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What would it take to build a more just society? In contemporary debates about justice, identity is frequently front and centre, but the 20th-century American philosopher John Rawls thought that looking past identity was the key to more equality. In his book A Theory of Justice (1971), Rawls argued that if we could build a society from behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ that kept us from knowing anything about our identity, we would make choices resulting in a fairer society than we now have – one in which all would benefit from greater freedom and ‘fair equality of opportunity’.
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Human rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
10 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
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Art
Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer
17 minutes
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Metaphysics
What do past, present and future mean to a philosopher of time?
55 minutes
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Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
In art, the sublime is a feedback loop, evolving with whatever’s next to threaten us
9 minutes
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Political philosophy
The radical activist couple who fought for social change in the courtroom
21 minutes
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Human rights and justice
When a burial for slave trade victims is unearthed, a small island faces a reckoning
29 minutes