This book provides a fresh perspective on the role of public justification in the theory of John Rawls, considering how his influential works A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism converge and diverge.

How does the idea of public justification and adjacent concepts figure in the work of John Rawls? This book offered a detailed study which allows for an interpretation of how A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism converge and diverge. It also offers a systematic appraisal of the different strands and genealogy of legitimacy theory, both descriptive and normative. In so doing, it brings a fresh new perspective to this important element of Rawls’s theory.