle of Utility Lecture III: Sidgwick's Utilitarianism Lecture IV: Summary of Utilitarianism Five Lectures on Joseph Butler Lecture I: The Moral Constitution of Human Nature Lecture II: The Nature and Authority of Conscience Lecture III: The Economy of the Passions Lecture IV: Butler's Argument against Egoism Lecture V: Supposed Conflict between Conscience and Self-Love Appendix: Additional Notes on Butler Course Outline Index

After the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, Rawls (1921-2002) became the most influential moral and political philosopher in the Western world. As such, the issuing of this posthumous volume, carefully edited by [Samuel] Freeman, a former student and teaching assistant from Rawls's courses at Harvard University, is a major event.