Book · 1971
A Theory of Justice
by John Rawls
The 1971 book that reset political philosophy by asking what principles rational people would choose if they didn't know where they'd land in society.
What does Reddit think of A Theory of Justice?
Rawls' *A Theory of Justice* shows up 45 times across Reddit's philosophy corners, with 44 of those mentions in r/askphilosophy and a single stray in r/philosophy. r/askphilosophy cites it as the anchor for political philosophy in English over the last two centuries. It appears in lists alongside Hobbes, Machiavelli, and Nozick. It surfaces in threads about meritocracy, tolerance, and Marxist critiques of utilitarianism. One ↑58 comment recounts an early seminar objection — that Rawls started from accepted beliefs without grounding them — which David Gauthier apparently answered more than Rawls did. That kind of story sticks in r/askphilosophy. Mention volume has climbed: 12 in 2025 after a low of 3 in 2023. The book isn't fading.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Original position and veil of ignorance
- · Distributive justice and the difference principle
- · Liberal political philosophy vs. libertarian alternatives
- · Critique of utilitarianism
- · Meritocracy and luck
- · Tolerance and the paradox of tolerating intolerance
Common praise
- + r/askphilosophy treats it as one of roughly four books you have to read before you can meaningfully argue about political philosophy.
- + The ↑54 comment calling it perhaps the most important piece of liberal political philosophy written in English in 200 years gets no pushback.
- + It anchors threads on meritocracy, tolerance, and Marx's critique of Bentham — it travels across topics rather than sitting in one lane.
- + Mention volume held steady across seven years and climbed to 12 in 2025 alone, which suggests it stays assigned reading rather than aging into a curiosity.
Common criticism
- − The original seminar objection — that Rawls simply starts from what we already believe without justifying those beliefs — surfaces in r/askphilosophy and hasn't been fully resolved.
- − With 44 of 45 mentions concentrated in r/askphilosophy, it barely registers outside that sub, which limits how broadly the Reddit data can speak to its reception.
Who it's for
If you're working through political philosophy for the first time and want to understand what the last fifty years of the field are actually arguing about, this is the necessary prior. Read it before Nozick's *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* — the debate between them is half the curriculum. Graduate students in political theory, law, and economics encounter it as a given. If your interest is specifically in meritocracy or redistribution debates on Reddit, the ↑125 thread on luck and merit shows exactly how the book's ideas circulate without being credited. You don't need to agree with Rawls. You need to know what he said.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for A Theory of Justice?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“Hello, A quick word of caution before we begin -- the current atmosphere of political discussion in the United States is so polarized that very distinct positions tend to become conflated, or, worse yet, labels are ascribed to people, policies and institutions in such a fashion that these labels ar…
“The classic objection to pure meritocracy is that the qualities on which merit is awarded, namely intelligence and the ability to devote time and effort to school, are largely based on luck. We can’t choose to be born into a house where we can focus our energies on school instead of on taking care o…
“One view of this question, advanced by Karl Popper, is that unlimited tolerance can only result in the collapse of all tolerance. That is, when intolerant voices abandon rational argument in favor of violence, those who value tolerance should *not* tolerate them any further. This is not endorsing th…
“Karl Marx, while appreciative of J. S. Mill's concern for social justice, minced no words when discussing Jeremy Bentham in *Capital*, calling him a "Philistine" and a "insipid, pedantic, leather-tongued oracle of the ordinary bourgeois intelligence of the nineteenth century." For Marx, the utilitar…
“This post spells out the most cited works in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (circa 2020), as well as their date of publication: That yields a decent rule of thumb guide to the most important work in th…
“A quick anecdote: when Rawls was first presenting what would become *A Theory of Justice* to a room of prominent philosophers, it was objected by someone in the room that Rawls hadn't really shown anything, since he simply started from what we believe without justifying those initial beliefs. David…
“I think that you should read Hobbes' Leviathan, Machiavelli's The Prince, Rawls' A Theory of Justice, and Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia if you have not at least read those four.
“Rawls' main and most important work is not *Political Liberalism*, but *A Theory of Justice*. I recommend you read that instead. Also, I have to notice that this reading list has a very "historical" focus, which can be interesting for some, but many of these books are hardly relevant for contempora…
Convinced? Pick up A Theory of Justice
What else does r/askphilosophy read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant
Kant's 1781 attempt to settle the limits of human knowledge — the book that split philosophy in two and still hasn't been fully digested.
The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus
A 1942 essay that opens with the question of whether life is worth living and ends by insisting Sisyphus is happy.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein built a numbered ladder from logical atomism to the inexpressible, then said the ladder had to be discarded once you climbed it.
Being and Time
Martin Heidegger
Heidegger's argument that human existence only gets its meaning from death — 162 Reddit mentions, mostly from people explaining why it's so hard to read.
Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle
Aristotle's 2,400-year-old argument that living well depends on virtue, leisure, and the company you keep — still the canonical text for the field.
Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche dismantles the moral framework Western civilization built on, then refuses to tell you what to replace it with.
A Theory of Justice — frequently asked
What does Reddit actually think of A Theory of Justice?+
Depends on the sub. r/askphilosophy, which accounts for 44 of 45 total mentions, treats it as foundational — one ↑54 comment calls it the most important piece of liberal political philosophy written in English in 200 years. r/philosophy has one mention.
Is A Theory of Justice worth reading if I'm not a philosophy student?+
Yes, if you care about the arguments underneath debates about redistribution, meritocracy, or tolerance. The r/askphilosophy thread on luck and meritocracy (↑125) shows the book's core idea — that intelligence and opportunity are partly a matter of birth — circulating widely in applied political discussions. The primary text is dense, but the ideas travel.
Should I read A Theory of Justice before or after Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia?+
Rawls first. r/askphilosophy lists both together as required reading (↑57), but Nozick is explicitly a reply to Rawls. Reading Nozick without Rawls means missing what's being refuted. The two books together constitute the central debate in Anglo-American political philosophy since 1971.
Has A Theory of Justice held up on Reddit over the years?+
By volume, yes. The per-year data shows 45 total mentions from 2019 to 2025, with a spike to 12 in 2025 — the highest single-year count in the dataset. It dipped to 3 in 2023 but recovered. For a 1971 academic text, sustaining that presence in r/askphilosophy across seven years is not nothing.