The Passing of a Just Life

Harvard, and the academy, lost one of its most thoughtful, reasoned and eloquent members last week when Conant Professor Emeritus John Rawls passed away in his Lexington home at the age of 81.

Rawls’ work, which inspired a rejuvenation of political philosophy in the post-World War II era at Harvard and across the English-speaking world, prompted us all to think more critically about our conception of fairness, equality, liberty and justice.

In his seminal work, A Theory of Justice, Rawls first expounded on his idea of a society whose success is based upon its ability to help its least advantaged members; one created within a framework of wide basic personal liberties and an equality of opportunity for all members regardless of birth. His effort to blend egalitarianism and liberalism into a comprehensive framework that both recognized moral responsibilities and their practical motivations earned him acclaim and provoked vigorous debate from his colleages at Harvard and beyond.

His work provided the intellectual underpinnings for those who advocated a moral responsibility for helping those less fortunate by appealing to the reality that such efforts benefit all its members. His foundation brought out the best in Pellegrino University Professor Robert Nozick and Harvard College Professor and Bass Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel; he gave them the argument that inspired their groundbreaking replies.

Rawls’ contribution to his profession earned him mountains of praise: an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Harvard, a National Humanities Medal, professorships at presitigious universities across America, all beginning with a Fulbright Scholarship at Oxford. But more than any of the honors and esteem that Rawls earned, his lasting legacy will be immortalized in the students whose intellectual and moral lives he shaped with his teaching, mentoring and advising.

Professor Rawls, in his quiet, unassuming and self-effacing style, created an environment for his students and colleages in which they were able to engage actively in the debate with the great thinkers of Western history and fashion a system in which a community and each of its members have an equal share in each other’s success.

His life and contribution to an academy, where each voice enriches the knowledge of the whole body, made his life into his argument. For that we are blessed to have had him, and for that he will be missed deeply.