In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Phelps’s encounters with Amartya Sen, John Rawls, and Kenneth Arrow at Stanford revived his philosophical streak. He had extremely valuable intellectual conversations with Rawls, prompting him to write several essays on the theory of economic justice and publish a book on the subject in 1974 – a book still used today.
在二十世纪六十年代后期和七十年代早期，菲尔普斯在斯坦福大学遇到了 Amartya Sen、John Rawls和 Kenneth Arrow，这使他对哲学又重新感起了兴趣。他与Rawls进行过极其有价值的智慧讨论，这促使他写了几篇有关经济公正理论的论文以及在1974年出版了一本专著，这本书今天仍在被使用。