THE IDEA OF LIBERTY: JOHN RAWLS AND HERBERT LIONEL ADOLPHUS HART
THE IDEA OF LIBERTY: JOHN RAWLS AND HERBERT LIONEL ADOLPHUS HART

Summary/Abstract: The above article illustrates the argument between Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart and the issue of liberty as it was depicted by John Rawls. Rawls in his Theory of Justice claims that justice requires that every person enjoys the greatest possible liberty which is possible to reconcile with the liberty of other people. Following such a principle it may be assumed that liberty can only be limited in the name of the liberty of others. H.L.A. Hart does not share such a standpoint. He points out that liberty can be limited not only because of itself, but also due to some social and economic progress. Moreover Hart claims that the idea of liberty presented by Rawls differs from his point of view concerning the possible limitation of the law of property. In fact Rawls admitted that his deliberations in his subsequent work, namely The Political Liberalism, arise from the critical view of Hart presented in his work Rawls on Liberty and its Priority.

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