This last book by the late John Rawls, derived from written lectures and notes for his long-running course on modern political philosophy, offers readers an account of the liberal political tradition from a scholar viewed by many as the greatest contemporary exponent of the philosophy behind that tradition. Rawls' goal in the lectures was, he wrote, "to identify the more central features of liberalism as expressing a political conception of justice when liberalism is viewed from within the tradition of democratic constitutionalism". He does this by looking at several strands that make up the liberal and democratic constitutional traditions, and at the historical figures who best represent these strands - among them the contractarians Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau; the utilitarians Hume, Sidgwick, and J. S. Mill; and Marx regarded as a critic of liberalism. Rawls' lectures on Bishop Joseph Butler also are included in an appendix. Constantly revised and refined over three decades, Rawls' lectures on these figures reflect his developing and changing views on the history of liberalism and democracy - as well as how he saw his own work in relation to those traditions. With its clear and careful analyses of the doctrine of the social contract, utilitarianism, and socialism - and of their most influential proponents - this volume has a critical place in the traditions it expounds. Marked by Rawls' characteristic patience and curiosity, and scrupulously edited by his student and teaching assistant, Samuel Freeman, these lectures are a fitting final addition to his oeuvre, and to the history of political philosophy as well.

约翰•罗尔斯（John Rawls,1921-2002），美国当代著名哲学家、伦理学家、政治学家、哈佛大学教授。1921年生于马里兰州，就学于普林斯顿大学，1950年在该校获哲学博士学位，以后相继在普林斯顿大学（1950—1952年）、康奈尔大学（1953—1959年）、麻省理工学院（1960—1962年）任教，1962年以后则一直在哈佛大学担任教授，1991年荣休，2002年11月24日去世。罗尔斯自50年代起便潜心于社会正义问题的研究，《正义论》（1971）是他集其论文之精粹并经过重新思考而形成的一部完整而一贯的理论著作。罗尔斯还出版了其他专著：《政治自由主义》（1993）、《万民法》（1999）、《道德哲学史讲义》（2000）以及《政治哲学史讲义》等。