ABSTRACT
John Rawls’s book, A Theory of Justice, published in 1971, has had an enormous influence on the Western intellectual community. After the publication of A Theory of Justice, he published Political Liberalism, The Law of Peoples, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy and Collected Papers, which constitute a comprehensive system of political liberalism. Starting with justice as fairness, which provides the foundation for his political liberalism, Rawls moves from domestic democracy to the foundation of peace and order in the international community. It seems that Rawls wants to build a peaceful international community on the foundations of political liberalism. His political liberalism theory is famous for its rigor, clarity, insights, and comprehensiveness. In the mid-1980s, Rawls’s impact reached China. The Chinese version of A Theory of Justice, translated by Huaihong He, was published by the Commerce Press in China. It had been 17 years since its first publication in 1971 in English. After this, Political Liberalism, The Law of Peoples, and Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy have been translated into Chinese. At this point, only the Collected Essays have not been translated yet. Since the 1990s, there have been more and more Chinese works on Rawls’s moral philosophy and political philosophy. There are few articles in Chinese that give a comprehensive introduction to Rawls’s political philosophy. This chapter is not that ambitious. This chapter will introduce the basic arguments of his political liberalism. Then the author will give a short evaluation of his theory, which is based on contemporary international political reality and traditional Chinese political ideals.
