It’s been a while since I read A Theory of Justice, but didn’t Rawls make it plain at the outset that he was operating within established Liberal notions of what justice must be, citing the familiar themes and personages of Liberalism? It seemed clear to me that he was seeking to determine an indisputable Liberal conception of justice: hence A theory, not The theory— and Michael J. Sandel’s great critique of Rawls’s effort, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.