Rawls was born in Baltimore, Md. He attended the Kent School in Kent, Conn. before heading off to Princeton where he earned his bachelors in 1943.
From 1943 to 1945 Rawls served as a soldier in the Pacific. Upon his return to U.S. soil, he went back to Princeton to pursue graduate work. He received his doctorate in 1950.
He studied at Oxford University on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1952.
Rawls bounced from one prestigious university to another, holding the post of assistant and associate professor of philosophy at Cornell from 1953 to 1959 and professor of philosophy at MIT from 1960 to 1962.
Rawls, who first joined the Harvard philosophy department in 1962, taught until 1995, when he suffered the first of several major strokes.
“He had a very hard time the last seven years,” said his widow Margaret Rawls.
He continued to work for three years after his first stroke. Since that time, Margaret Rawls and other colleagues have continued to compile and edit his partially competed works.
Margaret Rawls, who met John Rawls on a blind date on New Years Eve, 1948 has been his sole caretaker. They have lived in the same Lexington home since 1960.
Rawls was a member of the American Philosophical Association and Phi Beta Kappa.
His impressive dossier of honors and appointments includes serving as president of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy and of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association.
“I am deeply saddened by the death of John Rawls. He combined profound wisdom with equally profound humanity. Few if any modern philosophers have had as decisive an impact on how we think about justice,” said University President Lawrence H. Summers in a statement. “Scholars in many different fields will continue to learn from him for generations to come.”
Friends and colleagues describe Rawls as a gentle man who lived what he taught.
“He was a kind, quiet person, very self effacing, who never thought of himself as anyone important,” Margaret Rawls said.
“He wasn’t just a moral philosopher, but a person of transcendent goodness, so good that he made you feel it was a privilege to be a contemporary of his,” said Thomas Nagel, university professor at New York University.
He was also a talented athlete—he placed on Princeton’s varsity football team as a first-year before deciding to focus on academics—and is remembered as a home-run baseball player and an avid sailor. The Rawls family vacations often involved skiing, mountain climbing or backpacking.
Rawls is survived by his wife and his four children, Anne, Robert, Alexander and Elizabeth.
A memorial service is planned for family and friends for next Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. at the First Unitarian Church in Lexington. A memorial service at Harvard will be planned sometime in the future.