Full Idea
Rawls's account of justice works only with widely accepted intuitions of fairness and relies at no point on controversial positions in ethics. The fruit of this modesty is a pious commentary on conventional moral beliefs.
Gist of Idea
Rawls's account of justice relies on conventional fairness, avoiding all moral controversy
Source
comment on John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 3.6
Book Reference
Gray,John: 'Straw Dogs' [Granta 2002], p.102
A Reaction
Presumably this is the thought which provoked Nozick to lob his grenade on the subject. It resembles the charges of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche against Kant, that he was just dressing up conventional morality. Are 'controversial' ethics good?