The bad man desires arbitrary power. What moves the evil man is the love of injustice.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that bad individuals seek power for its own sake, driven by a desire for injustice.
John Rawls emphasizes the motivations behind negative human behavior in this quote. He suggests that those who are considered 'bad' not only seek power arbitrarily but are also fueled by a deep-seated admiration for injustice, indicating a moral failing that transcends mere ambition. This serves as a reflection on the darker aspects of human nature and the ethical implications of power dynamics in society.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about political corruption and ethics in leadership.
The perspective of eternity is not a perspective from a certain place beyond the world, nor the point of view of a transcendent being; rather it is a certain form of thought and feeling that rational persons can adopt within the world ... Purity of heart, if one could attain it, would be to see clearly and to act with grace and self-command from this point of view.
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions.
The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.
The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well.
The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.
Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.
Today, in American imperialism, the commodity has reached its most grandiose historical manifestation.
Gerald Westerby, he told himself. You were present at your birth. You were present at your several marriages and at some of your divorces, and you will certainly be present at your funeral. High time, in our considered view, that you were present at certain other crucial moments in your history.
Our liberty springs from and depends upon an abiding faith in God.
All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal, but with a near infinite capacity for folly. . . . He draws blueprints for Utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand--his own part comic, part tragic, part cussed, but part glorious nature.
If space is infinite, we may be at any point in space. If time is infinite, we may be at any point in time.
Take death for example. A great deal of our effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts to delay it, and often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we'd find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.
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