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Two thinkers, side by side

Life

1954 CE

CosmopolitanContemporaryGhanaian

He argues that you can be rooted in a particular place and people while remaining a citizen of the whole world, and that these are not in tension.

John Rawls

1921 CE – 2002 CE

PoliticalContemporaryAmerican

Born Baltimore

He asked what principles of justice you would choose if you didn't know who you'd be. The answer was more radical than anyone expected.

Connection

John Rawls liberal framework extended Kwame Anthony Appiah — Appiah works within and extends the Rawlsian tradition of liberal political philosophy, bringing it into conversation with identity, multiculturalism, and the ethics of belonging across cultural difference.

Shared Ideas

Equality

Shared Places

Princeton

Ideas

Tolerance Equality

Justice Equality The Social Contract The General Will

Words

“We do not need, have never needed, to agree on everything in order to act together.”
— Kwame Anthony Appiah

“There is a name for what happens when people across cultures influence each other: it is called life.”
— Kwame Anthony Appiah

“Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.”
— John Rawls

“Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.”
— John Rawls

Key Moments

2002-14

Princeton professorship and Cosmopolitanism

1950

Princeton doctorate and early career

1971

A Theory of Justice reshapes political philosophy

Works

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

A Theory of Justice