ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of John Rawls thought, from his doctoral dissertation through A Theory of Justice and beyond. It shows how the young Rawls’ early work in moral epistemology shaped all of his later work, and that even Rawls’ work in political theory should be seen as part of a far-reaching attempt to reclaim moral knowledge. However, this attempt was undermined by underlying Wittgensteinian commitments and Rawls’ unwillingness to embrace a robust realism about moral experience and its objects.
