ABSTRACT
There are two key reasons that we begin our account with Rawls. The first of these is because he has become such a dominant figure in the world of political philosophy – most especially in the AngloAmerican academy where the global justice debate initially began in earnest. The British philosopher A.N. Whitehead (1979: 39)
once famously said of Western Philosophy that it may be considered a footnote to Plato. In many respects one might characterize modern political philosophy – in its mainstream Anglo-American form – as a footnote to Rawls’ theory of social justice. We will attempt to elucidate this influence here.
