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.

約翰•羅爾斯（John Rawls,1921-2002），美國當代著名哲學傢、倫理學傢、政治學傢、哈佛大學教授。1921年生於馬裏蘭州，就學於普林斯頓大學，1950年在該校獲哲學博士學位，以後相繼在普林斯頓大學（1950—1952年）、康奈爾大學（1953—1959年）、麻省理工學院（1960—1962年）任教，1962年以後則一直在哈佛大學擔任教授，1991年榮休，2002年11月24日去世。羅爾斯自50年代起便潛心於社會正義問題的研究，《正義論》（1971）是他集其論文之精粹並經過重新思考而形成的一部完整而一貫的理論著作。羅爾斯還齣版瞭其他專著：《政治自由主義》（1993）、《萬民法》（1999）、《道德哲學史講義》（2000）以及《政治哲學史講義》等。