John Rawls (1921-2002) has been rightly recognized as highly influential in contemporary political philosophy. Rejecting utilitarianism according to which just institutions are to maximize the aggregate satisfaction of desires, Rawls formulates a new version of the social contract theory in order to show the possibility of a well-ordered society in which the basic rights and liberties of all citizens as free and equal persons are provided. Although being appreciated by many commentators as highly valuable, Rawls’s theory has been criticized for lacking a clear conception of the political. To examine this view, Rawls’s conception of the political must be fully understood. Moreover, since the idea of a free-standing political conception of justice plays a fundamental role in the Rawlsian theory of justice, the analysis of his conception of the political seems to be necessary and fruitful. The analysis of the fundamental ideas and concepts such as reasonableness and reciprocity, which we view as central to Rawls’s theory of justice, shows that the core of justice as fairness, even before what is called his communitarian turn in Political Liberalism, is Rawls’s conception of the political. Taking the distinction between persons and peoples seriously, he considers the political as a reasonable way in which the preservation of the self and the other at both domestic and international level is ensured. Although this reveals a normative conception, the normative content is not imported from outside the political,that is why justice as fairness can be a normative and moral conception, and yet political, independent of any comprehensive doctrines, liberal or whatever.