“The fundamental criterion for judging any procedure is the justice of its likely results.”
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter IV, Section 37, p. 230
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John Rawls 63
American political philosopher 1921–2002Related quotes
Source: Jesus or Christianity: A Study in Contrasts (1929), p. 21
Context: Can the use of physical force ever be reconciled with the family spirit?... On one occasion he appears to have resorted to force himself... It sheds no light upon the question as to whether the taking of life, capital punishment, or war are ever justifiable. The criterion by which Jesus judges every method is this; Can it be used appropriately in the home?

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. II Section I - Of The Eternity of Creation
Context: As creation was the result of eternal and infinite wisdom, justice, goodness, and truth, and effected by infinite power, it is like its great author, mysterious to us. How it could be accomplished, or in what manner performed, can never be comprehended by any capacity.
Eternal, whether applied to duration, existence, action, or creation, is incomprehensible to us, but implies no contradiction in either of them; for that which is above comprehension we cannot perceive to be contradictory, nor on the other hand can we perceive its rationality or consistency.

L'anisotropie de l'espace. La nécessaire révision de certains postulats des théories contemporaines. Les données de l'expérience (1997), p. 591

“Opportunities will be equal. The procedures will be fair. The result will be just.”
기회는 평등할 것입니다. 과정은 공정할 것입니다. 결과는 정의로울 것입니다.
Inaugural address of the president of South Korea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOYaWLddRbU&feature=youtu.be&t=9m21s (2017)

“Opportunities will be equal. The procedures will be fair. The result will be just.”
Inaugural address of the president of South Korea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOYaWLddRbU&feature=youtu.be&t=9m21s (2017)

“If we judge love by the majority of its results, it resembles hatred more than friendship.”
Si on juge de l'amour par la plupart de ses effets, il ressemble plus à la haine qu'à l'amitié.
Maxim 72.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Simon (1945, p. 179); As cited in: Harry M. Johnson (1966) Sociology: A Systematic Introduction. p. 287.
1940s-1950s

Source: 2000s, A Personal Odyssey (2000), Ch. 5 : Halls of Ivy
Context: In the summer of 1959, as in the summer of 1957, I worked as a clerk-typist in the headquarters of the U. S. Public Health Service in Washington. The people I worked for were very nice and I grew to like them. One day, a man had a heart attack at around 5 PM, on the sidewalk outside the Public Health Service. He was taken inside to the nurse's room, where he was asked if he was a government employee. If he were, he would have been eligible to be taken to a medical facility there. Unfortunately, he was not, so a phone call was made to a local hospital to send an ambulance. By the time this ambulance made its way through miles of Washington rush-hour traffic, the man was dead. He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors. Nothing so dramatized for me the nature of a bureaucracy and its emphasis on procedures, rather than results.
Source: "A theory of procedure." 1978, p. 541, Abstract