Baynes's two main objectives are to show that Kant, Rawls, and Habermas share the view that "the idea of an agreement among free and equal persons [i. e., autonomous persons] ... constitutes the normative ground of social criticism" (p. 8), and that this "constructivist" view is more adequately developed and defended with each successive theorist. The study, however, goes beyond these aims and can often fruitfully be read as a comparative study of Rawls and Habermas.