UCLA

In this paper I defend and expand on John Rawls’s view that what morality requires of major social institutions –- the “basic structure of society” –- is fundamentally different from what morality requires of individual moral agents. I do so by motivating the view that many moral relations are not purely interpersonal, but rather are specified and mediated by the institutions of the basic structure. I propose that we think of these social institutions as, to the extent that they specify and mediate moral relations among individuals, embodying morality.