Few philosophers have made as much of a splash with a single book as john rawls did with the 1971 publication of a theory of justicethirty years later justice as fairness rearticulates the main themes of his earlier work and defends it against the swarm of criticisms it has attracted throughout the book rawls continues to defend his well known thought experiment in which an original . Few philosophers have made as much of a splash with a single book as john rawls did with the 1971 publication of a theory of justicethirty years later justice as fairness rearticulates the main themes of his earlier work and defends it against the swarm of criticisms it has attracted throughout the book rawls continues to defend his well known thought experiment in which an original . In time the lectures became a restatement of his theory of justice as fairness revised in light of his more recent papers and his treatise political liberalism 1993 as rawls writes in the preface the restatement presents in one place an account of justice as fairness as i now see it drawing on all my previous works. His final work justice as fairness a restatement edited and published posthumously was rawlss closely reasoned effort both to meet and overcome these objections and to further flesh out his original theory on balance i believe he succeeded on both counts as with the theory this is reading both illuminating and exha. In justice as fairness political not metaphysical 1985 rawls began to develop the idea that an account of justice with liberal content is best un derstood as a political conception2 a political conception of justice is justi fied by reference to political values and should not be presented as part of a more comprehensive moral religious or philosophical doctrine