Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
A Theory of Justice
Justice is fairness — the principles rational persons would choose behind a veil of ignorance, ignorant of their own social position
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | A Theory of Justice |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Immediate |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Constructed |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
A Theory of Justice
Rawls's framework presupposes standard real time. The just-savings principle (§44) is one of the earliest systematic treatments of intergenerational justice — each generation must save enough for the next to also enjoy the conditions of justice.
Space
A Theory of Justice
Not theorised; standard background. The political community is the "basic structure" of a society.
Matter
A Theory of Justice
Real, conserved. The "primary social goods" include both material and non-material; the difference principle governs their distribution.
Observer
A Theory of Justice
The Rawlsian observer is the rational, embodied, plural citizen — abstractable into the original-position self for theoretical purposes, but realised as a biographically situated person in actual political life. Moral authority is constructed through the procedure of the original position. The metaphysical agency is None — Rawls's mature work explicitly brackets "comprehensive doctrines" including theistic ones for the purposes of public reason (developed in Political Liberalism, 1993).
Energy
A Theory of Justice
Not engaged.
Information
A Theory of Justice
The veil of ignorance is a constructive informational device — what one doesn't know about one's own position is the procedural input from which fair principles emerge. Information is relational and procedurally constituted in Rawls's working argument.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Rawls himself spent the next twenty-five years (Political Liberalism, 1993; Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, 2001) revising the Theory in response to objections. The most serious internal tensions are over the status of the original position (whether it is a moral foundation or a modelling device), the relation between the two principles and the difference principle, and the application to international justice (which The Law of Peoples, 1999, attempts). External critics include Nozick (libertarianism), Sandel (communitarianism), and feminist critics (Okin) on the family as part of the basic structure.