Pre-Liberal Political Philosophy Rawls and Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas 9004520244, 9789004520240

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Pre-​Liberal Political Philosophy

Studies in Moral Philosophy Series Editor Thom Brooks (Durham University) Editorial Board Chrisoula Andreou (University of Utah) Mark Bevir (University of California, Berkeley) Clare Chambers (University of Cambridge) Fabian Freyenhagen (University of Essex) Tim Mulgan (University of St Andrews) Ian Shapiro (Yale University)

volume 17

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/​simp

Pre-​Liberal Political Philosophy Rawls and Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas By

Daniel A. Dombrowski

LEIDEN | BOSTON

The Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data is available online at https://​cata​log.loc.gov lc record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/2022020262​

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/​brill-​typeface. issn 2211-​2 014 isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​5 2024-​0 (hardback) isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​5 2027-​1 (e-​book) Copyright 2022 by Daniel A. Dombrowski. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-​use and/​or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-​free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents  Abbreviations vii  Introduction 1 1  Rawls and Plato: The Noble Lie and Social Contract Theory 7 1  Introduction 7 2  The Very Early Rawls 7 3  The Mature Rawls and the Noble Lie 9 4  Ferguson’s Criticisms 12 5  Strauss and the Straussians 16 6  Page’s View 19 7  The Smith-​Brickhouse Stance 25 8  Annas and Bok 27 9  Political Liberalism 30 10  Social Contract Theory 34 11  Conclusion 39 2  Rawls and Aristotle: Reflective Equilibrium and the Battle between the Ancients and the Moderns 41 1  Introduction 41 2  Some Basic Similarities and Differences 41 3  Wolterstorff’s View 43 4  Dworkin’s View 46 5  Natural Rights 50 6  Critique of Wolterstorff’s View 51 7  Relativism 59 8  The Ancients and the Moderns 61 9  The Aristotelian Principle 64 10  Virtue 66 11  The Capabilities Approach 67 12  Conclusion 70 3  Rawls and Augustine: Sin, Pluralism of Comprehensive Doctrines, and Nonideal Theory 72 1  Introduction 72 2  Sin 72 3  Infancy and Childhood 75

vi Contents

4  God as Personal 80 5  Pluralism of Comprehensive Doctrines 88 6  Just War Theory 90 7  Abortion 97 8  Nelson on Pelagianism 102 9  Conclusion 105

4  Rawls and Aquinas: Deliberative Rationality, Love, and Justice 107 1  Introduction 107 2  The Common Good 108 3  Natural Duty 109 4  Faith and Sin 110 5  Nonhuman Animals 113 6  Deliberative Rationality 121 7  Types of Dominant Ends 125 8  Justice 128 9  Love 130 10  Freeman’s and Pogge’s Contributions 133 11  Facilitation of a Just Society 136 12  Conclusion 139 5  Rawls and History: Ahistoricism and Contextualism 141 1  Introduction 141 2  Plato’s Philosophy of History 141 3  Two Interpretations of Kant 143 4  Crucial Points in History 146 5  Ahistoricism and Contextualism 147 6  Recognition 150 7  Robust Reasonableness 151 8  Lefebvre and Spiritual Exercises 154 9  Conclusion 158  Bibliography 161  Index of Names 174

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Abbreviations c p j f l mp l p l pp p l s f t j

Collected Papers Justice as Fairness Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy The Law of Peoples Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy Political Liberalism A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith: With ‘On My Religion’ A Theory of Justice

Introduction No political philosopher since Karl Marx has given rise to as much secondary literature as John Rawls. Nonetheless, there has been a paucity of attention paid to Rawls and the history of political philosophy outside of his relationships with 20th c. analytic thinkers and his clear connection to Immanuel Kant. To some extent the dearth of historical studies on Rawls is understandable, given the tendency on the part of 20th c. analytic thinkers to reject the different versions of 19th c. historicism and given the related tendency to be attracted to both formalism and the quest for objectivity exhibited in scientific reasoning. Philosophers as different as Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Jurgen Habermas, and Richard Rorty have exhibited a great deal of admiration for Rawls’s philosophy, but they have also complained about his ahistorical approach. The purpose of the present book is to argue that these critics are at best only half correct in this complaint. That is, it is important to get away from the tradition of Rawls scholarship that treats the original position as an ahistorical founding event rather than as a hypothetical thought experiment that is but one moment in the overall historical method of reflective equilibrium or Aristotelian dialectic. Seen in this more modest role, the original position is very productive in the effort to determine what a just society requires, given our democratic history. Specifically, I will concentrate on four pre-​liberal thinkers who are major figures in the history of philosophy and who are also surprisingly formative in the development of Rawls’s mature political philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The chapters are arranged in chronological order. The first deals with Rawls and Plato. Despite the clear differences between these two, there is also a deep resonance between these authors of the two greatest works in the history of philosophy devoted strictly to the concept of justice: Plato’s Republic and Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. The major similarities and differences between the two can be highlighted by concentrating on Plato’s use of, and Rawls’s refusal to defend, what is commonly referred to as “the noble lie.” I will also deal with their respective positions on social contract theory, the first historical example of which is found in Book 2 of the Republic. Several contemporary scholars will be treated in this chapter, especially Leo Strauss and several thinkers influenced by him. We will see that Rawls rejects what he calls the “naturalism” and “mysticism” of Plato, both of which Rawls thought were destructive of community. But the biggest difference between the two concerns Plato’s view that (in Rawlsian terms) a single comprehensive doctrine characterizes (or should

© Daniel A. Dombrowski, 2022 | DOI:10.1163/9789004520271_002

2 Introduction characterize) the beliefs of everyone in society and that those who are experts regarding this view should be given the prerogative to rule, indeed they should be given the prerogative to engage in censorship and to tell “the noble lie” when discussing political matters with those who are not as wise as they. There is nonetheless common opposition in Plato and Rawls to the realpolitik view. That is, they both take justice very seriously in that, in addition to strategic considerations in politics, there are also, and primarily, matters of right and wrong. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, in general, signal something new in human history that radically alters its course. The discovery of free yet disciplined use of human reason is no small accomplishment, but rational human nature needs to be supplemented by training and education, as both Plato and Rawls realized. I will further argue that the nascent pluralism in ancient Athens, evidenced in the questions asked about, and criticisms levelled at, the Homeric worldview prefigure the problem of pervasive pluralism that became explicit in the early modern period. It is this problem that gave rise to liberal political philosophy, in general, and to Rawls’s political liberalism, in particular. The second chapter deals with Rawls and Aristotle. Most importantly, Rawls’s overall method of reflective equilibrium goes back to Aristotle’s dialectic. This is no small inheritance from the ancient world. Further, Rawls’s concept of primary goods or the “thin” theory of the good also goes back to Aristotle, as does his opposition to pleonexia or unfairly gaining at the expense of others. In both Aristotle and Rawls there is a strong desire to avoid tailoring the canons of legitimate complaint to fit one’s own special conditions. In Rawls this takes the form of deliberation about justice behind the famous veil of ignorance. The major difference between Aristotle and Rawls consists in the former’s teleological perfectionism in which there is only one reasonable and rational good. This commitment is at odds with the pervasive pluralism found in modern societies explicitly and in ancient ones implicitly. At least in part, Aristotle’s perfectionism is due to the weight he places on self-​evidence, which, in Rawls’s case, plays a much more limited role due to the fact that self-​evidence, if there is such, is subservient to the process of reflective equilibrium. Contemporary civic humanists have a tendency to defend Aristotelian essentialism such that only by robust participation in public life can one be truly human. Rawls submits this view as well to the rigors of reflective equilibrium. It seems fair to say that Rawls, as well as Aristotle, is a virtue ethicist, although Rawls is primarily interested in the political virtues of toleration of differences and of reasonableness itself. Rawls also benefits from Aristotle’s concept of the common good so long as this concept is seen as a political ideal, rather than as the expression of the values found in a particular comprehensive doctrine.

Introduction

3

Happiness as an inclusive (rather than dominant) end is very much in play in both Aristotle and Rawls. In addition to the method of reflective equilibrium, the most important thing that can be learned from a comparison of Aristotle and Rawls concerns the historic battle within the history of liberalism between the ancients and the moderns. The differences between these two systems of liberty are significant, according to Rawls, precisely because of the historical and cultural background in ancient Greece that distinguishes it from any modern state. That is, Rawls is acutely aware of the significance of historical, ­cultural, religious, and economic background in influencing the political philosophy of a particular society. The allegedly overly abstract apriorism of Rawls’s political philosophy is, quite frankly, a misunderstanding of his view, as his attempt to find the appropriate place for both the liberties of the ancients and the liberties of the moderns indicates. The third chapter deals with Rawls and Augustine. One is struck by the dramatic change between the very early Rawls, where the Augustinian theme of salvation through grace alone via faith is crucial, to his later belief that Augustine was one of the two darkest minds in the history of Western thought (the other being Dostoyevsky)! The relationship between sin (including original sin) and Rawls’s political liberalism is explored, with the mature Rawls declaring that there is something repugnant in the doctrine of original sin. The very early Rawls, however, was under the influence of certain neo-​orthodox Christian theologians who were themselves Augustinian in their orientation. Whereas Augustine saw even infants as sinners, the mature Rawls defended (under the influence of Jean Piaget) a more optimistic developmental approach to childhood development. Nonetheless, even the mature Rawls explored some issues in nonideal theory that were also of interest to Augustine: just war theory and abortion. In relation to these practical issues there is more agreement between Augustine and Rawls than might be expected, including their common opposition to “realism” in war and their common defense of “delayed hominization” regarding the fetus. Despite the significant changes in Rawls’s assessment of Augustine as Rawls matured, his early anti-​Pelagian stance endured. Throughout his career Rawls defended what can be called a version of secular Augustinianism in that he was skeptical of the influential claim made in the modern world that some people deserve a larger slice of the pie than others in the distribution of socially desired goods. Rawls also was opposed to predestination, a position that appealed to the later Augustine, if not to Augustine at an earlier stage in his career. Finally, Rawls’s opposition to turning God into an object led him to criticize the classical theism defended by Augustine and to implicitly point toward a version of neoclassical or process theism where divine personality is

4 Introduction given a rational defense, although, it must be admitted, Rawls had a lifelong skittishness regarding natural or rational theology. I would like to be explicit at the outset that the lens through which I will be viewing Rawls and his relationship to the four thinkers in question is that of a process or neoclassical theist. Like a good searchlight, this lens will help us to see things in Rawls that are clearly there, but which are not illuminated in other approaches. Further, it should also be clear from what has been said above that this is not a book that deals exclusively with Rawls on Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, although it is at least that. Rather, I will be examining not only what Rawls says about each of these thinkers, but also examining how Rawls’s philosophy relates to these thinkers in ways that Rawls himself does not mention and how these thinkers can help to illuminate important features of Rawls’s thought. The fourth chapter examines the relationship between Rawls and Aquinas, whose Summa Theologiae Rawls viewed as a magnificent achievement. As with the other three thinkers studied in this book, the very early Rawls thought that Aquinas made a big mistake by “naturalizing” and hence “de-​personalizing” the good. Another mistake made by Aquinas was to assume that a just society is one where only those who understood the good were fit to rule. On the basis of this assumption, intolerance of those who had views of the good life different from the official one was not only permissible but may have constituted a duty. Nonetheless, Rawls’s view is compatible with Aquinas’s view of the common good when construed in a political sense as a meta-​common good of associational or individual common goods. That is, there is much to commend Aquinas’s views when they are appropriately adapted to fit the pervasive pluralism that characterizes the contemporary polyglot world in which we live. Aquinas failed to draw out the implicit egalitarianism of ideas he defended, like liberty, equality, and reward for services contributing to the common good. What is needed, Rawls thinks, is not merely the announcement of these ideas, but also their interpretation and application. It is clear that natural rights and natural duties play different and much smaller roles in Rawls than they do in Aquinas, but the fact that they do play roles at all comes as a surprise to many scholars. Likewise, in addition to deliberative rationality, love plays a larger role in Rawls’s overall view than is usually noted. Indeed, the rational agents of construction in the original position, when constrained by the veil of ignorance, construct principles of justice that are very close to what would be agreed to by a community of benevolent agents. Also, in this chapter the distinction between an inclusive end like happiness will be distinguished from various possible dominant ends. The point to this distinction is to show that a theistic metaphysician like Aquinas (or Ignatius of

Introduction

5

Loyola) need not be seen as irrational or mad, despite Rawls’s own skepticism regarding natural or rational theology. However, Rawls’s treatment of religious questions, especially from the time of the publication of Political Liberalism, but most particularly at the very beginning and very end of his career, indicates the need for the third and fourth chapters of the present book. The final chapter deals with the relationship between Rawls and history, a relationship that will strike some readers as odd if they assume (illegitimately, I think) that Rawls’s overall method is abstract in the pejorative sense of the term, aprioristic, and ahistorical. The approach I am taking has been prepared by several relatively recent developments. One of these is the publication in 2009 of Rawls’s undergraduate thesis, which makes apparent the fact that the very early Rawls was trained in the history of philosophy and started out his academic career as a Christian theologian rooted in the history of that religion. He had whole courses on Plato as both an undergraduate (under Theodore Greene) and in graduate school (under Robert Scoon). He also had a graduate seminar on Aristotle (also under Scoon) and was very familiar with the problem of akrasia or weakness of will in Aristotle. Further, early in his teaching career he offered his own courses on philosophy of religion, Christian ethics, ancient and medieval political philosophy, and philosophical classics (see Galisanka 2019, 200–​206, 234). It is also noteworthy that Rawls’s Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (2000) and his Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy (2007) were published after many or most scholars had already made up their minds on Rawls on the basis of the (again erroneous) assumption that his philosophy is built on an overly abstract, aprioristic, and ahistorical method. The present book is an attempt to remedy interpretations of Rawls that do not pay sufficient attention to his relationship to both history, in general, and the history of philosophy, in particular. It should also be noted that several scholars have recently mined the archival material at Princeton, Cornell, and Harvard that deals with Rawls (see various publications by Mark Bevir, MacKenzie Bok, Daniele Botti, Katrina Forrester, Andrius Galisanka, David Reidy, and others). These scholars have facilitated a more accurate historical reading of Rawls in relation to several important influences in mid-​century analytic philosophy: the understanding of Ludwig Wittgenstein (whose Philosophical Investigations starts with a discussion of Augustine) while Rawls was at Cornell and at Oxford, his engagement with John Dewey’s naturalism, the influence of Stephen Toulmin and Max Black on the inductive logic that led to the method of reflective equilibrium, the influence of von Neumann’s game theory, etc. However, these topics touch only tangentially the concerns of the present book, as when we learn from Botti that Rawls thought of G. E. Moore’s thought as a kind of Platonic atomism of ethical

6 Introduction properties that cannot be analyzed or as when we learn from Reidy that even the very early Rawls was opposed to divine command theory. My aim is to concentrate on four pre-​modern thinkers so as to determine not only what Rawls thought about these figures, but also to determine what can be learned about Rawls when seen in light of these important philosophers. Andrius Galisanka is especially helpful regarding the archival material in alerting us to the courses Rawls took that dealt with ancient and medieval thinkers, including a course with Norman Malcolm at Princeton on Social Philosophy that concentrated on the problem of evil. This material is also instructive regarding why Rawls traced the “naturalism” (to be discussed later) of the medievals back to the ancients and why Rawls came to reject foundationalism (including the foundation of Plato’s political thought in the forms) in political philosophy. Nonetheless, Galisanka unearths evidence in Rawls that the goal is not so much to trash or discard ancient or medieval thinkers like Aquinas, but to “strengthen and improve Aquinas’s account” of political philosophy (Galisanka 2019, 4, 19, 21–​22, 38–​39, 46, 48, 117, 155, 200, 238). The accusation that Rawls is insufficiently historical and concrete is analogous to accusations that are sometimes made against Plato and Kant. One source of this view is the fact that the most famous of Rawls’s theoretical constructs, the original position behind a veil of ignorance, is relatively ahistorical and abstract. However, the scholarly task is to find the proper place for this theoretical construct within Rawls’s entire philosophy and within his overall historical method of reflective equilibrium. The whole purpose of Rawlsian inconcretia is to facilitate understanding of the concrete, historical world in which we live. The work of abstraction is put into motion by disagreements at the concrete level of political antagonism. The greater the disagreements, the greater the need for an abstract point of view from which to survey the differences at ground level. The present book was written in 2021 during the covid pandemic and as Donald Trump left office as President of the United States. Both in America and elsewhere throughout the world political differences are especially wide, hence the need now more than ever for more abstract reasoning. But it is historically embodied human beings who engage in abstract reasoning in political philosophy, hence there is no need to apologize for the supposedly unworldly character of Rawlsian thinking. The “thin” selves who inhabit the Rawlsian original position behind a veil of ignorance in short order “return” to their “thick” identities, informed as they are by various historical forces, including the enormous legacies of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas.

­c hapter 1

Rawls and Plato: The Noble Lie and Social Contract Theory 1

Introduction

It does not seem hyperbolic to claim that Plato’s Republic and Rawls’s A Theory of Justice are the two greatest works in the history of philosophy devoted strictly to the concept of justice. This claim leads us to consider that, despite the clear differences between the two, there is also a deep resonance between them. I will concentrate on Plato’s famous (or infamous) use of the noble lie in the Republic, which will serve to highlight some of the major similarities and differences between the two theories of justice. I will also explore the use of social contract theory in Plato so as to further elucidate the noble lie and Rawls’s contrasting view. Along the way, however, several other important connections between the two thinkers will be noted. That is, by considering in detail the noble lie, in particular, and the ways in which contemporary scholars, especially the followers of Leo Strauss, have tried to understand it, we can see better Rawls’s alternative view of political philosophy, in general. 2

The Very Early Rawls

At the time of his undergraduate thesis, Rawls had a somewhat negative view of Plato due to his belief that the Greek tradition did not mix well with Christianity. An ounce of the Bible, he thought, was worth more than a pound, or even a ton, of the Greeks. There are two reasons why he thinks there is a poor fit between the Greeks and Christianity. First, the former explain both God and the world through “naturalism” in contrast to the “personalism” of Christianity. Personal relations, which are also crucial for Rawls’s later concept of reciprocity, are active on both sides. Naturalism (which is not to be equated with materialism, but stands for nonpersonalism) involves the impersonal on at least one side of a relationship. In Plato’s ethics, in particular, especially in the Symposium and the Phaedrus, there is eros directed toward some nonpersonal end. Rawls’s concern in this very early period in his career is that this “naturalization” of the cosmos would lead to a loss of community (sf 107, 114–​ 115, 120; also Moon 2015a, 157).

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In addition to the loss of community in Platonic “naturalism,” Rawls also sees as problematic the tendency toward mysticism in Platonic dualism, a mysticism introduced by the Orphic cult. The problem with mysticism, on this interpretation, is that it seeks a union that excludes all particularity (what Rawls will later call the distinctness of persons), in contrast to what the very early Rawls saw as the communal and personal (and hence particular) character of the universe. Platonic forms are universals rather than particulars and they are abstract rather than concrete. That is, Platonic mysticism as well as Platonic “naturalism” are destructive of community, a concept that was crucial in Rawls’s political philosophy even at this very early stage. The concrete character of community in the very early Rawls is indicated as well by his belief regarding the afterlife not in Platonic immortality of the soul, but in resurrection of bodies. It is Plato’s view, not Christianity, that encourages asceticism, according to the very early Rawls, who did not detect in Christianity a morbid attitude toward the body and sex as detected by some other thinkers (sf 126, 135–​137, 142; also see Boettcher 2015, 89). The very early Rawls sides with Aristotle against Plato in holding that human beings can voluntarily do evil. That is, he rejected the thesis of the Protagoras (which may or may not have been Plato’s own view) that virtue is knowledge. Relying on the scholarship of A. E. Taylor and Raphael Demos, Rawls thinks that toward the end of this dialogue Plato (through the character Socrates) argues that no one willingly chooses evil in that many moral mistakes are the result of ignorance, say by choosing momentary pleasure, not realizing that it will later lead to pain, or by eschewing momentary pain, not realizing that it might eventually lead to pleasure. If someone really knew the good, on this view, it would always be chosen (sf 143–​145, 157–​159). The problem with this Platonic view, as the very early Rawls sees things, is that it once again makes the “naturalistic” assumption that the good is an object; it naturalizes the good rather than personalizes it. Plotinus takes this assumption to the extreme by suggesting that the virtuous person seeks “the one” or “the alone,” the most abstract of objects. On Rawls’s alternative view, the virtuous person seeks personal relations, not any object, no matter how exalted the object might be (sf 160, 179). It is ironic that, despite the very early Rawls’s criticisms of Plato’s nonpersonalism, a case could be made for Plato’s World Soul as a living and dynamic and personal god in the process of becoming, in contrast to Aristotle’s unmoved mover (see Vanderven 2015, 175; Dombrowski 2005, ch. 1). Or again, think of the personified Laws in the Crito that had such a hold on Socrates (see Talisse 2015, 54). The very early Rawls agreed with Plato that there is good reason to be skeptical of the claim that all human beings naturally seek the good, and this on the

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evidence of the horrors of the Peloponnesian War. As in the Republic, citizens must be trained and educated toward the good, but on Rawls’s view such education should be directed toward a personal good, whether human or divine, rather than toward an impersonal one, as in Plato. This training in the Republic included, as is well known, both censorship and the noble lie, which Rawls later criticizes in A Theory of Justice and which are also frowned upon here in his undergraduate thesis. The earthy version of Christianity defended by the very early Rawls, however, valued athletic training as much as intellectual discipline (sf 162–​164; tj 454; also Costa 2011, 1). Plato seems to assume in the Republic that the soul is easily determined by its surroundings (hence the alleged need for censorship and the noble lie), but if it is properly trained it can reach the good. Relying on the scholarship of R. L. Nettleship, Ernest Barker, and Philip Leon, Rawls isolates a theme that will become crucial in his later thought: proper nurture and proper institutions, along with a human nature conducive to living in such institutions, are all needed for the development of the human person. In this regard, despite the above criticisms of Plato, Rawls owes a significant debt to Plato. Both intellectual and athletic training are designed to lead the soul to the good. Being good is no simple thing in Plato; and for many of the same reasons in the later Rawls, establishing a just society is no simple thing. In some fashion, nature and nurture are required in each case. In the Christian language used by Rawls at this stage in his career, Plato thought that human beings could in a way “save” themselves (sf 168–​170). 3

The Mature Rawls and the Noble Lie

A world wherein there are no real personal relations, only natural ones, is a lonely world, according to the very early Rawls. It is a world that is not only destructive of community, it also encourages “egoism” or “egotism” (sf 209). The mature Rawls surely agrees with the dominant view of (at least Western) philosophers that history was radically altered by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. But in A Theory of Justice he makes it clear that it would not only be hyperbolic, but misguided, to adopt the Nietzschean view that the best society is one that fosters the flourishing of the highest specimens, like Socrates and Goethe. Quite clearly Rawls is not a Romantic thinker. Further, he does not subscribe to the Platonic glorification of philosopher kings or queens, who are given the prerogative to use a pseudos (a lie or a convenient fiction) on the citizens, supposedly for their own benefit. These nonplatonic tendencies in Rawls are nonetheless compatible with his approval of Plato’s opposition to any sort

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of private society where each person assesses social arrangements solely as a means to idiosyncratic aims. There is something to be said in favor of Plato’s aforementioned view that the goal is to work together toward a just society that involves an optimal mix of both physis and nomos (tj 325, 454, 521; also see Plato’s Republic 369, 372; and Nietzsche 1997, 3rd essay, section 6). Very few contemporary philosophers would agree with what was apparently Kant’s position that lying is always morally impermissible. Two sorts of lie are now generally seen as morally permissible. First, there are lies that prevent catastrophic effects from occurring, as in the inquiring murderer case made famous by Kant himself; and second, “white” lies, whose consequences are insignificant, are also generally considered morally permissible, provided they do not become habitual and are not conducive to morally bothersome lies. Much more controversial among philosophers, however, is the moral status of a species of paternalistic lie derived from Plato called “the noble lie.” It is easy to imagine why some would defend some paternalistic lies, say if one were literally a pater who could prevent harm being done to his child by telling the child a lie. But there are problems here in that it is also easy to imagine even greater harm being done to the child if there were some means of preventing the initial harm being done without resorting to a lie. If it is difficult to justify paternalistic lies to children, as surely it is, it is even more difficult to justify paternalistic lies when the person lied to is a sound-​minded adult. This seems to be Rawls’s very point. Perhaps it is impossible to do so, at least if we assume that the lie is not told in order to save a life, once again as in the inquiring murderer case. Rawls encourages us to examine Plato’s use of the noble lie in politics and to examine it within the context of contemporary political philosophy, a context wherein at least three different assessments of the noble lie are possible. First, there are those like Karl Popper and indeed Rawls himself who see the noble lie as part of, or at least as leading to, totalitarian politics. Second, there are also Leo Strauss-​like defenders of Plato’s noble lie. And third, there is a Rawlsian view that mediates between the above two views, albeit in a way that finds the noble lie morally objectionable even if it is not necessarily seen as part of totalitarian political aspirations. In effect, the Popperian-​Rawlsian view is not so much false as hyperbolic, from the point of view of this third position. The key passage in Plato regarding the noble lie is Republic 414b–​c, which has always been one of the most controversial passages in his corpus. This is the section where he introduces his version of the myth of the metals (taken from Hesiod), in which those of the golden generation will rule, while the

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silvery types will be soldiers, and the bronze and iron people will be workers. What causes the turmoil is the possible intent that Plato has in using this myth. The controversial passage goes as follows (Shorey translation), where the character Socrates says: How then, said I, might we contrive one of those opportune (deonti) falsehoods (pseudon) of which we were just now speaking, so as by one noble lie (gennaion ti en pseudomenous) to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city. Popper infers from this passage that Plato was both a racist and a totalitarian. For Popper, the myth is a fraud designed to reconcile the common citizens (those supposedly of bronze and iron blood) to their lot. It is significant that this interpretation hinges on Popper’s translation of the passage in question. He translates gennaion as “lordly” and pseudomenous as “lie” (Popper 1950, 270–​ 271). The “lordly lie” that Plato advocates is indicative of Plato’s racist aristocracy and should not be confused with a truly noble lie, Popper thinks (e.g., Tom Sawyer’s, by which he took Becky’s guilt upon himself). Furthermore, Popper translates deonti as “handy,” thereby showing a quasi-​fascist or Machiavellian side of Plato that resists all idealization (Popper 1950, 140). By contrast, the Jowett translation renders deonti as “needful.” Equally negative are the interpretations of R. H. S. Crossman and Warner Fite. The former translates the important words in question as “noble lie,” but sees nothing noble in this lie (Crossman 1939, 130). In fact, he sees Plato as another Hitler or Stalin because, according to Crossman, Plato’s lying propaganda is really only for the consumption of the ruled. Fite translates gennaion as “pious” and pseudomenous as “lies” or “fictions,” and deonti as “opportune” (Fite 1934, 29). These opportune, pious lies are used by Plato to create a myth of “brotherhood” to be used when policies call for a general sacrifice on the part of the people. Fite contends that we can hear Socrates and Glaucon laughing in the background as the gullible masses believe the audacious story about the golden types, i.e., the philosophers. Indeed, most of the members of the Republic are lied to (see Moon 2015b, 875). This negative tendency reached its zenith just before and after World War Two, and it appears to have affected Rawls, who seems to follow Popper’s interpretation and compares Plato to Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor (tj 454). Just before the war Arnold Toynbee saw Plato as a racist (Toynbee 1934, 247–​249) and long before the war Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th c. Platophile who said that “Plato is philosophy, and philosophy Plato,” also said, concerning passages like Republic 414b–​c, that Plato:

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… throws a little … dust in our eyes. I am sorry to see him, after such noble superiorities, permitting the lie to governors. Plato plays Providence a little with the baser sort, as people allow themselves with their dogs and cats. emerson 1944, 417

4

Ferguson’s Criticisms

Emerson’s view has been reiterated by J. Ferguson, who correctly notes that little serious study has been made of Plato’s ethics, especially as regards one of the most important ethical issues Plato creates, that dealing with the so-​called noble lie. Although Ferguson does not mention Terence Irwin’s fine book on Plato’s moral theory, no harm is done in that Irwin does not treat the present passage in any detail. Ferguson isolates three conflicts that appear in this passage: (a) The fundamental dichotomy is between Plato’s stance that all falsehood is ethically wrong and his suggestion that the rulers can tell a pseudos in order to inculcate obedience in the subject citizens for, as Ferguson puts it, “the sake of the stability of the society.” Ferguson seems to go a bit too far, however, in claiming that the rulers may not only tell a pseudos, but also use “whatever means” to inculcate obedience. Much is at stake here, because it is only by assuming that the rulers can use “whatever means” possible to inculcate obedience that Ferguson can make the Popperian claim that Plato was a totalitarian. (b) There is a dichotomy between the “absolutism” of Plato’s stance that all falsehood is ethically wrong and his admission that falsehood springing from knowledge is ethically preferable to falsehood springing from ignorance. (c) There is a dichotomy between Plato’s stance that the rulers must possess to the full intellectual and moral virtue and the pseudos the rulers must tell, specifically because full intellectual and moral virtue limits the means the rulers have at their disposal to inculcate obedience. There are good reasons, however, for thinking that Popper, Crossman, Fite, Emerson, Toynbee, Ferguson, and Rawls himself should be criticized even if they are ultimately on the right track. I would like to start this criticism by responding to the conflicts in Plato detailed by Ferguson, often relying, ironically enough, on Ferguson’s own scholarship, which shows intellectual honesty in alerting us to other points of view and which supplies us with enough evidence to refute the thesis that Plato’s ethics is in serious trouble because of the above alleged conflicts, and that Plato’s noble lie is part of, or that it leads to, totalitarianism. I will make three points of my own.

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My first point deals with Ferguson’s use of F. M. Cornford. Ferguson rightly cites Cornford’s contention that the Greek pseudos has a much wider sense than our “lie” in that it applies to all works of imagination, fictitious narratives, etc., and only sometimes refers to lies. Ferguson agrees that Cornford is too solid a scholar to talk nonsense, because at 376e–​377a we find a use of pseudos to refer to fairy-​tales told to children. In fact, the value of these stories lies precisely in the truth (aletheia) they contain. Even though Ferguson is right that usually when Plato uses the term pseudos (or its cognates) it is in adverse ethical judgments, and in opposition to aletheia, there is nothing contradictory, as I will show, in having aletheia contained in a pseudos. In any event, it is strange that Ferguson should first admit Cornford’s point concerning how wide the term pseudos is, and then go on to translate pseudos throughout the rest of the article as “lie” without much further comment. I can find only two spots in Ferguson that attempt to dismiss Cornford’s important point, both of which involve the fact that the pseudos in question is gennaion. First, Ferguson thinks that one can speak of a “thumping lie” but not of a “thumping story.” The point seems to be that if we take the negative value judgment out of pseudos, as defenders of Plato presumably wish to do, we deprive it of its ability to be called gennaion. Why? We are not told. I do not find a “thumping story” or a “noble story” bothersome from the perspective of ordinary language, at least. Second, Ferguson claims that “it will not do to underplay the irony of the oxymoron gennaion pseudos.” But to admit that Plato is ironic does not establish the case that he contradicts himself. One can grant Ferguson’s point here without seeing how it enables us to escape Cornford. In sum, the wideness of the scope of pseudos helps the defender of Plato to somewhat avoid the conflicts in (a) and (c) above. Nor does the concept of gennaion pseudos run counter to the metaphysical system of the Republic, as Ferguson says. This will become apparent below. The whole purpose of the Republic is to educate Glaucon, et al., and to educate one must not only gaze at the eternal forms, but also at this world, in which as much knowledge as possible is to be obtained (501b). My second point deals with Ferguson’s choice of medicine as a heuristic to understand the pseudos. For Ferguson, the ethical principle that allows the pseudos is found at 389b–​c, where it is suggested that falsehood is useless to the gods, but it may be useful to human beings as a form of medicine. Ferguson is correct in this judgment, but hasty in assuming that this is the only analogy, or the richest one, upon which the gennaion pseudos could be based. I would prefer instead to try an educational analogy as a heuristic, which has some textual support, as we have seen, from 376e–​377a. That is, if the gennaion pseudos is a teaching device, then by considering this possibility one might be better

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able to preserve Plato’s consistency in the face of all three of the above alleged conflicts. With respect to (b), if the pseudos is an educational device one need not be much ashamed of knowingly using it. Ferguson, however, encourages those who see the pseudos as innocent to study 381e–​383a, where a distinction is made between the true pseudos (alethos pseudos), where one is ignorant of the truth or where one has deceived oneself, and the pseudos in words, which is only a kind of imitation and is not unruly (akraton), i.e., is not immoral. Plato is quite clear that the latter pseudos is not only useful (chresimon), but is also not hateful (me axion einai misous). Only the true pseudos is hated by the gods, even if the gods themselves also avoid the pseudos in words. In their purity they do not need (note deonti at 414b) a pseudos in words. Human beings do, it seems. An example will get at the heart of the matter for those who wish to defend Plato’s use of the noble lie. When I was a student, I took an introductory course in physics, of which there were two sections: one for science majors and one for non-​science majors. I fell into the latter category. The course for science majors included a knowledge of calculus, complicated formulae, etc. The course I took was taught by a teacher who spoke English and who assigned a book with many pictures in it of inclined planes, billiard tables, and the like, causing the course to be nicknamed “Funny Book Physics.” It is doubtful if this teacher was a totalitarian. But he was a good teacher and without him I would now know far less of physics than I do. Plato, it could be argued, was aware of something like this example. In order to rule one must not only have knowledge, but also a theory of knowledge. Perhaps some can know and understand what knowledge is without the aid of images and hypotheses, but some can do so only with the aid of a model, with its pseudo-​truth (e.g., the divided line); and some others cannot understand even this model, much less reality and knowledge itself. They must be told stories (e.g., the allegory of the cave), because that is all they can understand. These stories must ultimately rest on some truth so as to avoid the true pseudos, but because they are stories they can only deliver a pseudo-​truth. We must recognize, Plato seems to be saying, the differences in format in which truths are held; and one of the jobs of the teacher is to develop formats adequate for everyone (see MacCormac 1976). My third point has to do with the many insightful claims made by Ferguson, as in the following: that even if the pseudos (Ferguson says “lie”) in the soul is worse than the pseudos in words, this does not mean that it is right to deceive others; that the oddest part of this passage is the suggestion that even the rulers need to be persuaded by the gennaion pseudos, an oddity I will try to explain

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below; that even the citizens, although they do not have wisdom, nonetheless have (Pheadrus-​like) soul-​chariots, and reason must hold the reins if there is not to be disaster; that Plato is a curious mix of idealist and pragmatist; and finally that it is not hard to move from “the ethically right action leads to the most desirable results” to “the action which leads to the most desirable results is the ethically right one.” For all of these points Ferguson deserves thanks. But as Richard Rorty has stated: The permanent fascination of the man who dreamed up the whole idea of Western philosophy—​Plato—​is that we still do not know which sort of philosopher he was … the fact that after milleniums of commentary nobody knows which passages in the dialogues are jokes keeps the puzzle fresh. rorty 1979, 369

We really do not know whether Plato is pulling our leg in this passage; he has done it elsewhere (Dombrowski 1990). Ferguson, a generous commentator, at one point says that “Plato’s use of irony is such that little could be built on taking these words at their face value. The most one can say is that there is some element of ethical surprise about the gennaion pseudos.” But Ferguson seems to go beyond the limit when he calls Plato a totalitarian thinker, a stance that is implied by Rawls as well. D. E. Hahm has written on this passage to the effect that Plato symbolizes in the pseudos, not without irony, the necessity of those who run the city to have more than their own interest in mind (Hahm 1969, 211–​227). In order to bring about not only the inculcation of obedience in the citizens, and the stability of the state, as Ferguson notes, but also the care of each citizen for the others (allelon kedesthai—​415d), Plato establishes through the pseudos, according to Hahm, “the fraternity of playful men.” The unlikelihood of the story makes its apparently harsh message (harsh, at least, to Ferguson, Popper, Rawls, et al.) easier to accept, thus showing a similarity to Aristophanes’ speech in the Symposium. The citizens are told that their youth was a dream (oneirata—​ 414d), and that they were born out of the earth itself. When Socrates is told that he should be ashamed of such a pseudos, he agrees, and then taunts his listeners by saying (415a) that they have heard only the half of it! He then tells the incredible myth of the metals, which he admits must fly away on the wings of rumor (415d). It is no wonder that Plato has doubts as to whether the rulers themselves could be persuaded to believe or to use this pseudos. Indeed, as Rorty has suggested, Plato is still fascinating. Ferguson, Popper, and Rawls see him as a totalitarian thinker, and others (e.g., Strauss and

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his followers) are likely to see him as an endless source of droll edification. Although Cornford’s phrase “bold flight of imagination” (Cornford 1941, 106) is a cumbersome translation of pseudos, it captures the lightheartedness that Plato may have intended. For Cornford, a noble lie is a contradiction in terms, hence he thinks that Plato is offering here a harmless allegory. Likewise, Ronald Levinson sees Plato as offering an “edifying” pseudos at 414 (Levinson 1953, 429–​430, 435, 552). Even those who climb as high as the third level on the divided line still need images and the distortions they contain in order to know (e.g., a drawing of a circle as opposed to the properties of circularity itself). Human beings, including philosophers, are somewhat childlike in that they need images of reality and their pseudo-​truth in order to know. To deny the level of pseudo-​truth appropriate to a certain level of intelligence would prevent a person at that level from knowing at all (see Laws 663d–​664a). 5

Strauss and the Straussians

Thus far I have argued that both the interpretation of Plato’s noble lie as a totalitarian device and the efforts to defend Plato’s noble lie are defective. Now I would like to show that the graver defects are to be found on the Straussian side, such that it is best to refer to Plato’s “noble” lie; or, to be fair to Plato, to the “noble” “lie.” That is, Rawls is, as I see things, leaning in the right direction, albeit hyperbolically, in his rejection of the “noble” lie. It must be admitted that, in his famous essay on “Plato” in History of Political Philosophy, Leo Strauss does not explicitly treat the “noble” lie, but because he treats all of the other major elements in Plato’s political philosophy in some detail, it seems fair to conclude that Strauss is not very much bothered by the “noble” lie, in sharp contrast to Rawls. Strauss is correct to emphasize that there is no small degree of anachronism involved in claiming that Plato was a communist or a fascist. Nor should we expect Plato to be a political liberal in the Rawlsian sense. But much can be gained, I think, by analyzing the “noble” lie from the perspective of Rawlsian political liberalism, so as to isolate exactly what the problem is with this device. That is, Strauss does not find the “noble” lie problematic because he does not find the present day demand for liberal freedom to be sound; the alleged difficulties in Plato’s critique of democracy, he thinks, are not real ones (Strauss 1972, 9, 47). Likewise, although Strauss does not treat explicitly the “noble” lie in his Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, he does make it clear in this work that Platonic philosophers are a different kind of human being in that they are

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intellectually and morally superior to the rest of the population; and their unique and demanding way of life in the search of truth makes them rare. Thus, if I understand Strauss correctly, when philosophers are forced to rule—​ they would rather be communing with the forms—​we should not take away the carte blanche they have to tell a “noble” lie if this is what is necessary to bring about a just society. Strauss’s nonchalance here regarding the “noble” lie, however, only makes sense if he thinks that Platonic philosophers (those with intellectual and moral superiority to the rest of the population) can be found. If it is unlikely that such can be found and coaxed into becoming rulers, then one cannot remain nonchalant regarding the “noble” lie. The use of this device would rather constitute a scandal. It is only in The City and Man where Strauss explicitly treats the “noble” lie, a device that he does not think is terribly bothersome in that all Platonic dialogues are “radically fictitious.” That is, they are all beautiful falsehoods. He does, however, like his follower Allan Bloom, translate pseudos in this context as “lie” (Strauss 1964, 60–​61, 98–​99, 102–​103, 124–​125). Despite Strauss’s (peculiar) interpretation of Plato’s dialogue format, he realizes that the gennaion pseudos is not so much a beautiful falsehood as a device that is needed to bring about the Republic. It should be noted that it is the “city of pigs,” the preliminary city from Book 2 of the Republic, that is described as the true or the truthful city. Only in that preliminary city was there no need for untrue stories told to children and to adults alike (377c–​d). That is, the Republic itself is not exactly a utopian place in that the philosophers there need to resort to lies about the gods, which is ironic when it is realized that the gods do not lie at all, not even when dealing with inferior beings (382d). By way of contrast, human rulers must lie if they wish to be just. To make this view plausible, however, Strauss would have to supply reasons (that he does not supply) why justice and truth are at times in inverse relationship to each other. In effect, on Straussian grounds, if a ruler wishes to be just the ruler must, at times, lie. And if the ruler wishes to be truthful the ruler must, at times, be unjust. In The City and Man Strauss seems quite comfortable with the Platonic idea that the good city cannot exist without a “fundamental falsehood; it cannot exist in the element of truth.” Strauss cites two reasons for this claim. First, the citizens must be made to believe that the distinction between nature and convention is a blur; this is accomplished by the philosophers telling the citizens that they are brothers by virtue of the fact that they all have the same mother, the earth. That is, although there is not really a fraternity of all fellow citizens, the citizens must be convinced that there is such if a good city is to result. Second, the citizens have to be convinced of the fundamental inequality of the

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brothers: the fraternity is traced to the earth and the inequality to the gods, who put a stamp on natural differences among the citizens. Strauss readily grants Plato’s point regarding the natural inequality among the citizens, and he does not care to analyze the different senses of the terms “equality” and “inequality” that have been painstakingly distinguished by liberal political thinkers like Rawls. For example, contemporary liberal thinkers have a tendency to think that in one important respect all human beings (and, some think, all animals with central nervous systems) are equal; they are sentient beings who are subjects of lives that can go well or ill for them as individuals, hence they each deserve that equal consideration of their interests be taken into account, even if other factors might lead us to conclude that they do not deserve equal treatment. In contrast to liberal thinkers like Rawls, Strauss shows no evidence of a willingness to call into question Plato’s own radically inegalitarian view. It does not seem hyperbolic to claim that Strauss (explicitly in The City and Man and implicitly in other works) shares Plato’s view of nonphilosophers as cave-​dwellers who see only shadows of the truth, hence the fact that they are told lies by the philosophers is not bothersome so long as these lies are well-​ bred or noble or heroic, however one translates gennaion. Further, it might make sense to translate gennaion as “well-​bred” if a more likely equivalent to “noble” is kalos. Seth Bernadete is a Straussian who reiterates Strauss’s view of the “noble” lie: there is no reason to be bothered by the noble lie if it gives assurance to those of baser metals that they will not be gobbled up by the rulers. Likewise, Thomas Pangle is a Straussian who emphasizes that genuine wisdom belongs to a few rare individuals such that political life is largely composed of an approximation to wisdom, and since popular consent is necessarily consent of the less wise, it is “always consent colored by deception and self-​deception” (emphasis added). Quite a negative view! However, there are good reasons not to be so pessimistic, and not to think it necessary to be wary of the open society. That is, the open society defended by political liberals like Rawls need not be, as Pangle and other Straussians think, a “deluded liberation” (Pangle 1992, 127, 210–​211; Bernadete 1989). It is not my purpose to summarize or assess the complicated and idiosyncratic view of Plato’s Republic defended by Strauss and his epigoni. Rather, I have concentrated on the paradoxically nonpolitical nature of Plato’s and Strauss’s politics as evidenced in the “noble” lie: it involves the implementation of a definite order and the elimination from public life of any sort of disagreement, conflict, competition, and reconciliation characteristic of modern liberal, Rawlsian political life. These characteristics of liberal political life are actually marks of corrupt poleis for both Plato and Strauss, hence it is morally

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permissible, indeed at times necessary, for the wise to tell lies so as to prevent the appearance of these characteristics. Bloom even goes out of his way to say that to prohibit the well-​ordered soul of the philosopher from lying, etc., is to burden the philosopher with “vulgar standards of just conduct” (see Bloom 1977; also see Hall 1977; Wolin 1960). 6

Page’s View

Perhaps the most nuanced, sober, and scholarly treatment of the “noble” lie from a Straussian perspective comes in an article by Carl Page, where the author explores the Straussian view that Plato’s dialogues contain concealed, esoteric meanings, the truth of which can be understood by only a few. The masses cannot understand them. In this regard the Straussian Platonists are like the Pythagoreans: there are numerous akousmatikoi who hear the message of the master in diluted form, but only a few mathematikoi who really comprehend it. Page also embodies the Straussian view that the world is a place where isolated liberal democracies, inspired by thinkers like Rawls, are in constant danger from hostile elements, which must be confronted with vigorous leadership and, at times, with lies and violence. This is why Straussians criticize those who fail to comprehend the duplicitous character of the regimes with which democracies have to deal. As I see things, although Straussians are ultimately not defenders of democracy, they are, like Plato in Book 8 of the Republic, tolerant of democracy as an alternative to the worst form of government: tyranny. Page is well aware of the fact that philosophical defense of the “noble” lie is out of fashion. This is due to several factors: (1) the traditional religious condemnation of lying; (2) Enlightenment concern, shared by Rawls, for the rights of those lied to, who are treated as means only and whose autonomy is violated; and (3) a fear, also shared by Rawls, concerning virtually unlimited power given to government officials who are permitted to lie to citizens. But Page is not convinced that autonomy is as important a value as those in the wake of the Enlightenment like Rawls think it is. Although he does not want to justify the particular lies that are told in the Republic, Page does want to justify Plato’s very general point that ethical lies are possible. Indeed, Page sees lying as integral to politics itself, even ethical politics, as is evidenced in the thoughtless and naïve fetish for truth-​telling involved in the speech of Cephalus in Book 1 of the Republic and in the “city of pigs,” the preliminary city that must be swept away before the interlocutors in the Republic can talk about justice in earnest (Page 1991, 2–​7; also see Cahoone 2002).

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Page distinguishes among five sorts of lie in the Republic: (a) “Paedeutic” lies are those with educational value that are told to children (e.g., 376e, 377a). Thoughtless youth (aphron) require the guidance of those with practical wisdom (phronesis). The popularity of escapist entertainment, Page notes, indicates how easily we can feel threatened by the real world; this feeling is even more acute in children. (b) Page makes the aforementioned distinction between lies in the soul and lies in words (381e). The former are worse because they involve ignorance. Here one wonders whether lies in the soul really are lies in that the very definition of lying involves intentional deceit. It is lies in words, however, that are seen by Plato to have use, on the analogy of pharmacological devices. That is, lies in the soul are of no use to anyone. The utility of lies in words becomes apparent, according to Page, when dealing with enemies (360d, 382d), those who are mindless or mad (382c), or those who for some reason do not know the truth (382d). It is interesting to note that pharmacological lies revert back to paedeutic lies in that they involve a similar sort of paternalism. Pharmocological lies are weightier than paedeutic lies only because of the level of danger involved when one is trading in something analogous to poison: the poison of deceit used on adults. Such a strong measure is needed, it is alleged, because the grave situation in question is beyond the provenance of guidance, as in paedeutic lies told to children. When something has gone terribly wrong with adults who are not as malleable as children what is required, according to Page, is correction (Page 1991, 18). (c) There are also certain lies that are told by the rulers for the benefit of the city. Because these poisonous lies can easily lead to an infection in the soul, they should be told only by experts. These lies should not be confused with political expediency, according to Page, nor used for the implementation of policy. Here we see that these lies are ultimately reducible to pharmacological lies. (d) The “noble” lie itself, as we have seen, is found at 414b–​c. This lie is also, on Page’s account, a type of drug that is imported from Phoenicia. This drug is meant to counteract the despotic relation between ruler and ruled imported from Phoenicia in that tyranny is worse than lying. And (e), there are a host of pharmacological lies in Book 5 of the Republic (e.g., 459c) that are meant to regulate and restrict sexual desire. Lies “must” be told in order to denigrate the value of the traditional family so as to facilitate the organization of women and children in common. Once again, although Page does not want to defend any of these particular lies at face value, especially due to the comic hyperbole found in some of them, he does see a grain of truth in each of these lies. For example, because no mother likes the idea of her son going off to war, the deception that facilitates the common rearing of children also facilitates the common good in time of war (in that mothers would not be able to identify

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their own sons). Likewise, he thinks that the obvious benefits from eugenics when breeding nonhuman animals can be extended to the breeding of human beings. I think that there are at least six problems with Page’s view from a Rawlsian perspective. First, he is premature in dismissing altogether the first city in the Republic, the one called by Glaucon (significantly, not by Socrates) the “city of pigs” (372d). Such a dismissal makes it too easy for him to denigrate the truth-​ telling of Cephalus as “political naivete,” although Cephalus’s definition of justice as rendering to each its due offers the best starting point for consideration of justice in the history of the concept (Page 1991, 7; also see Sagovsky 2008, 110, 146, 234). It must be admitted that one standard interpretation of the first city is that it contains several allegedly naïve views (strict truth-​telling, vegetarianism, absence of war) that are abandoned in the politeia, where real political life must, it is alleged, at times include lies, carnivorousness, and war. However, scholars are not united on this point. Another standard interpretation is that the first city is the real politeia, that the luxurious city described in Book 2 on is needed only to make clear the origin of injustice, and this so that the excesses of the luxurious city can be purged so as to return eventually to something like the askesis of the first city. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. In any event, Page seems premature in denigrating altogether the truthfulness of the inhabitants of the first city by claiming that such truthfulness is naïve. Likewise, Rawls’s views regarding truth-​telling, vegetarianism, and absence of war may be much closer to those found in the first city than is normally assumed by scholars (see Dombrowski 1998; 2001, ch. 10–​11; 2002; 2011, ch. 2–​3; 2015a; 2019, ch. 4, 7). Second, Page’s implied defense of the cliché that ignorance is bliss is not convincing. He cites the current popularity of escapist entertainment as evidence in favor of the claim that lies, or at least the suppression of the truth, can be a useful tool when dealing with a low-​brow population. But it is by no means uncontroversial even on a Platonic basis why we should assume that citizens are stuck in a truth-​avoiding, entertainment-​craving mode of awareness. All can agree that the Republic is very much concerned with education, with persuading those who are fascinated with the (now electronic) images on the back wall of the cave to search for something deeper, more reliable, and more aesthetically satisfying. Edward Andrew, for example, has done an excellent job of arguing for the point that Plato is more of an egalitarian than many admit. On this basis, the “noble” lie is false precisely because it reifies human beings into classes, if not castes. By way of contrast, the journey out of the cave is, in principle, open to everyone, as the education of the slave in the Meno also seems to indicate. Even if Andrew’s thesis is a bit hyperbolic, in that there are

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as well obviously inegalitarian elements in Plato, he nonetheless is helpful in enabling us to resist Page’s (and, to some extent, Plato’s) negativity regarding the unwashed masses. For example, one of the main reasons for the common rearing of children in the Republic is to ensure equality of opportunity, due to varying levels of skill among parents when raising their children (Andrew 1989; also Segall 2015). Page implies that education itself is naïve. Admittedly education might involve a pseudos, if this term is seen as referring to a persuasive device, but this is a far cry from claiming that a pseudos in the sense of a lie is a necessary condition for education to occur. The Latin educare refers to the process whereby someone is led out of the dark into the light. It does not refer to using dark methods so as to see the light. Third, as I see things, there is no need to lie to children, although it is obviously necessary to present truths to them at the appropriate time when they are able to comprehend them and in forms that are intelligible to them. In addition, Page thinks, quite understandably, that children need discipline, especially in order to curb anger. Curiously, Page seems to agree that we ought not to lie to children by telling them that anger is no good at all. Usually anger signifies “a collapse into the stubborn insistence either on one’s own good or some narrowly construed common good” (Page 1991, 14), hence it is indicative of a sort of egoism, no less present in adults than in children, that has socially negative consequences. But anger is a complex phenomenon, as Page realizes. In Aristotelian terms, anger (orge) can be seen as a virtuous mean between two extremes, which are vices: a spiritless acquiescence to any evil (aorgesia) and an unreflective rashness (also, and confusedly, orge—​see Nicomachean Ethics iv.5). The key point to notice here is that Page himself ironically points the way to proper pedagogy in this instance: children should be taught how to distinguish between legitimate outrage and a temper tantrum, and how to avoid the latter while dealing with the former in appropriate ways. In neither case is there a need to lie to children. Fourth, Page’s conflation of lies to children and lies to the childlike deserves comment (Page 1991, 17, 33). I have already voiced my opposition to lies to children, an opposition that applies a fortiori to lies to the childlike. The moral permissibility in Page of both sorts of lie plays off of a legitimate question: if we can all agree that paternalism (or maternalism) is morally appropriate when dealing with children, especially when one is literally the pater (or mater) of the child, then does not such an appropriateness extend to our dealings with the childlike? Page (along with Plato—​382c–​d) has in mind here, as we have seen, three categories of people that he lumps together, one of which, we will see, should be separated from the other two: enemies, mad people, and fools.

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Assuming for the sake of argument that one can fight in a just war, one can legitimately kill enemies (polemious). If such an assumption is granted, it would seem overly scrupulous to deny the possibility that one could lie to them as well. In any event, lies to the enemy in time of war would seem to be better analyzed in terms of the criteria for jus in bello rather than in terms of those criteria that are operative in peacetime. That is, if there is such a thing as a just war where enemy soldiers can be killed with equanimity, it seems that one could lie to them with equanimity as well. Likewise, if someone characterized by madness (manian) threatened the life of an innocent bystander, only a defender of the most extreme sort of anti-​consequentialist version of deontology would be opposed to lying to the mad person if such a lie were the only way to save the bystander. Once again, in this case, as in the case of lies told to enemy soldiers, we are dealing with in extremis situations where, by hypothesis, we are given the forced choice of lying or death. Given such a forced choice, lying seems preferable. Page goes too far down Plato’s road, however, in the acceptance of lies to those who are foolish (anoian—​382c). That is, Page is too willing to accept lies to those who are not philosopher kings/​queens. As a result, he transfers the normal communication between rulers and subjects that must occur in any event into the region of the in extremis, a region wherein it is easier to justify lies due to the weight of negative consequences that will occur if a lie is not told. By conflating normal political discourse and in extremis discourse, however, both he and Plato destroy the very meaning of the in extremis in that by making extreme situations normal they would no longer be extreme. The problem here is not merely conceptual, although it is at least that. On the basis of Page’s view some really basic moral intuitions are violated, a violation that gets in the way of any hope we might have had to reach Rawlsian reflective equilibrium in ethics. Consider the following in extremis example: imagine there is a burning building that contains two individuals. One is your son and the other is a child from the neighborhood whom you do not know. Let it be further stipulated that you only have time to save one, but not the other. Even dedicated impartialists in ethics admit that our intuitions serve us well in this case in that you should save your son rather than the neighbor’s child. However, this in no way makes it possible for us to justify in normal, nonfire circumstances the sacrificing of the neighbor’s child so as to obtain a benefit for your child. Despite the differences between these burning building cases and the justification of lying to nonintellectuals, the key point should be clear: even if lying is justified in certain in extremis cases that involve war or a mad person run amok, this provides no guidance whatsoever regarding

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what we should do when the extremity has passed. Of course, politicians are infamous for exaggerating the extent of the dangers they face. It should also be emphasized that the justification of in extremis lies should be part of public reason once the extreme situation has passed (or before the extreme situation arises). By “public reason” is meant the shared form of reasoning that the citizens of a pluralist democratic society should use when deciding questions of justice. This public discourse is needed to hold in check the tendency on the part of political leaders to exaggerate the dangers they face. That is, “publicity” is needed to preserve society as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage (tj 4). Fifth, although Page views deceit, in general, and lies, in particular, as poisonous, he thinks these poisons have pharmacological uses that are especially needed when dealing with the ignorant (i.e., with those who suffer under the true “lie” in the soul rather than the handy lie in speech). It should be noted, however, that in Page’s Platonic use of the pharmacology metaphor he moves even further away from a display of confidence in (again, Platonic) education (Page 1991, 18, 21). The goal of the use of lies as drugs is not at all educational guidance, but containment of a pathology: pathological ignorance in the “lie” in the soul that subverts the common good. To the extent that pharmacological lies are tolerated, or even encouraged, there is a corresponding lack of commitment to the educational effort to guide the ignorant out of the cave. It should not escape our notice that there is a sort of Hobbesian or Machiavellian negativity in Page’s view of human nature, a negativity that seems to characterize the Straussians in general, as well as some other political philosophers. To say that there are Hobbesian or Machiavellian tendencies in Page and the Straussians obviously does not, in itself, carry with it any approbation or disapprobation, but such tendencies should nonetheless be noted, especially regarding the degree to which they militate against the possibility that common citizens are amenable to education. In Platonic terms, one would hope that Thrasymachean negativity would not be the whole story in political philosophy. In this regard we might be well served to remember Rawls’s qualified optimism, his hope for a “realistic utopia,” at the very end of The Law of Peoples: If a reasonably just Society of Peoples whose members subordinate their power to reasonable aims is not possible, and human beings are largely amoral, if not incurably cynical and self-​centered, one might ask, with Kant, whether it is worthwhile for human beings to live on the earth. lp 128

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Sixth, Page responds to the criticism that lies in the Republic that inculcate patriotism and obedience violate the dignity of those who are told the lies by claiming that no dignity or rights are violated because the individuals in question have a strong inclination to ignore the common good (which Page calls “the good of regimes”) altogether. As he puts the point, “the psychic inertia generated by bodily cares is so great it creates a subversive counterweight to all institutions of political rule …. In sum, the noble lie is designed to save the city from the pusillanimity of Phoenecian desire” (Page 1991, 25–​26). Page seems to think that if there were competing notions of the common good at stake, there would be less justification to lie to citizens who held a different view of the common good from that of the rulers, but what is more likely is that individual citizens would ignore the common good altogether, an offence that makes it legitimate to lie to them. We have seen that at times Page himself insightfully points the way toward an appropriate response to the inadequacies of his own interpretation. Here, regarding lies intended to take citizens away from their own private concerns and toward the good of regimes, he asks rhetorically and I ask in earnest: is it not possible that the common good be achieved without some form of lying? Might it be the case that lying is neither demanded nor particularly effective in the long run? In order to achieve the desired adult maturity and rationality, it may be the case that honesty is, as the cliché has it, the best policy. We ought not to assume that we are “constrained to lie in order to preserve human dignity in the face of the inequality of the given” (Page 1991, 29, 31). Rather, any inequalities that are either given or constructed should be dealt with out in the open. (Likewise, we have seen that any in extremis lies that must be told should at some point be dealt with out in the open in terms of Rawlsian public reason.) To say that we are constrained in this instance is to transfer our moral agency on to some other (impersonal) force, rather than to look to ourselves regarding how to deal with the tension between the egalitarian and inegalitarian elements that comprise a just society. 7

The Smith-​Brickhouse Stance

It will be instructive to examine a possible line of defense that could help to establish Page’s case. Nicholas Smith and Thomas Brickhouse have offered a careful analysis of lying in the Republic that might help Page, at least with respect to the alleged positive consequences of the “noble” and other lies. In this regard Smith and Brickhouse rely heavily on a distinction made by

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Gregory Vlastos between two quite different senses of the predicate “true” or the abstract noun “truth.” In one sense, truth is two-​valued: a sentence is either true or false such that the law of excluded middle applies. This is the sentential sense of truth. In another light, however, there is and evaluative sense of truth such that “true” and its cognates are near synonyms for “real” or “good.” Further, Smith and Brickhouse claim that the same dual usage holds for the Greek to alethes: one can utter aletheis sentences or one can talk about a true friend. The upshot of this distinction for the issue of lying in the Republic is that when the rulers are described as single-​mindedly devoted to the truth, it is not necessarily the case that they always have to tell the truth, only that they always be concerned with what is real or good. In effect, sometimes dishonesty yields a truer result than honesty, on the Smith and Brickhouse (Vlastos) reading. One problem with this insightful approach is that it, along with Page’s and DeChiara-​Quenzer’s, conflates “madmen” with “fools.” That is, I am willing to concede for the sake of argument that when dealing with a mad person who is ready to kill an innocent bystander that a coincidence of sentential and evaluative truth might not be possible. We have seen that Plato’s defenders, however, grant too much when they transfer the permissibility of a lie in this in extremis case to that involving “fools,” whose only offense is that they are not philosopher kings/​queens. A second problem with the Smith and Brickhouse approach, as I see things, concerns the claim that for Plato actions cannot be either just or unjust in themselves. This seems to play too much into the consequentialist reasoning that informs Page’s (and, to a lesser extent, DeChiara-​Quenzer’s) appropriation of Plato for the purpose of contemporary political philosophy. Here I would like to point out a deontological dimension to Plato’s ethics. It is quite clear at 357a–​358a that justice is both good-​in-​itself and good for its effects. We should be wary, I think, of any effort to draw lessons from Plato on exclusively consequentialist terms. And third, I think that we should also be skeptical of the Smith and Brickhouse claim that when dealing with the thumotic members of Plato’s state we should lie to them for their own benefit in that they love honor above all else and some lies are meant to preserve honor. Once again, however, if there is at least a prima facie ignobility involved in telling a lie, as Plato would no doubt admit, then it is by no means clear that the thumotic members of the state would be honored by being told lies. The whole point to trying to justify the “noble” lie is to show that sometimes dishonorable things must be done (Smith and Brickhouse 1983, 89–​90).

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Although Smith and Brickhouse, as well as Deborah DeChiara-​Quenzer, are primarily interested in understanding Plato, rather than being primarily interested in appropriating Plato for the purposes of contemporary political philosophy, as in Page, all of the authors in question seem to let Plato off the hook too easily. All of these insightful authors, however, also point the way toward a more critical approach to Plato and toward a more forthright defense of the perspective of the deceived, a perspective from which those lied to almost invariably respond in a Kantian or Rawlsian way by claiming that as dignified subjects they should not be treated as lied-​to objects. As Smith and Brickhouse aptly put the point, “the extent to which Plato believes dishonesty can be a policy in the service of justice is … plainly overestimated by him—​the product of an underestimation of both the intrinsic worth of the people who would inhabit his state, and thus what is owed to them” (Smith and Brickhouse 1983, 92–​93). 8

Annas and Bok

Two commentators in particular are worthy of consideration in order to further point out the defects in Straussian attempts to defend the “noble” lie. Then I will move to the implications of the Rawlsian view of the “noble” lie that I wish to defend, a view that I think is faithful to the spirit of Rawls’s own views. Even if the “noble” lie is told in the interest of the common people, and even if the common people do not mind this state of affairs, Julia Annas’s conclusion that there is something manipulative and morally bothersome about the “noble” lie carries a great deal of weight (Annas 1982, 107–​108, 166–​167; also see Nicholas White 1988, 104). The fact that the rulers are not condescending does not change the fact that they treat others in (im)morally relevant ways they do not treat each other. Their superior expertise does not, she thinks, justify their being less than truthful with others even if they are “fanatically” truth-​loving among themselves. At the very least, our ordinary moral assumption or intuition is that we do not think that superior knowledge gives one the right to lie. For example, we would not grant that God would remain omnibenevolent if God lied, nor would we grant that intellectually superior visitors from another planet or the Nazis—​ wiser than us by self-​proclamation—​can be morally permitted to lie. Consider the following line of reasoning from Annas. At Republic 382c it seems that Plato is saying that as long as one takes care not to be deceived oneself, then telling falsehoods is not really lying, but is instead a mere image of lying. However, if Plato’s view here is correct, then one could avoid lying

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in the soul by lying in words with bad intent as well as by lying in words with good intent. Or again, at 485c–​d and 490a–​d it seems that the rulers will strive tirelessly for the truth, yet at 459c–​460a they can lie to other citizens rather straightforwardly. In effect, Annas is rightly pointing out that there are too many passages where pseudos or its cognates can only be translated as “lie,” such that efforts to deliver an apologia for Plato’s gennaion pseudos are bound at some point or other to break down. Remember that Strauss and Bloom themselves translate pseudos at 414b–​c as “lie.” Plato is clear, however, that what it would take to justify a “noble” lie would be to establish as fact that the rulers are a superior sort of people. It is crucial to notice that for Plato it is right for the ruler to tell the gennaion pseudos not because it is for the public good—​even a crude utilitarian could do this—​ but rather because of the kind of individual the ruler is. Many defenders of the “noble” lie who are traditionalists, Straussian or otherwise, miss the boat on this crucial point. Plato’s rulers can lie only because they are truth-​loving agents and possess noticeably superior intellectual and moral abilities to those of the general population. In effect, any contemporary attempt to defend the gennaion pseudos would have to do more than show (as in a crude version of utilitarianism) that the lie was for the common good. On Platonic grounds one must show that the one who told the lie had the intellectual and moral superiority (as a moral agent rather than as a moral patient) a rational human being has over an animal. This demonstration is not likely to be forthcoming. Rawlsian liberals, by way of contrast, are to be commended for following Kant in thinking that our rulers can only come from the ranks of human beings with the same sort of intellectual abilities and moral predispositions as those that the rest of us possess. We now claim to know—​accurately, I think—​that our rulers can be only marginally brighter or better than the rest of us, and we are lucky if even these sorts of leaders can be found, hence the agent-​centered dimension of classical and Straussian justifications of the “noble” lie is likely to cause such justifications to fail. Regarding public policy matters, no political leader is likely to have the intellectual superiority over the subjects the way a Ph.D. in physics might have such superiority over eighteen-​year-​olds with no background in physics. And no political leader (not even Mohandas Gandhi, by his own admission) is likely to have the moral superiority needed to justify anything less than an attitude of truthfulness towards the citizens. However, Plato is to be thanked for at least this much: he has shed light on the casuistry needed in order for a virtuous ruler to justify the gennaion pseudos. This ruler needs to ask not merely “Will the lie foster the common good?,” but also “Am I intellectually and morally superior to those to whom I am about to lie?”

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The point I wish to make is that the above efforts to defend Plato’s use of the “noble” lie (e.g., by noting the wide uses to which pseudos can be put, and by viewing the gennaion pseudos as an educational device) are more successful when seen as antidotes to the view of Plato as a racist and a totalitarian than they are when seen as providing an imprimatur for Plato’s deceptive politics. Further, the agent-​centered burdens for justifying a “noble” lie, burdens that are quite heavy on a Platonic basis, make one realize that notorious liars like Richard Nixon and Donald Trump are implausible candidates for telling a defensible “noble” lie. In Nixon’s case it is unlikely that he would be moral enough and in Trump’s case it is unlikely that he would be either moral enough or intelligent enough to tell a defensible “noble” lie. I assume that even Straussians would agree with the claims in the previous sentence. The idea that defenders of the “noble” lie are more effective at pointing out the hyperbole in viewing Plato as a proto-​totalitarian than they are at actually justifying the “noble” lie can be reiterated through a consideration of a second scholar in addition to Annas. Sissela Bok is not convinced that Plato’s lie to the people in order to persuade them to accept class distinctions and to safeguard social harmony is justifiable. She translates gennaion as “well-​bred” in a sense similar to what Benjamin Disraeli had in mind when he said that a gentleman is one who knows when to tell the truth and when not to (Sissela Bok 1989, 167; cf., Adam 1902, who translates gennaion as “heroic,” but pseudos as “falsehood” or “lie”). But she disagrees with Disraeli just as she disagrees with Desiderius Erasmus when he tolerated Plato’s lies by claiming that they were only temporary in that they were but moments in the effort to advance the common people little by little (Sissela Bok 1989, 168; Erasmus 2014, “Polemics with Alberto Pio of Carpi”). Bok’s view hinges on the need to adopt the perspective of the deceived when one is trying to justify a lie: If we assume the perspective of the deceived—​those who experience the consequences of government deception—​such arguments are not persuasive. We cannot take for granted either the altruism or the good judgment of those who lie to us, no matter how much they intend to benefit us. We have learned that much deceit for private gain masquerades as being in the public interest. We know how deception, even for the most unselfish motive, corrupts and spreads. And we have lived through the consequences of lies told for what were believed to be noble purposes. sissela bok 1989, 169

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Even if some government lies might be justifiable so as to save the lives of some citizens, this does not necessarily provide a justification for Plato’s type of “noble” lie, as Bok makes clear: We have every reason to regard government as more profoundly injured by a dismissal of criticism and a failure to consider standards than by efforts to discuss them openly. If duplicity is to be allowed in exceptional cases, the criteria for these exceptions should themselves be openly debated and publicly chosen. Otherwise government leaders will have free rein to manipulate and distort the facts and thus escape accountability to the public. sissela bok 1989, 170

We can thus see why Hastings Rashdall’s view was a gross simplification when he said in 1924 that government frauds would be justified if the consequences of such frauds were socially beneficial (Rashdall 1924, 195). The call to return to an ethics of virtue and to classic political ideals has recently been made by many traditionalists and conservatives, including the Straussians. I would like to make it clear that as a political liberal I am not necessarily opposed to such a return. But such a return is defensible only if the worst aspects of ancient political philosophy, in this case Plato’s “noble” lie, are carefully analyzed and criticized. In this regard the Straussians seem to have failed. They have left the impression that they are not bothered by Plato’s use of the gennaion pseudos. 9

Political Liberalism

Rawls, however, as we have seen, is bothered by this device. I think it is worth the effort to supplement the work of Annas and Bok, and to slow down but not contradict the hyperbolic efforts of those—​including Rawls—​who see Plato as a proto-​totalitarian because of his use of the “noble” lie. One way to do this is through Rawls’s book Political Liberalism. The key distinction in this work is that between the comprehensive doctrines that may govern citizens’ private and associational lives and the principles of public reason that would be agreed to by reasonable persons in a fair decision-​making process, a process enshrined in Rawls’s now-​famous concept of justice as fairness. The truth, if there is such, may well be found in the comprehensive doctrines held by citizens (pl xx, 94, 116, 126, 153), doctrines that may very well include ethics of virtue very similar to those found in Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the

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Stoics, etc. But holding that one’s own comprehensive doctrine is the only suitable basis for public reason is sectarian and exclusive, and hence likely to foster political division (pl 129). Unless, of course, at least some reasonable citizens are forced to obey the conception deemed to be the truth, or unless they are lied to so as to win their allegiance. Democratic citizenship means not only that people are free and equal persons, but also free and equal as citizens. When we are dealing with reasonable people who may very well disagree regarding the comprehensive views that govern their moral lives (say because they are members of different religions or may hold different moral theories or be members of different races or generations, et al.), we should realize that public reason has to fall short of the truth (pl 242–​243). However, this is not to deny that there is such a thing as the truth. Political liberalism is not, Rawls thinks, the same thing as comprehensive liberalism or relativism. The political liberal may very well be of two minds at some deep level (pl 9), say by believing that some practice is morally wrong, but nonetheless reasonably permissible in a society where people disagree about moral matters. Although public reason is not the place where we are likely to find the truth, it is nonetheless the place where truthfulness is most needed. This is in direct contrast to Plato’s view where the philosophers are truthful among themselves, but they can lie in public. Political reason is public reason in at least three important senses (pl 213), all of which require truthfulness for their fulfillment: (a) it is the reason of citizens as such in their public life together; (b) its subject is the good of the public in matters of fundamental justice; and (c) its nature and content are public and open to view on that basis. To deceive the public, indeed to lie to them, is at odds with the values most central to the ideal of democratic citizenship, an ideal detested by both Plato and, as far as I can tell, by the Straussians. The ideal of democratic citizenship, enhanced by the objectivity provided by Rawls’s original position, is built on the shared reason of citizens, a sharing that involves publicity at several levels (pl 66–​71). The most basic of these levels is that the principles of justice that govern a just society should be adopted publicly in a procedure that should at least asymptotically approach the Rawlsian original position. This publicity requirement is blatantly violated by a telling of the gennaion pseudos. In the just society defended by Rawlsian political liberals, as opposed to that defended by Plato or Strauss, nothing need be hidden. There is no need for the illusions and delusions of ideology. By “ideology” I assume that Rawls refers to Plato’s (and Strauss’s) belief that the philosophic rulers can be confident that their views really do mirror the truth in ways that the views of others do not, or cannot, mirror it.

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Political liberals cannot hope that nothing will be hidden from the citizens in that there is much that no one, not even conscientious and bright rulers, can know in the effort to make good political decisions. That is, it is always possible that we can be unwittingly misled. But this is a far cry from actually attempting to justify a lie to the citizens. Rawls’s view of Plato shifts in Political Liberalism, just as Rawls’s own overall view is altered in that book. Specifically, response to the question of where political philosophy should begin is quite different in the context of political (not comprehensive) Rawlsian liberalism than it is in the context of any comprehensive doctrine, including Plato’s. Political liberalism allows for a plurality of reasonable, although opposed, comprehensive doctrines, each with its own conception of the good. But Plato seems to have thought that there is but one such conception to be recognized by all citizens who are reasonable and rational. This starting point provided by (Platonic) perfectionistic assumptions must be rejected at the political level in a condition of pervasive pluralism. This does not mean that Rawls is necessarily opposed to a general sort of Platonic reason that can grasp the essence of things; he is only exhibiting a reticence in politics to endorse one comprehensive doctrine that can trump all the others (pl 44, 134, 195, 377–​381; also see Freeman 2007a, 54; Jonkers 2015, 223). At the time near the start of philosophy with Socrates and the Sophists, ancient religion was also a civic religion with official practices, festivals, and celebrations. Although the details of what one believed were not terribly important, it was crucial that one participated in civic religion so as to secure one’s status as a trustworthy member of society. Good citizens served on juries and supported the naval fleet when they were asked to do so. There was no higher good, and no alternative good, than the one expressed by the Homeric gods and heroes. Relying on Walter Burkert and Terence Irwin, Rawls notices that heroes were of noble birth and openly sought out success and honor. The gods were not much different, except for the fact that they were immortal. What is crucial to notice is that a nascent pluralism emerged when Greek philosophers started asking questions about, and offered criticisms concerning, the Homeric ideals. Moral philosophy was an exercise in free, yet disciplined, reason. It was not based on revelation, nor even on civic religion. Its focus was on the highest good as an attractive ideal (which Rawls in Political Liberalism sees in more positive terms than he did in his undergraduate thesis) and on the pursuit of true happiness (pl xxiii–​x xiv, xl). Once this implicit pluralism became explicit several centuries later, there were profound consequences for political philosophy, as is well known on Rawlsian grounds. Rawls seems to be on shaky ground when he claims (pl xxiii), without argument, that Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were not sacred texts (in what sense

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were they not sacred?—​Plato was scandalized by Homer’s stories because they inaccurately portrayed the gods), that Greek religion was not dependent on priests (what of the priests and priestesses at the holiest place in ancient Greek religion, Delphi?), and that in Greek religion immortality did not play a central role (although not a negligible role, either, as in the Orphic cult, the Pythagoreans, and the Eleusinian mysteries). But political liberalism is an advance over pre-​liberal political philosophies in both the ancient world and in the Abrahamic religions, as I am trying to argue in the present book (see Paivansalo 2007, 6, 44). We have seen that it does not seem hyperbolic to claim that Plato’s Republic and Rawls’s A Theory of Justice are the two greatest works in the history of philosophy devoted strictly to the concept of justice. This claim leads us to consider that, despite the above-​mentioned differences between the two, there is also a deep resonance between them. This is nowhere more apparent than in their common opposition to realpolitik. Rawls cites the locus classicus of this view in some of the speeches of the Athenians in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. This version of realism is close to the “might makes right” view of politics articulated by the character Thrasymachus in Book 1 of the Republic and by the character Callicles in the Gorgias. Plato and Rawls are equally opposed to the cynical view that it is understandable to accept empire when it is available and to subscribe to the stance that it is natural for the weaker to be subject to the stronger. For Plato and Rawls, by contrast, states should be judged according to standards of right and wrong, rather than according to standards of aggrandizement and strength. Rawls also agrees with Plato that those who are driven by realpolitik are likely to also be driven to self-​destruction. Granted, the “utopia” toward which Rawls points us is “realistic,” but this is a far cry from the craving for power exhibited by the Athenians at Melos as described by Thucydides and by Thrasymachus and Callicles as described by Plato (lp 28–​29). Further, Plato and Rawls are quite alike in thinking that in the long run there is nothing more practical than theory, hence in neither thinker is there a need to apologize for the abstract character of their theories of justice (see Gledhill 2015, 200). It should also not escape our notice that the Platonic analogy between the just or harmonious individual and the just or harmonious state in Book 4 of the Republic is very close to the harmony that is the aim of Rawls’s philosophy between one’s conception of the good life and one’s conception of justice: the just state’s need to address the rights of citizens as well as the common good is a writ large version of the citizens’ two moral powers to deliberate regarding the good and the just. The goal is to have the plurality of ends found in any individual become parts of a larger social order in a manner that is fair to

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everyone involved. This is in contrast to the cycle of injustice and violence in Aeschylus’s Oresteia (see Alejandro 1993, 99; also Sagovsky 2008, 16–​21; Fleming 2004, 1444). It is also possible to argue, albeit somewhat tenuously, that Plato’s conception of the good for the state might nonetheless be compatible with tolerance, as is evidenced by the early Socratic dialogues, which were written by Plato himself. These dialogues indicate an awareness of ontological nuance and epistemic humility that is conducive to the development of liberal virtues (see Jackson 1991, 432–​433). 10

Social Contract Theory

Thus far I have not said anything about social contract theory. But Rawls notes that the very first version of this theory appears at the beginning of Book 2 of the Republic. It is articulated by Glaucon, who was Plato’s brother in real life. Not only is social contract theory not Plato’s view, it might not even be Glaucon’s view in that it seems that he is playing the devil’s advocate for what most people think, including, it seems, the view of the Sophists (see Republic 358a, 361e). Relying on the scholarship of Popper (1950, 112–​118; cf., Levinson 1953, 154–​156), Rawls thinks that Plato might not be accurately reporting the Sophists’ view of the social contract because Plato (through Glaucon) attributes to the parties in the social contract the quality of “manic egoism,” a quality that reminds us of the Athenians’ debate with the Melians described above. It also reminds us of the view of Epicurus (Epicurus 1926, 31–​38), Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, David Hume in A Treatise of Human Nature (Hume 2011, iii. 2), and many other figures in the history of philosophy. This is the view that the principles of justice are a compromise between egoistic persons of roughly equal power who would enforce their will on each other if they could, but who, for the sake of their own peace and security, find it prudential to join a pact with others based on a balance of power (see Lister 2015, 782). Rawls’s worry that Plato might not have portrayed the Sophists’ view fairly is connected with Rawls’s desire to have his own view of the social contract not be confused with other versions of social contract theory that are dependent on some version of egoism, say Hobbes’s version. That is, Rawls does not want social contract theory to get a bad name due to its association with egoistic philosophical anthropology. Rawls decidedly does not defend egoism and he is skeptical of versions of social contract theory that rely on an egoistic view of human nature. The “mutual disinterest” found in the original position in A Theory of Justice is a device of representation that is used in order to have the thought experiment performed there make sense. He is stipulating for

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the sake of argument this quality, not defending it. If the Sophists or those for whom Glaucon spoke really were egoists, then on a Rawlsian basis it would make sense for Plato to criticize their version of social contract theory (cp 55–​ 56, 204). The relationship between Rawls and Plato regarding the social contract has not gone entirely unnoticed by scholars, even if this relationship has hitherto been under-​analyzed (see Hare 1975, 84; Lyons 1975, 146). Alasdair MacIntyre’s explanation for the relative paucity of attention paid to the relationship between Rawls and Plato on the social contract would seem to be that comparison of Plato and Rawls is fruitless because Rawls has abandoned almost entirely the classical conception of justice. On MacIntyre’s view, for Rawls a society is composed of individuals, each with their own individual interests, who then have to come together and formulate common rules of life. The only constraints on these individuals are those that a prudent rationality would impose, it is alleged. It is quite unlike the classical view to make individuals primary and society secondary, MacIntyre thinks, which is problematic if the very notion of desert is only at home in a shared understanding of the good (MacIntyre 1981, 232–​233, also 176–​178). In Rawls’s early article “Justice as Fairness” he explicitly notes the qualified connection between his theory of justice as fairness and the ancient sophistical notion of justice. Both conceptions see justice as an agreement between persons of roughly equal power who would, on the sophistical version, enforce their will on each other if they could, but who acknowledge certain forms of conduct that prudence seems to require. We have seen that Rawls does not agree with this view, especially if it is necessarily tied to a quality of manic egoism. He does not want to assume any general theory of motivation. When he refers to parties being self-​interested, he is only referring to their conduct and motives as they are taken for granted in cases where questions of justice ordinarily arise. For Rawls, justice is the virtue of practices where there are assumed to be competing interests and conflicting claims. In a community of saints, disputes about justice would hardly occur at all (cp 55–​57), although we will see the need to modify this claim later when it is considered that the objects of various loves often conflict. In A Theory of Justice no such connection between Rawls’s view and the sophistical view of the social contract is drawn or alluded to, but it seems safe to assume that the same similarities and differences between the two theories obtain. Rawls still believes that the parties in the hypothetical social contract (now called the original position) are not egoists, although he stipulates that they are mutually disinterested (by contrast, see the language of “rational egoists” in “Justice as Fairness”). That is, egoism is attributable to individuals who

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are interested in wealth, prestige, domination, and the like. Mutual disinterest only entails not taking an interest in one another’s interest. In addition to being mutually disinterested, the parties in the original position are rational, i.e., in choosing between principles each tries to advance personal (and family) interests. Although this conception of rationality seems to be self-​interested, Rawls contends that it is not. This is because once the veil of ignorance is removed these parties may not want (for religious or other reasons) more goods, or more liberty, or more of their interests advanced. Rawls is only suggesting that from the standpoint of the hypothetical original position it is rational to suppose that they do want a larger share; they can refuse it later (tj 174–​175, also 13, 142–​143). Further, the parties in the original position are reasonable, i.e., they are willing to abide by fair terms of agreement and are willing to meet other reasonable parties halfway if there are differences of opinion. Or more precisely, although rational deliberation in the original position does not require reasonableness, mere presence in the original position and a willingness to abide by decisions made there does presuppose reasonableness. For a problem of justice to arise at least two parties must want to do something other than what everyone else wants to do. That is, justice as fairness assumes that human beings are not perfect altruists. This seems to imply that the parties are somewhat altruistic, i.e., they are willing to act justly even if they are not willing to altogether abandon their interests. Further, this notion of altruism in Rawls is close to what Plato means by temperance (sophrosyne), according to Robert Paul Wolff (Wolff 1977, 123, 139, 176, 203). A society in which there are no conflicting demands at all is such a utopian one that it is not really a just society, but beyond justice. Rawls seems to think that the society described by the character Socrates, contra Glaucon, is just such a trans-​just society that exists in Plato’s imagination only (see Republic 369, 372). Strange as it sounds, Plato’s view is, contra MacIntyre, insufficiently social because it fails to engage views other than Plato’s own (see tj 189, 281, 521). The major difference between Rawls and Plato is similar to that claimed by Rawls between himself and the hedonist. For Rawls, the structure of teleological arguments in politics in a condition of pluralism is radically misconceived. From the start they attempt to define the good or reveal human nature through human aims rather than attempting to discover the principles we would acknowledge to govern the background conditions under which these aims are to be formed. In short, justice or the right is prior to the good (except for the “thin” notion of the good presupposed in the original position). Plato’s failure to give priority to the right is quintessentially evidenced, Rawls thinks, by the “noble” lie, a device that we have seen violates the publicity required in politically liberal politics (tj 395–​399, 454, 560).

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I would like to return to Book 2 of the Republic, where Glaucon makes distinctions among three different sorts of goods: (1) those that are good for their own sake, but not for their effects (e.g., joy); (2) those that are good both for their own sake and for their effects (e.g., health); and (3) those that are good for their effects, but not in themselves (e.g., curing oneself of an illness). This third sort of entity, although laborious and painful, is endured reluctantly for its rewards. In which class should justice be placed? For Plato, justice belongs in the fairest class, the second. But for Glaucon, justice belongs to the third class in that it is a compromise between persons who would enforce their will on each other if they could. It is a mistake, I think, to suggest, as MacIntyre does, that Rawls would agree here with Glaucon (see Downing and Thigpen 1993, 1054). If I am correct in the previous paragraph that Rawls’s view is not like Glaucon’s, then there must be something intrinsically worthwhile or ennobling about justice in Rawls in addition to the beneficial consequences of a just society. Otherwise, the only apparent reason for being just would be to obtain the effects that justice brings, like bad tasting medicine. Further, if Rawls succumbed to a Glaucon-​like view, he would thereby move closer to the utilitarian position than he admits. There is also an interesting comparison that can be made between the ring of Gyges in the Republic and Rawls’s veil of ignorance. The ring of Gyges is a partial veil working entirely to the advantage of the one veiled, and is therefore, according to Glaucon, likely to be combined with a complete indifference to justice in itself. Rawls’s veil of ignorance, by contrast, is a more complete veil by which all rational contractors can be brought to think, abstracting from particular advantages, about what principles could be seen as fair by them all. We should notice, however, that the ring of Gyges will be no temptation to injustice if it is in the possession of a just individual. This is precisely Plato’s point; no doubt Rawls would agree. In addition to offering us the first (possibly skewered) version of social contract theory, Rawls notes that Plato also initiated the longstanding tradition of rational intuitionism in morality. This is the view wherein basic moral concepts, including the moral worth of persons, are not analyzable in terms of nonmoral concepts; further, the first principles of morality, when correctly stated, are self-​evident propositions. It is this tradition, started by Plato, that leads to assertions of something being intrinsically good or that a certain action just is the right thing to do. In Plato’s case, rational intuitionism is connected to his theory of forms, but several subsequent versions of rational intuitionism disposed of Plato’s forms even if they retained the notion self-​evident truths. The common element among all rational intuitionists is belief in a moral order

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of values that is prior to, and independent of, our concepts. It is precisely this view that Rawls famously challenges in A Theory of Justice and other writings. Eric Nelson rightly ties Plato’s view here to the famous “Euthyphro dilemma,” with Plato and Rawls presumably opting for different horns of this dilemma (Nelson 2019, 2, 5). That is, Plato opts for the position that rational agents intuit an independent moral order of values, whereas Rawls opts for the position that the moral order of values is in some Kantian fashion constructed by rational agents. Further, rational intuitionism would seem to force human beings into a condition of heteronomy antithetical to Rawlsian political (if not comprehensive) autonomy (see Audard 2015, 30; Mandle 2015a, 432 and 2015b, 685). Despite common opposition to “realism” in politics, Plato and Rawls ultimately develop quite different political philosophies. The Platonic view is that political philosophy discovers the truth about both justice and the common good. Then it seeks to find a ruler or rulers who can instantiate principles of justice in concrete institutions whether or not these principles are accepted by the citizens. That is, Platonic political philosophy is involved in the effort to shape or control political outcomes by deception or force, if necessary. In this regard, Rawls is very Popperian in seeing the similarity between Plato’s philosopher kings/​queens and Lenin’s revolutionary vanguard! In both cases the claim to know is integrally connected to the claim to control. By contrast, Rawls’s own view is obviously a democratic one where political philosophy forms part of the background culture that contributes transparently and persuasively to civic society. Because political philosophy should not be used to overrule the outcome of everyday democratic politics, it is not as ambitious as Platonic political philosophy. This is a good thing (lpp 3–​4). In a quite different sense, however, Plato’s political philosophy is not ambitious enough because, by denying property to the rulers in the Republic, Plato has in effect violated the rights of the rulers to legitimate self-​respect. Property rights are based not on our wants, as is often assumed, but on our moral status as persons. Property is necessary and legitimate so long as it is consistent with respecting the rights of others as persons and consistent with the principles of justice (lmp 342). It should be emphasized that at no point in his career does Rawls go as far as Richard Rorty in seeing almost the entire history of philosophy from the time of Plato as a mistake; nor could Rawls at any point be seen as an anti-​Platonist, like Rorty. In fact, Rorty could be seen at the opposite extreme from Straussian Platonists in that the latter keep alive strong foundationalism, whereas Rorty opposes foundations even of the weakest sort. Rawlsian moderation is also seen when he avoids the apparent view of Wittgenstein that Platonism was something of a trap (see Botti 2019, 28, 32, 35, 209).

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Conclusion

I would now like to sum up what I think can be learned about Rawls’s views in light of what he himself says about Plato and in light of a consideration of Plato’s “noble” lie and use of social contract theory. There is much that he rejects in Plato, including the “naturalism” and “mysticism” of Plato, both of which, he thought at a very early point in his career, were destructive of community. Further, he is skeptical of the view articulated in the Protagoras that human beings can never do evil voluntarily. Although the effort to construct a just society in the Republic is more congenial to Rawls’s own overall project, the idea that a single comprehensive doctrine characterizes (or should characterize) the beliefs of everyone in society is a problematic view in that the leaders who are the experts regarding this view are given the prerogative to engage in censorship and to tell the “noble” lie when discussing political matters with those who are (allegedly) not as wise as they. Plato also has problematic views of property and of the method needed to get at the truth via rational intuitionism, as Rawls sees things. Intuition does play a role in Rawls’s philosophy, but only as one component in his overall method of reflective equilibrium in competition with other components, including the decisions made in the original position. Despite the above criticisms, there is deep resonance between Rawls and Plato, the authors of the two greatest works in the history of philosophy on the concept of justice. This resonance is due in large measure to a common repugnance to the realpolitik view of politics as being driven by the quest for power, rather than by the quest to more closely approximate justice. In addition to strategic considerations in politics there are also, and primarily, matters of right and wrong. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, in general, signal something new in human history that radically alters its course. This glorification of the Greeks, however, is accomplished outside of the Romantic template and is instead concerned with the human ability, discovered by the Greeks, to offer a rational justification for the state that does not depend on divine or other authority. The Greek discovery of the free yet disciplined use of human reason is no small accomplishment. Human nature itself is conducive to the development of a just society, at least when it is subject to proper nurture, as Plato well knew. The need for training and education insures that, in addition to physis, nomos is also required. Both Rawls and Plato find the systematic privatization of interests in society to be abhorrent. It is also noteworthy that Plato offers the first explicit version of social contract theory, despite the fact that he apparently did not adopt it himself, presumably because he mistakenly thought that it was tied to a quality of manic egoism in human beings. Nevertheless, the

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nascent pluralism in ancient Athens, evidenced in the questions asked about, and criticisms levelled at, the Homeric worldview prefigure the problem of pervasive pluralism that became explicit in the early modern period. It is this problem that gave rise to liberal political philosophy, in general, and to Rawls’s political liberalism, in particular.

­c hapter 2

Rawls and Aristotle: Reflective Equilibrium and the Battle between the Ancients and the Moderns 1

Introduction

Now I would like to move to the relationship between Rawls and Aristotle. In at least five different ways Rawls’s thought is indebted to Aristotle’s. First, and most importantly, we will see that Rawls’s overall method of reflective equilibrium goes back to Aristotle’s dialectic in Nicomachean Ethics, as interpreted by W. F. R. Hardie (tj 51). The fact that Rawls’s overall method is based on ideas in Aristotle is a point of enormous significance. Second, his theory of primary goods relies heavily on Aristotle (tj 92, 400). Third, Aristotle’s belief that the fact that human beings possess a sense of justice is what makes possible a polis is analogous to Rawls’s belief that humanity’s common understanding of fairness is what makes possible a constitutional democracy (tj 243). Fourth, Rawls relies on Aristotle in thinking that justice consists in refraining from pleonexia (see Nicomachean Ethics 1129–​1130), i.e., unfairly gaining at the expense of others (tj 10–​11). And fifth, Rawls relies on Aristotle’s idea that no one should tailor the canons of legitimate complaint to fit his or her own special conditions (cp 200–​201). This last point is crucial in the effort to understand that part of Rawls for which he is most famous, the original position with its veil of ignorance. In the present chapter I would like to concentrate on two basic issues involving Rawls and Aristotle: the method of reflective equilibrium that Rawls takes from Aristotle (as well as from several contemporary theorists in inductive logic) and the complicated battle between the ancients and the moderns. 2

Some Basic Similarities and Differences

The chief point of conflict between Rawls’s views and Aristotle’s lies in the latter’s perfectionism, as Rawls interprets Aristotle (tj 25, 325). He notes that Aristotle was interpreted as a teleological and metaphysical perfectionist at least until the time of Kant (cp 343). Because perfectionism is a type of teleological doctrine, it comes under the sway of Rawls’s critique of teleological doctrines, in general, which is one of the main aims of A Theory of Justice.

© Daniel A. Dombrowski, 2022 | DOI:10.1163/9789004520271_004

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Aristotle’s eudaemonistic perfectionism (along with Aquinas’s) is connected to his commitment to the common good. This commitment is compatible with political liberalism as long as it is expressed in terms of political values, rather than in terms of a particular comprehensive doctrine. In the latter case it is subject to the restrictions on comprehensive doctrines, in general, that are required in a condition of reasonable pluralism (cp 583; lp 142). Nevertheless, Rawls acknowledges that Aristotle’s treatment of happiness as an inclusive end for a human life (which still leaves us with many decisions to make regarding how to achieve happiness, decisions both trivial and serious), rather than as a dominant end (which holds out the prospect of escape altogether from decision-​making), is the most influential in the history of philosophy (tj 549), and even influences Rawls’s own treatment of a rational plan of life, as we will see. Aristotle’s perfectionism led him to affirm only one reasonable and rational good, on Rawls’s interpretation. Institutions were justifiable to the extent that they promoted this good (pl 134); and intoleration of those who did not promote this good was permissible. Aristotle thus set the tone in at least two ways for classical moral philosophy: human beings by nature desire to know and knowledge in ethics centers on the idea of the highest good in the pursuit of true happiness (lmp 4, 47). Rawls uses these features of classical moral philosophy to better understand Kant and Hegel. For Kant, contra Aristotle, the religious or the holy in some fashion transcends happiness, thus for Kant the goal of a human life is not so much happiness as being worthy of happiness, should one be lucky enough to experience it. But for Hegel, along with Aristotle, the highest good of happiness is desired for its own sake and is self-​sufficient (lmp 160, 371). The rational intuitionism of Aristotle, a view noted earlier with respect to Plato, wherein moral concepts are not analyzable in terms of nonmoral concepts and first principles of morality are self-​evident propositions, is not Rawls’s view. This “self-​evidence,” if there is such, is subject to the constraints of reflective equilibrium, in general. Rawls would hold this view even if W. D. Ross is correct in claiming that moral decisions almost always rely on intuitions regarding a balance of reasons (cp 343, 350). In fact, such a balance is very close to what Rawls means by reflective equilibrium, as we will see. There are at least two different types of contemporary political philosophy that are heavily influenced by Aristotle and concerning which Rawls’s view can be contrasted. Classical republicanism (or civic republicanism) in the tradition of Aristotle affirms the importance of ancient liberties, such that we should encourage active participation in public life in order to preserve basic rights and liberties. Rawls’s thought is consistent with this view, at least

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when classical republicanism is balanced by a commitment to modern liberties. However, political liberalism is much more likely to be at odds with civic humanism. This latter view is a type of essentialist Aristotelianism wherein a human being’s nature is most fully achieved in participation in political life. Because civic humanists like Hannah Arendt see politics as a privileged locus for our complete good, such that without vigorous participation in politics one’s telos cannot be achieved, it is itself a comprehensive doctrine that must be held in check along with other comprehensive doctrines in a condition of reasonable pluralism (pl 205–​206, 410; jf 142–​143). Rawls is also affected by Aristotle’s treatment of particular vices, like envy, which implies badness of character from the start in that it does not admit of a mean (tj 532–​533). In a way, spite is the flip side of envy in that if envy consists in negative feelings toward the good fortune of others, spite consists in the pleasure brought about by the bad fortune of others (tj 533–​534). Rawls, along with Aristotle, thinks it is virtuous, however, to prefer a short yet noble life to a long life of vice or to many years of “humdrum existence.” In this regard he uses Aristotle in his critique of hedonism as a dominant end (see Nicomachean Ethics 1169; tj 557). It should also be noted that in Rawls’s undergraduate thesis he exhibited a very negative attitude toward Aristotle in many different passages, a negativity we saw as well in his treatment of Plato. We should stop “kow-​towing” to him, it will be remembered, in that “an ounce of the Bible is worth a pound (possibly a ton) of Aristotle.” He was critical mainly of Aristotle’s “naturalism,” by which he did not mean “materialism,” as we have seen. Rather, naturalism in ethics refers to turning desire to its proper object, the good. According to the very early Rawls, this misses the spiritual or personal element in ethics. In effect, Aristotle turned God into the good, he thought. Rawls feared that this depersonalizing tendency in Aristotle (as well as in Plato) would eventually lead to egoism and to the destruction of community (sf 107, 114, 227, et al.). If we are not related to a divine person, but rather to an impersonal object or unmoved mover, then egoistic aloneness is the result, a result that Rawls attributes not only to Aristotle, but also to Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas (see Botti 2019, 73–​ 74, 83). 3

Wolterstorff’s View

In this chapter I will be defending the views that: (1) reflective equilibrium should be seen as the overall method at work in political philosophy; (2) Rawls derives this method from Aristotle (although there are obviously more

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proximate influences in Sidgwick, Wittgenstein, Goodman, and Toulmin); and (3) reflective equilibrium should be seen as an ongoing process. This last thesis is a novel one that helps to both clarify what reflective equilibrium is and establishes the cogency of the former theses. It is precisely the processual character of reflective equilibrium that forges a crucial link between liberal political philosophers like John Rawls and liberal process thinkers like Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne (see Dombrowski 2019). In order to establish this link, however, it will be fruitful to first understand Nicholas Wolterstorff’s critical interpretation of Rawls’s theory. Wolterstorff’s Justice: Rights and Wrongs (2008) was hailed, on its dust jacket, by one notable critic as the most important work on the subject since Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971. Quite a compliment! Wolterstorff’s extremely interesting comments on Rawls raise important questions for how we should interpret Rawls’s work. Specifically, Wolterstorff provides a most useful frame for considering Rawls’s overall method of reflective equilibrium derived from Aristotle. He presses Rawls’s defenders to account for their belief that human beings are free and equal, a belief that is an integral part of any effort to achieve reflective equilibrium in liberal democratic political theory. Wolterstorff’s insistence in this regard (and his own traditional religious account of this belief) helps us develop a richer understanding of the Aristotelian method of reflective equilibrium. Granted, Wolterstorff is not criticizing the idea of reflective equilibrium per se. Rather, he asserts that there is an unacknowledged reliance on natural rights in Rawls. But, as a result of his criticisms, we acquire a much better understanding of the method of reflective equilibrium. Wolterstorff makes the startling, but understandable, claim that Rawls’s theory of justice is an inherent natural rights theory (hereafter I will drop “inherent” and refer simply to natural rights theory), but that Rawls “does nothing at all to develop an account of such rights. He simply assumes their existence” (Wolterstorff 2008, 15). This is why Wolterstorff largely ignores Rawls; Wolterstorff is concerned with developing an account of natural rights, which remind us more of physis than of nomos, to use the relevant Greek terms. As he puts it, “my interlocutors will be those who do not just appeal to such rights but have something to say about them” (Wolterstorff 2008, 15). Because Wolterstorff’s claim will shock many readers, we should ask why he claims that Rawls’s theory of justice is a natural rights theory. Wolterstorff’s response to this question rests squarely on the work of two scholars, Michael Zuckert and Ronald Dworkin. Zuckert’s thesis is that, whereas John Locke understood rights, and therefore justice, to derive from “property” (he used the term to include life and liberty), Rawls understood rights, and therefore justice, to derive from fairness. There is

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no idiosyncratic use of “rights” here; the term is used in a familiar way to refer to legitimate claims. It seems that what Wolterstorff likes most about Zuckert’s interpretation concerns Rawls’s view of the inviolability of the human person. Whereas for Locke justice derives from the inviolability of the human person (i.e., from rights), which in turn is derived from property, Rawls takes almost the reverse stance: justice derives from fairness, and inviolability (i.e., rights) derives from justice. As Zuckert sees things, this stance jars our intuitive or commonsense notion of justice, in that we normally tend to think that justice follows from, and does not ground or serve as the source of, rights. In other words, the Rawlsian account of inviolability is in a state of disequilibrium with our intuitive or commonsense notion of justice. Zuckert and Wolterstorff are in agreement with Rawls, and against utilitarian thinkers, in thinking that human beings are inviolable. For example, all three thinkers agree that the utilitarian critique of (Aristotelian) slavery is problematic because it condemns slavery only contingently. Under certain conditions, a utilitarian might have to permit, or even encourage, slavery, as is well known. By contrast, Zuckert and Wolterstorff agree with Rawls that we should condemn slavery as a matter of principle. The key criticism that Wolterstorff, with the aid of Zuckert, would like to make is that Rawls’s defense of the inviolability of the person should be based on something like Locke’s (and Wolterstorff’s) concept of natural rights, a concept that relies on the biblical tradition of seeing a human person as an imago Dei, as being made in the image of God. Indeed, Zuckert suggests that Rawls’s defense of inviolability is in fact parasitic on Locke’s view. In this respect Zuckert and Wolterstorff are articulating the now familiar view, endorsed as well by the process thinker David Ray Griffin and Jurgen Habermas (e.g., Griffin 2007, ch. 7; Habermas 2002), that various “postreligion” ethicists and political philosophers are living off the capital accumulated during the Judeo-​Christian ages: they conveniently receive a great deal of insurance without having to pay any premiums. Think of the reductionistic biologist who sees human beings as so much protoplasmic stuff, as strictly accidental byproducts of blind evolutionary history, but who also belongs to Amnesty International. The issue here is not the theory of evolution per se, which is perfectly compatible with many types of religious belief, but its reductionist materialist interpretation, which is very difficult to reconcile with any sort of belief in the inviolability of the human person. Rawls muddies the water by speaking as if the inviolability of human persons is not prior to justice as fairness, but is derived from it. Zuckert is not alleging foul play or subterfuge on Rawls’s part. Rather, he thinks that Rawls is led into genuine confusion as a result of his belief that there no more could be justice outside of (democratic) practices than there

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could be strikeouts outside of the practice of baseball. An athlete could swing a stick in the air three times, but outside of the practice of baseball this would not be a strikeout. Likewise, outside of certain political practices there could be no rights and hence no inviolability of the human person, on Zuckert’s interpretation of Rawls, adopted by Wolterstorff. On this interpretation, a Rawlsian would presumably have to admit that “Hugo would be perfectly in the right to gratuitously kill Samuel if they met on a desert island.” Rawls would be better served, Zuckert thinks, if he considered “more carefully the preconditions for his own edifice of fairness” (Zuckert 2002, 327). 4

Dworkin’s View

Now let us consider how Dworkin’s thought, as filtered through Wolterstorff, can facilitate an understanding of Rawls and of Rawls’s Aristotelian method of reflective equilibrium. Several features of Dworkin’s liberal critique of Rawls do not figure in Wolterstorff’s account. It is Dworkin’s treatment of Rawls’s Aristotelian reflective equilibrium that positively influences Wolterstorff, who has complained about the “inarticulate” nature of Rawls’s epistemology, such that interpreters of Rawls have to engage in an inordinate amount of exegetical industry in order to figure out what Rawls means by reasonableness, rationality, and Aristotelian reflective equilibrium (see Wolterstorff and Audi 1997, 69, 75, 77–​79, 98–​99, 109, 111–​112, 148). I assume, however, that reasonableness can be understood as the willingness to abide by fair terms of agreement and that rationality can be understood as the ability to follow arguments and the like. Whereas it takes a reasonable person to be willing to enter the Rawlsian original position and to abide by the decisions made there, it takes a rational person to do the deliberating. Dworkin, however, correctly makes it clear that it is a mistake to assume that there is a direct, one-​way argument from the original position to Rawls’s famous two (actually three) principles of justice. This is a simplistic (because static) approach that is nonetheless the basis for the pedagogy through which many or most students come into contact with Rawls’s thought. Dworkin rightly emphasizes that Rawls’s more complex processual method consists in seeking Aristotelian reflective equilibrium “between our ordinary, unreflective moral beliefs and some theoretical structure that might unify and justify these ordinary beliefs” (Dworkin 1977, 155). On the one hand, the method involves the effort to provide a structure of principles that supports (i.e., that unifies and justifies) our ordinary, unreflective moral beliefs. On the other hand, we should also be prepared to alter or

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even abandon immediate convictions in the face of powerful theory. “We can expect to proceed back and forth between our immediate judgments and the structure of explanatory principles in this way, tinkering first with one side and then the other, until we arrive at what Rawls calls … reflective equilibrium in which we are satisfied, or as much satisfied as we can reasonably expect” (Dworkin 1977, 156). Dworkin notices, as few critics do, that for Rawls (and for Dworkin himself, if not for Wolterstorff) the conditions that are embodied in the description of the original position are not imposed from without, but are those that we either do in fact accept or could be led to accept as a result of the process of philosophical reflection (Dworkin 1977, 158–​159; tj 21, 587). Dworkin, along with many commentators, sees reflective equilibrium as part of a coherence theory of morality. But unlike most commentators, he sees two sorts of coherence. One of these is “natural,” wherein human beings have a moral faculty that enables them to discover eternal and static moral reality, as in the intuition that slavery just is wrong. This faculty is analogous to the physical observations in science that are the clues to the existence and nature of physical laws. Aristotle may be seen as an example of this version of reflective equilibrium, even if he would not agree with the example of the immorality of slavery to illustrate it. The second of these coherence models is processual and “constructive,” in which the practitioner of the type of moral philosophy found in the model does not assume that principles of justice have a fixed, objective existence, as in the natural model. For example, the intuition that slavery is wrong is not a clue regarding the existence of an independent, eternal principle, but a stipulated feature of the general theory to be constructed. Most commentators do not see the natural model as a type of coherence theory. Rawls would seem to agree with these commentators in that the natural model is close to what Rawls means by rational intuitionism, a view in Plato and Aristotle that he criticizes. Dworkin’s classification of the natural model as a type of coherence theory seems to be the result of the analogy he draws with scientific observation. For example, if an astronomer has clear observational data that do not cohere with any existing theory, the astronomer understandably thinks that observational powers have temporarily outstripped explanatory powers and that the task is to try to have the latter catch up with the former so that coherence is eventually reached. By way of partial contrast, when “observations” are made by a moral faculty, the situation is a bit more complicated in that it is not automatically assumed that theory has to “catch up.” This is because in the constructive model the “observations” regarding justice or injustice are more likely to be contested than in the natural model. There is something gained in the constructive

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model, however. Coherence is eventually reached owing to the responsibility and persistence of the moral agents who take initial intuitions regarding justice or injustice seriously along with the rational desire to be consistent. The point is not that scientific inquirers are not responsible or persistent. Rather, the idea is that, although these traits may facilitate coherence between observation and theory in science, they are not absolutely essential, as they are in the constructive model. That is, in the constructive model, moral philosophers themselves must take responsibility for the processual drive for coherence. As before, Rawls’s constructivist notion of reflective equilibrium is a two-​ way process that goes back and forth between adjustments to conviction and adjustments to theory until the most adequate fit is achieved. (On the natural model this might look like “cooking” the evidence.) Once again, reflective equilibrium is a process notion rather than an algorithm that gives us the right answer once and for all. Although such an algorithm might not be found in the natural model, either, it seems fair to claim that scientists at least hope to approximate such algorithmic thinking. If one’s tentative theory of justice does not fit some particular intuition, this should serve as a warning that we should consider whether we really want to hold on to the intuition. Or perhaps it leads us to question the theory. The key point here is that the two-​way process of Aristotelian reflective equilibrium is at odds with the natural model, which Dworkin thinks aims at the “timeless features of some independent moral reality” (Dworkin 1977, 166). It should be noted that, although Wolterstorff relies on Dworkin in his criticism of Rawls, Wolterstorff’s own view of natural rights as ultimately resting on a theistic basis (on a traditional theistic basis at that, where God is seen as immutable) would seem to ally him with what Dworkin calls “the timeless features” of “the natural view.” I will argue in due course that (despite the fact that I am a theist, albeit a process one) this gets a classical theist like Wolterstorff into trouble. What is not in dispute among Dworkin, Wolterstorff, and Rawls is that a rights-​oriented approach should be defended, even if such an approach is only part of the story in political philosophy, as we will see. For example, Wolterstorff and Rawls would agree with Dworkin that “there is a difference between the idea that you have a duty not to lie to me because I have a right not to be lied to, and the idea that I have a right that you not lie to me because you have a duty not to tell lies …. A theory that takes rights as fundamental is a theory of a different character from one that takes duties as fundamental” (Dworkin 1977, 171). The questions before us are how we should account for rights and how rights fit into the processual Aristotelian method of reflective equilibrium.

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Although Dworkin does not give a great deal of evidence of agreeing with the conservative elements in Zuckert’s and Wolterstorff’s views of justice, he does think, along with them, that Rawls’s view is ultimately a natural rights position: “It must be a theory that is based on the concept … of rights that are natural, in the sense that they are not the product of any legislation, or convention, or hypothetical contract. I have avoided that phrase because it has, for many people, disqualifying metaphysical associations. They think that natural rights are supposed to be spectral attributes worn by primitive men like amulets, which they carry into civilization to ward off tyranny” (Dworkin 1977, 176). Dworkin tries to reassure his readers that Rawls’s natural rights are not, as perhaps they are in Wolterstorff, parts of a “metaphysically ambitious” project (Dworkin 1977, 177). Rather, they are connected to the practical political goal of protecting citizens. Nonetheless, Dworkin admits, to Wolterstorff’s delight, that natural rights are assumed by Rawls without argument in that they are “not simply the product of deliberate legislation or explicit social custom, but are independent grounds for judging legislation and custom” (Dworkin 1977, 177). Simply put, Rawls’s social contract assumes natural rights even if Rawls himself prefers to think of his view as “ideal-​based” or “conception-​based” rather than as “right-​based,” and even if at times he tries to distance himself from any association with the natural law tradition that traces itself back to Aristotle (cp 400; pl 406). Wolterstorff goes along with Zuckert and Dworkin in admitting that Rawls’s presentation of his theory does not appear to be a natural rights theory. The argument that it is in fact a natural rights theory is strictly deductive, given other things that Rawls has to say. For example, it is basic to Rawls’s theory that there be equal respect for all citizens, or at least for all reasonable/​rational agents who deliberate in the original position. (More precisely, if the agents who deliberate in the original position are rational but not reasonable, this is because the information constraints they work under “stand for” reasonableness [cp 317].) Wolterstorff unfortunately refers to agents who bargain in the original position, which confuses the Aristotelian deliberative character of the Rawlsian original position with the Hobbesian state of nature (Wolterstorff 2008, 16; tj 134n10, 139). The equal respect that is owed to those deliberating in the original position is due to … due to what? The Rawlsian response to this question would seem to involve a natural right to equality of concern and respect, “a right they possess not by virtue of birth or characteristic or merit or excellence but simply as human beings with a capacity to make plans and give justice” (Dworkin 1977, 182; also see Wolterstorff 2008, 16).

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Chapter 2

Natural Rights

Wolterstorff cites two passages from Rawls himself to support the claim that Rawls’s theory of justice in A Theory of Justice is built on natural rights. The first is in the main body of the text, where Rawls refers to equality as it applies to the respect that is owed to persons irrespective of their social position. This sort of equality is “fundamental,” according to Rawls. He says that this type of equality “is defined by the first principle of justice and by such natural duties as that of mutual respect; it is owed to human beings as moral persons. The natural basis of equality explains its deeper significance” (tj 511; see Wolterstorff 2008, 16). A second, more explicit, passage is found in a footnote. Its location outside the main body of the text Wolterstorff reads as a sign of Rawls’s reluctance to parade the fact that his theory is built on natural rights, perhaps because of the aforementioned fear that he would be interpreted as advancing a metaphysically ambitious project. In this second passage Rawls says that the fact that the capacity for moral personality is a sufficient condition for being entitled to equal justice “can be used to interpret the concept of natural rights”: For one thing, it explains why it is appropriate to call by this name the rights that justice protects. These claims depend solely on certain natural attributes the presence of which can be ascertained by natural reason pursuing common sense methods of inquiry. The existence of these attributes and the claims based on them is established independently from social conventions and legal norms. The propriety of the term “natural” is that it suggests the contrast between the rights identified by the theory of justice and the rights defined by law and custom. But more than this, the concept of natural rights includes the idea that these rights are assigned in the first instance to persons, and that they are given a special weight. Claims easily overridden for other values are not natural rights. Now the rights protected by the first principle [the equality principle] have both of these features in view of the priority rules. Thus justice as fairness has the characteristic marks of a natural rights theory. Not only does it ground fundamental rights on natural attributes and distinguish their bases from social norms, but it assigns rights to persons by principles of equal justice, these principles having a special force against which other values cannot normally prevail. Although specific rights are not absolute, the system of equal liberties is absolute practically speaking under favorable conditions. tj 505–​506n30

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It is to Wolterstorff’s credit that he highlights this footnote, for philosophers should not be startled to hear about the natural rights dimension of Rawls’s theory. But my purpose in what follows is to interpret this crucial statement in a way that differs somewhat from Dworkin’s interpretation and a great deal from Zuckert’s and Wolterstorff’s static and religiously conservative interpretations. Finding the best possible interpretation of this quotation is crucial if we are to confront head-​on Wolterstorff’s claim that the deepest issue in Rawlsian theory is one that is rarely discussed: the fact that the theory is based on natural rights and that these rights must somehow be located within the processual Aristotelian method of reflective equilibrium. From Wolterstorff’s point of view, a theory of justice that is based on natural rights should give us an account of these rights, and it should declare that a society is just to the extent that it honors these rights. In this regard, it is Wolterstorff’s view, not Rawls’s, that sees political philosophy in static terms amenable to deductive explication. Rawls, Wolterstorff alleges, does something different. He develops a theory of justice that appeals to only one natural right: the right of rational agents (Wolterstorff should say: reasonable/​rational agents) to be treated with equal respect. On Wolterstorff’s view, Rawls wistfully hopes that if this natural right is honored, then all of the others will be secured (Wolterstorff 2008, 17). 6

Critique of Wolterstorff’s View

One of the classic debates in moral theory, a debate that goes as far back as Aristotle, concerns the question of starting points. Should we start with particular moral judgments or with general (or universal) moral principles? We can call those who defend the former approach particularists and those who defend the latter generalists. The debate between the defenders of these two approaches is perhaps due to the fact that these thinkers are primarily interested in different questions. The particularist is primarily interested in responding to the question, which actions are morally right (or wrong)? Whereas the generalist is primarily interested in the question, what are the criteria of right (or wrong) actions? Both of these views, it should be emphasized, are opposed to moral skepticism. But they combat moral skepticism in quite different ways. Despite the well-​known and powerful Kantian arguments against particularism, some philosophers continue to insist that the best way to argue against moral skepticism is to start with particular moral judgments that are widely shared (e.g., that the mass killings at Auschwitz were unjust, that the treatment of Africans on the slave ships in the middle passage was immoral) and then try to work

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out the theoretical criteria for moral (or immoral) action later. Most of the major figures in the history of moral theory have made some contribution to this debate. I understand Rawls’s contribution to lie in his processual method of reflective equilibrium, which in effect asks the question, why does one have to choose between particular moral beliefs and general (or universal) moral principles when searching either for starting points in political philosophy (which is only one part of moral philosophy) or for the source of justificatory warrant? Rawls thinks it makes better sense to make use of both sorts of belief in the articulation and defense of moral theory. We sometimes begin a conversation in moral philosophy with the statement of a particular judgment; in other conversations we start with an affirmation of a moral principle, as in a statement of the golden rule. There is no good reason to restrict ourselves to only one of these starting points or sources of moral judgment (see DePaul 1988, 72). Or better, given that both particular moral judgments and general (or universal) moral principles are necessary conditions for, and perhaps jointly sufficient conditions for, moral discourse, the burden of proof should be on the person who wishes to crowd out one or the other of these features. A partial response to Wolterstorff is available at this point. One of the reasons, but not the only one, why Rawls does not talk more about natural rights is that they collectively function only as a part of a theory of justice, rather than as its cornerstone, as in Wolterstorff. That is, Wolterstorff needs to manage his expectations regarding the place of natural rights within the Rawlsian processual method of Aristotelian reflective equilibrium. He should not expect natural rights to play as large a role in Rawls’s thought as they play in John Locke’s thought. There are many ways to incorporate the strengths of both particularism and generalism, of course, and reflective equilibrium is only one of them. But by pointing out the hybrid character of the method we can trim Wolterstorff’s expectation that if natural rights are in play they must take center stage. As in process thought in general, reflective equilibrium is thoroughly relational in character. The mereological character of natural rights in Rawls’s thought (i.e., the fact that it is only one part of the whole theory) is signaled by the fact that he prefers to label his view “conception-​based” or “ideal-​based,” rather than “rights-​ based,” despite the obvious part that rights play. But his view is nonetheless “right-​based,” in the singular, so as to signify the Rawlsian commonplace that the right is prior to the good (cp 400–​401; Freeman 2007a, 18–​19, 24). As Samuel Freeman sees the issue, in Rawls’s revival of “the natural rights theory of the social contract” there is a transition to a reflective equilibrium that involves “separate strands of argument,” much like Peircian strands of

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cable that mutually reinforce one another and unlike the metaphor that a chain of argument is only as strong as its weakest link. That is, the cable metaphor comes closer to what Aristotelian reflective equilibrium is all about than the chain metaphor does—​indeed, the chain metaphor has become so familiar that it is usually not even perceived as a metaphor (Freeman 2007b, x, 42). By considering the many situations in which moral questions arise (i.e., by trying to incorporate the legitimate insights of moral particularists), we are inevitably led, whether explicitly or implicitly, to moral principle and to a region much wider than, but admittedly not at odds with, natural rights. As Michael DePaul puts the point, “most people have both general and particular initial beliefs” (DePaul 1988, 79), including both general and particular beliefs about natural rights. But the key question is, how are we to bring these disparate beliefs into some sort of consistent whole? Particular beliefs, including particular beliefs about natural rights, can lead to disaster if they are not examined from some sort of reticulative perspective like that taken by the person who aspires to reflective equilibrium or the person who thinks systematically along the lines of Whitehead or Hartshorne. Robert Nozick’s version of libertarianism, to cite one example, involves some extremely questionable judgments based on a runaway version of natural rights. Do we really want to privatize both the national park system and the public-​school system, as seems to be required by his version of libertarian theory? Although there are clear differences between natural rights and natural duties, an important similarity between the two should not escape our notice. Natural duties are those that all reasonable beings already agree to and thus need not be adjudicated by a fair decision-​making procedure. We do not need a social contract to determine that cruelty is wrong. The natural duty not to be cruel holds between persons regardless of their institutional relationships, hence “the propriety of the adjective ‘natural’ ” (tj 115). No matter what comprehensive doctrine one believes in, if the doctrine is reasonable it includes the belief that we have a duty not to be cruel and a duty not to murder. This latter duty would thus apply even on a desert island, contra Zuckert. In this regard we should notice that Rawls incorporates the best from Hobbes and Locke regarding the concept of natural duties (lpp 37, 43, 118–​121, 144–​146; also see Freeman 2007b, 418, 422). Likewise, there is something antecedent about natural rights. These are the rights that are presupposed by the process of reflective equilibrium, as Wolterstorff rightly notes. But this need not be a problem, as Wolterstorff assumes. “The way in which it is rational for a person to resolve a conflict between beliefs will not be determined by which of those beliefs is general and which is particular, but by which belief seems most likely to be true to the

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person after thoroughly considering the matter” (DePaul 1988, 80). Once again, appeal to particular natural rights is only a part of the process of developing a defensible theory of justice. That the original position, or some other device used to develop a fair decision-​making procedure, is needed indicates that the critic who alleges that reflective equilibrium leans more in the direction of generalism than particularism is on to something. But the method is hardly an attempt to run roughshod over particular moral beliefs. It is quite possible for theory as well as intuition to be overridden. The Aristotelian process of reflective equilibrium here looks similar to Whitehead’s famous metaphor in Process and Reality. Theory is like an airplane that takes off from the ground (of particular intuitions) so as to develop an abstract account of the phenomena in question, making sure eventually to touch ground again (Whitehead 1978, 5). The place of natural rights in Rawlsian political theory is further contextualized when a distinction is made between narrow reflective equilibrium, as I have described it thus far in political liberalism, and the effort to find wide equilibrium between political principles and nonpolitical principles in philosophy of mind, science, and so on (see Daniels 1979). In both endeavors there is an understandable reluctance to give up on a seemingly well-​established belief (e.g., that cruelty is wrong) when challenged by an untested one. And in both there is the requirement of intellectual honesty, such that an inconsistent or poorly supported belief is relinquished in the face of a more powerful one that is internally consistent. Further, reflective equilibrium in its widest sense also involves the effort to reach coherence between one’s view of justice and one’s comprehensive doctrine, a topic that will be treated in more detail later. To be more precise, whereas narrow reflective equilibrium refers to the sort of deliberative rationality that involves the original position dealing with justice, wide reflective equilibrium refers to the effort to achieve coherence between our view of justice and other philosophically important concerns; further, both of these are to be distinguished from full reflective equilibrium where our concept of justice must be made compatible with other reasonable views in an overlapping consensus with each other (see Daniels 2015; pl 384). The starting points in the process of reflective equilibrium can be seen as shared notions latent in common sense (cp 327), but this does not mean that they are self-​evident. Both Rawls and Wolterstorff (in contrast to Aristotle) are understandably opposed to the idea of self-​evident starting points (see tj 21, 48–​53). Or at least self-​evident starting points, if such things exist, would have to be analyzed critically along with other proposed starting points (cp 288–​ 291). Wolterstorff even goes so far as to claim that the appeal to self-​evident rights in the U.S. Declaration of Independence is “a piece of epistemological bluster” (Wolterstorff 2008, 319n). In Rawlsian language, to say that our starting

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points have some basis in our common democratic heritage is obviously not to say that they are metaphysically basic moral truths. In fact, they are clearly open to revision (Ebertz 1993, 196–​197, 200, 212). (Nonetheless, some starting points—​e.g., that cruelty is wrong—​when revised put all of our other moral beliefs into a dangerous disequilibrium.) As Whitehead put a related point, the deadly foe of morality is not change, but stagnation (Whitehead 1967, 269). It is often noticed that behind the initial beliefs that get the process of reflective equilibrium started lies a Rawlsian view of the human person. At times Rawls distinguishes between conceptions of the human person and ideals of the human person (cp 321–​322, 352). The former are connected, once again, to issues in philosophy of mind regarding, say, personal identity over time, whereas the latter are connected to issues in moral philosophy regarding how a human person ought to act and what a human person ought to be. It should be emphasized that, although there may well be useful connections between conceptions of and ideals of the human person, conceptions of the human person underdetermine moral theory. Even if Rawls himself seems to believe in a Kantian conception of the human person (as free, equal, reasonable, and rational), which pushes strongly in the direction of human rights, he is well aware that competing conceptions of the human person must be considered in a politically liberal society. Granted, there are only a finite number of conceptions of the human person that see human persons as reasonable. And granted, each conception of the human person makes some moral theories more probable than others (Brink 1987, 81–​86). But even if one grants these points, one is still able to defend the thesis that conceptions of the human person underdetermine moral theory. For example, to grant that a human person is made in the image of God still leaves unresolved many of the most important issues in political philosophy. Among Catholics, say, who believe in the imago Dei hypothesis, we find liberation thinkers who are heavily influenced by Marxist thought, Opus Dei members who consort with fascism, and political liberals, broadly construed. Luckily, this last group is now the largest of the three. The treatment thus far of the problem that the process of reflective equilibrium is meant to solve makes it possible both to better situate the place of natural rights in Rawls’s view and to better understand the place of starting points within the Aristotelian process of reflective equilibrium. But one of the difficulties that any interpreter of Rawls must confront is how to navigate among three different aspects of his method or types of justification in his thought: (1) the general processual method of reflective equilibrium; (2) the original position, which can be understood as that part of reflective equilibrium wherein particular beliefs or intuitions regarding justice are put

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to the test of objective rationality, but which is nonetheless a part in the service of reflective equilibrium in general; and (3) public reason or full reflective equilibrium, which is more restrictive than reflective equilibrium in general because it concerns only those values that can be affirmed by all reasonable beings regardless of the comprehensive doctrines that they affirm. Regarding (3) it can be said that not all considered judgments meet the publicity criterion (e.g., those that concern many religious beliefs). Like the original position, public reason can profitably be seen as part of the process of reflective equilibrium, the part that deals with concepts that constitute an overlapping consensus with other reasonable citizens on the subject of justice (pl 54–​58, 384; also Dombrowski 2001). The original position is admittedly, in a way, nonprocessual, but reflective equilibrium as a whole is a process. However these three aspects of Rawls’s method or types of justification are related, it is requisite that we understand reflective equilibrium itself as including three moments, in Aristotelian fashion: identifying initial beliefs or intuitions about justice, trying to account for these from some objective point of view, and trying to reach equilibrium when the previous two moments diverge. Equilibrium, it should be noted, is a goal or an ideal rather than an accomplished fact. Thus, we should be wary of having our starting points do too much work for us, as Thomas Scanlon emphasizes (Scanlon 2003, 139–​141). Scanlon is also helpful in distinguishing between descriptive and deliberative understandings of reflective equilibrium. Whereas the former enables us to better understand the implications of what we already believe, the latter enables us to better understand what we ought to believe. Once again, the former provides some reason for a conservative understanding of reflective equilibrium, and the latter does the same for a radical understanding of it, as when Norman Daniels has us notice that a society that conformed to Rawls’s three principles of justice (the first principle—​the equal liberty principle—​plus the two parts of the second principle, the equality of opportunity principle and the difference principle) would be more egalitarian than any existing society, including the social welfare states! (Daniels 2003, 243; jf 135–​140, 158–​162). Although there is no compulsion to steer the method of reflective equilibrium into the descriptive mode, it must be admitted that the method does require that we account for those judgments concerning which we are most confident, including judgments regarding natural rights (Scanlon 2003, 142–​144). The Rawlsian original position (a decision-​making procedure that helps us to achieve a certain degree of objectivity regarding the concept of justice) requires that we deliberate about justice behind a veil of ignorance regarding the particularities of our existence such that we should decide what a just society would look like if we did not know, for example, what our race would be in

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such a society. In this decision-​making procedure, reasonable/​rational agents would universally agree that basic goods (whether material or formal) would be distributed equally to everyone in society, and all of the goods beyond what it would take to fund the basic goods could be distributed unequally, but only if such unequal distribution was in principle open to all and to everyone’s advantage, especially the least advantaged. This is the radical understanding of reflective equilibrium toward which Rawls’s theory of justice points. One of the most common mistakes that interpreters of Rawls make is to assume that Rawlsian justification occurs only within the deliberation in the original position; this assumption has as its implication that we can dispense with Aristotelian reflective equilibrium. But Rawls is quite clear that “justification is a matter of mutual support of many considerations” (tj 579). That is, reflective equilibrium is both thoroughly processual and thoroughly relational in that all of the elements can be revised in light of the others. If there are no good grounds for doubting our beliefs, it is reasonable to grant them initial credibility and a fallible authority. It is not merely that we believe them that counts, but that they are credible, as Wolterstorff would otherwise admit as a reformed epistemologist. The stance of reformed epistemology involves an innocent-​until-​proven-​guilty quality: we should be free to believe whatever we wish until the belief is shown to be inconsistent, contradicted by the facts, and so on. Rawls is rightly most famous, however, for the deliberations that occur in the original position, so it makes sense for Scanlon to say that if we had to choose between the descriptive and the deliberative understandings of the processual method of reflective equilibrium, the latter deserves the nod. At least in principle, our initial judgments can change significantly over the course of time in that reflective equilibrium is not only a process, but a “Socratic” or “Aristotelian” process. It is because this method is self-​correcting that Scanlon says that it is “the best way of making up one’s mind about moral matters and about many other subjects. Indeed, it is the only defensible method” (Scanlon 2003, 149). This is a remarkable claim. But I do not think that Scanlon hyperbolizes here, for the process of reflective equilibrium is exactly what is required if we are to avoid the twin evils of reifying either particular moral judgments or general (or universal) moral principles. Reflective equilibrium is process ethics at its best. Further, the results of other proposed philosophical methods (e.g., the transcendental method) are subject to the dialectical criticisms that other thinkers typically offer. It must be admitted that at times Rawls gives the impression that principles of justice are given to us by practical reason, but because it is our practical reason that does the giving, I assume that there is no big problem with

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this impression, in that human actions are shaped by self-​examination and criticism. And it is this criticism that prevents contractarianism from degenerating into conventionalism. Reflective equilibrium is an ideal, it will be remembered, rather than an already accomplished fact; the process of modifying ideas and rejecting recalcitrant ones is ongoing. This asymptotic effort is complicated considerably in the later Rawls by the fact that one must also bring into equilibrium the principles of justice operative in politics with one’s own comprehensive doctrine as well as with the comprehensive doctrines of reasonable others. The complications are especially noteworthy if the comprehensive doctrine in question does not have an obvious place for human autonomy (Freeman 2007a, 6, 27, 38, 40, 240; pl 385). To say that the method of reflective equilibrium is processual is to say that one always begins one’s thinking about justice in the middle of things. One “starts” with intuitive considerations, but one does not exactly ground them, as Wolterstorff hopes to do in spite of his reformed epistemology. One “then” moves to the original position, but the rational deliberations found there are framed by the reasonable, which includes the desire to abide by fair terms of agreement, a desire that is implied in the willingness to deliberate under the constraints imposed by the veil of ignorance. As Burton Dreben emphasizes regarding the process of reflective equilibrium (Dreben is almost alone among scholars in explicitly referring to reflective equilibrium as a process), the key phrases in Rawls, which have hardly been noticed, are “working through” or “working out.” Rawls spent an entire career working through the historical fund of implicitly shared ideas in liberal democracies. His working out of the concept of justice as fairness gave him more than enough to do; he ended up contributing more to political philosophy than any other twentieth century philosopher. Further, he ended up a more consistent critic of foundationalism than Wolterstorff, once again despite the latter’s reformed epistemology. Or again, Rawls himself speaks not so much of “analyzing” the idea of a just society as of “unfolding” it, as Freeman rightly emphasizes (Freeman 2007b, 337–​338; pl 27). Because one begins in the middle of things, the preliminary tasks in political philosophy consist not so much in refuting defenders of fascism like Martin Heidegger (although this effort is needed nonetheless) or various defenders of Marxism (although Dreben does not mention that Rawls carefully examines Marx as a political philosopher—​l pp 319–​372; jf 176–​179). Rather, one tries to explicate both the benefits of living in a liberal democracy and the conceptual details of what such a society would look like. “A basic task of political philosophy is to work out the best terms of what would be fair” (Dreben 2003, 336). This involves the search for a liberal constitutional democracy that

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is stable, but stable for the right reasons. This search, in turn, involves dialectic, as Rawls himself admits when he compares reflective equilibrium to Aristotle’s dialectical procedure in the Nicomachean Ethics. In Aristotle there are starting points (archai), received opinions (endoxa), commonplaces (topoi), and, of course, habits (“ethics” is derived from the Greek word for habit, ethos) that enable us eventually to move dialectically to principle. But it is also possible to move from principle deductively. Both dialectic and deduction are required (see Hardie 1968, ch. 3; tj 51). In any event, Rawls’s enormous debt to Aristotle regarding this method should be far better known than it is. Dreben confuses matters a bit when he compares the back-​and-​forth dialectical character of the process of reflective equilibrium with circular reasoning, which does not bother him. But because circular reasoning does bother most philosophers, it is better to stick with the claim that reflective equilibrium involves the give-​and-​take movement of Aristotelian dialectic at its best, wherein conceptual snags are untangled and inconsistencies exposed (Dreben 2003, 338). By contrast, Dreben is insightful when he says, “You cannot do substantial political or moral philosophy in any Cartesian-​framed manner” (Dreben 2003, 343), which is precisely (and ironically, given his reformed epistemology) what Wolterstorff tries to do when he attempts to ground natural rights in the imago Dei hypothesis and then judge society’s practice against the standard provided by such rights. I would like to emphasize that Wolterstorff is to be commended for defending theistic philosophy with a capital “P.” But I am not convinced that (1) theism has to be defended in the traditional, static terms Wolterstorff uses (see Dombrowski 2004a; 2005; 2006), or that (2) philosophy with a capital “P” is appropriate in political thought, where the goal is to articulate fair terms of agreement among reasonable people with different, sometimes uncompromisingly different, comprehensive doctrines, including both religious and nonreligious ones (see pl). That is, Rawlsian political philosophy is no less important or difficult because it is done with a lowercase “p” (Dreben 2003, 346). As Hartshorne puts a related point, a liberal is one who knows that he or she is not God (Hartshorne 1984, 9). 7

Relativism

To those who fear that the process of reflective equilibrium is relativistic, I would respond that although coherence is a necessary condition for justification in political philosophy, it is not sufficient. Common presuppositions in liberal democracies (e.g., that slavery and cruelty are wrong) and considered

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moral judgments in liberal democracies (e.g., that deviations from equality require justification) provide stable points that enable us to stave off the horrors of relativism. Roger Ebertz even goes so far as to refer to these stable points as “modest foundations” (Ebertz 1993, 206–​207), such that the process of reflective equilibrium can profitably be seen not so much as an opposition to foundationalism per se as opposition to strong foundationalism. We should both allow the defender of slavery to state the case for slavery and insist that the extremely heavy burden of proof is on him, not his opponent. As Abraham Lincoln observed, “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong” (quoted in jf 29; also see Mandle 2009, 40–​41, 170–​178). Further, the method under consideration here is not equilibrium at any cost, which would indeed be relativistic. Rather, it is a method that involves a reflective, dialectically responsible process. Theories of justice should be viewed historically (i.e., processually) as involving concepts that are gradually purified in the fire of reasonable/​rational criticism, with the best available concepts (considered judgments) providing preliminary standards for further dialectical criticism. The provisional fixed points mentioned above (e.g., Lincoln’s claim that if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong, which Rawls cites many times—​see Lehning 2009, 34) are sufficient to hold the wolf of relativism at bay. This is consistent with the claim that the content of public reason is not fixed, particularly if it is an expression of an especially dynamic society. Think, say, of how attitudes toward class, race, and gender have changed in liberal democracies over the past several decades. But even in the swift stream of contemporary history, the goal should remain to reach equilibrium between our real beliefs and what would be chosen in the original position behind a veil of ignorance. Overlapping consensus among reasonable beings is at least partially in place already, so this goal is not utopian in the pejorative sense of the term. Society’s political conception should be publicly, though never finally, justified, as Rawls himself urges (pl 388–​339; also see Lehning 2009, 115, 122–​125). In this regard it is understandable why someone might detect a pragmatist strain in Rawls’s thought. Rather than opting for a metaphysical view that seeks conceptual generality that is then applied to concrete cases, there is a qualified primacy placed on human practices (see Botti 2019, 129, 146, 210). Or, more precisely, the realistic goal is that reasonable people would come to agree on a family of politically liberal views, of which Rawlsian justice as fairness is but one representative, albeit the most egalitarian member of the family. The Rawlsian hope for justice as fairness, in particular, is that other politically liberal views would cluster around it for comparison and contrast. It can be seen as a carefully defended “center of the focal class,” as Lehning

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puts it, in the process of political justification (Lehning 2009, 136, 144; also see Daniels 1996). It is to be hoped that the processual character of the method of reflective equilibrium will become better known to both political philosophers, in general, and to process thinkers who are political liberals, in particular, such that these two groups could help to further “work out” the concept of justice, which is, as Rawls emphasizes (tj 3), the first virtue of social institutions, just as truth is the first virtue of systems of thought. It is well known that from the time of his doctoral dissertation and his first publication, Rawls was very much interested in a procedure that would correct our considered moral beliefs against a set of moral principles, a procedure that came to be known as reflective equilibrium. I have argued in this chapter, however, for some features of reflective equilibrium that are not well known: that this method is derived from Aristotle and that such equilibrium is not really a permanent state but a process (see cp ch. 1; Pogge 2007, 15, 165; Tebbe 2017, part I). These realizations change things significantly, I think. For example, the familiar charge that Rawls’s method is ahistorical and hence irrelevant to the flux of historical events begins to look inaccurate in the extreme. 8

The Ancients and the Moderns

In this regard it is worthwhile to consider the way that Rawls’s views in A Theory of Justice were later clarified in Political Liberalism. As a result of the aftermath of the wars of religion, some defended a liberal, Enlightenment, comprehensive doctrine in an effort to replace religious comprehensive doctrines. In turn, this comprehensive liberalism is replaced by Rawlsian political liberalism, which is meant to be congenial to both religious comprehensive doctrines and skeptical comprehensive doctrines. For this reason, Rawls’s explicit flirtation with natural rights (and with their implicit religiosity) in A Theory of Justice ends at the level of public, political discourse in Political Liberalism, even if the affair can nonetheless continue in the nonpublic realm of associational freedom. Aristotle exemplifies many of the features that Rawls thinks distinguish ancient moral philosophy from that of the moderns. Rawls agrees with Henry Sidgwick that we will not get very far in understanding Aristotle and the other ancients until we drop the legalistic tendency of modern ethics. Instead of concentrating on duty, for example, we should be asking about what is virtuous, what is the highest good, and what is the nature of true happiness. There is a legitimate question to be asked whether this difference, real as it is, is very

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deep and might be due to differences in language and historical background that are not that great. Aristotle, for example, talked about duty (deontos) and the moderns talked about virtue (lmp 1–​3). However, Rawls thinks that the differences between the ancients and the moderns are substantive. The historical and cultural background in ancient Greece is crucial, on Rawls’s interpretation. The civic religion discussed earlier in regard to Plato was not dependent on sacred texts, as much as the Greeks admired Homer. Nor was there a priestly class that dispensed with the necessary means of grace. Granted, the irreligious and the atheist were seen as dangerous, but this was not so much due to their unbelief as such as it was due to the sense that they were untrustworthy in that they did not participate in shared civic practice. Further, Rawls notes that of the 300,000 or so people in ancient Athens, only about 35,000 of these were seen as moral agents who could exert political influence. That is, the political philosophies of Plato and Aristotle were built out of a very specific sort of social cohesion in the polis. This cohesion was continuous with the sort of moral relationships that held among the gods and heroes. For example, when Achilles selfishly sulks in his tent and returns to battle only when Patroclus was killed, he does so not so much because he grieves for Patroclus’ sake, but because he is upset about his weakness in not being able to protect his own dependent. Quite surprisingly, there is something very individualistic about ancient ethics, including Aristotle’s. One is not asked to sacrifice one’s own good to the claims of justice; rather, it is claimed that one loses one’s own good if those claims are rejected (lmp 2–​5). As a result of Benjamin Constant’s distinction between the largely positive liberties of the ancients and the largely negative liberties of the moderns, and of Constant’s preference for the latter, one might understandably think that Rawls would align himself with Constant. But the issue is complicated. Rawls seems much more interested in the whole system of liberties, a system that exhibits a balance between the liberties of the ancients and those of the moderns. It is true that modern freedom of thought and conscience are important, but so is the liberating effect of participating in the public life of the polis. There is no need, however, to run to the other extreme, as some classical republican thinkers (and all civic humanists) do, by granting priority to the ancient liberties over the modern ones. Here Rawls quite ironically exhibits (Aristotelian) moderation between the hegemony of either ancient or modern liberties (tj 201–​203, 222; pl 5, 206, 299, 303, 396, 404, 409–​410, 416, 420; lpp 191). I would like to be clear that Rawls does not want to split the difference, as it were, between the ancients and the moderns, but rather to find the appropriate place and the appropriate reasons for both the importance of being able to

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participate in public life as an equal with the social basis for self-​respect and to be free from undue government restriction. The famous two (actually three) principles of justice in A Theory of Justice are attempts to do precisely this (cp 307, 391–​392). The most nuanced treatment of the relationship between the ancients and the moderns in Rawls can be found in Justice as Fairness. Rawlsian justice as fairness is, in one sense, in agreement with the strand of liberal thought represented by Constant and Isaiah Berlin, wherein the liberties of the ancients have less intrinsic value than the freedom of thought and liberty of conscience that are the hallmarks of the moderns. What this means, however, is that in modern democratic societies it may well be the case that, for many citizens, taking a continuing and energetic part in public life has a lesser place in their conceptions of the good life than was the case, say, for native-​born male citizens in the Athenian polis. To put the point negatively, ninety-​percent of Athenians (women, children, aliens, slaves) were not even allowed to be active participants in public life such that those citizens who were active participants in public life did so in part as an exercise of their domination. Many people today can and do pursue the good via lives that are not characterized by Aristotelian essentialism of the political. Their lives are religious, aesthetic, intellectual, athletic, interest-​driven, etc., in the pervasively pluralistic world in which we live (jf 2, 143). The extent to which people make active engagement in political life an integral part of the complete good is up to individuals to decide. This amount reasonably varies from individual to individual. The fact that the liberties of the ancients are not to be trivialized in Rawls’s view is evidenced when he claims that the preservation of modern liberties requires widespread participation on the part of citizens who have the political virtues needed to preserve and advance justice. That is, widespread participation in political life by an informed citizenry is certainly needed because the power-​hungry would love a vacuum that might be created by an apathetic populace. Therefore, in a sense, Aristotle was correct in the Politics to view human beings as political animals. In order to remain free and equal, citizens must avoid a retreat into mere private (or nonpublic) life. The question concerns the degree to which citizen engagement in politics is needed for the safety of basic liberties, which should never be bargained away, say by selling oneself into servitude. This degree may very well be less than civic humanists tend to think in their defense of Aristotelian essentialism of the political. Or at least it might involve a healthy division of labor as found in representative democracies (jf 143–​144). It should be noted that both kinds of liberties, ancient and modern, appear equally in Rawls’s first principle of justice, so it can be said that both have the

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same root. But an abstract idea like the original position as a device of representation does not dictate the concept of justice once and for all in that even it must be checked by our reflective considered judgments. Although we should not change our concept of justice in order to suit our personal interests, checking it against our considered judgments is another matter. Further, it is a mistake to view political liberalism in terms of the liberties of the ancients being of value only instrumentally for the sake of the liberties of the moderns. This is both because the political liberties of the ancients still play a significant or even predominant role in the careers of many citizens who lead “political lives” even today, and because, once political liberties are acknowledged, this acknowledgment helps to secure the social basis for self-​respect, which is a primary good for all citizens, no matter how interested they are in politics (pl 396, 399, 404). It is not necessary that there be competition between personal autonomy, as specified by the liberties of the moderns, and public/​political autonomy, as specified by the liberties of the ancients. The appearance of conflict between the two is probably due to the dangers posed in recent centuries by the tyranny of majority rule and other sorts of tyranny, concerning which it is understandable that human rights be emphasized. But this realization is compatible with an opposition to the prioritization of either of the two kinds of liberties. Rather than there being an unresolved competition between the liberties of the ancients and those of the moderns, there is a need to weigh the legitimate evidence, now one way, then the other. The two forms of autonomy are internally connected (pl 409–​411, 416–​417). 9

The Aristotelian Principle

Despite his critique of Aristotle’s perfectionism, Rawls nonetheless endorses what he calls the Aristotelian Principle, which refers to a purely formal definition of the good. To flesh out a plan of life, one needs to take into consideration several concrete factors like physiological, mental, and other circumstances in a person’s life, including the basic structure of society that encourages certain kinds of plans, but not others. Rational plans of life should also be constrained by the principles of justice. Generally speaking, the familiar values of affection and friendship, work, and the pursuit of knowledge and beauty, etc., can be advanced in ways that are consistent with justice. In a just society, the rational plans of life pursued by citizens are complementary. Other things being equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capacities: the more the capacity is realized, the greater the enjoyment. Rawls does

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not explain why the Aristotelian Principle is true. It is evident, however, that it is true, Rawls thinks. Because Aristotle never stated this principle explicitly, Rawls calls it the Aristotelian Principle rather than Aristotle’s Principle. But there is ample evidence in favor of the principle in Aristotle (see, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics vii. 11–​14; x. 1–​5). Support for Rawls’s view here can also be found in several secondary sources (once again, see Hardie 1968, ch. 14; also Field 1932, 76–​78; R.W. White 1963, ch. 3; Mill 2002, ch. 2; finally, see tj 426–​427). There is agreement between Rawls and Aristotle regarding the “Aristotelian Principle” as a principle of motivation. As a person’s capacities increase over time (as in the development of the brain in a child), people tend to prefer more complex and nuanced goals. There is a companion effect to this principle (hence the complementarity mentioned above) in that we are often affected by the successes or failures of others as they pursue their rational plans of life. Of course, there is some point beyond which increased effort at developing our capacities is counterproductive. A rational plan as constrained by principles of justice allows a person to flourish insofar as circumstances permit. The Aristotelian Principle is a tendency, however, not an invariable pattern, such that social institutions should allow for citizens to have a change in plans, as in the opportunity to switch careers or to enjoy leisure activities and games. Spontaneous play, after all, is part of the joy of life (tj 428–​429; also see Dombrowski 2009a). No particular plan of life is required by the Aristotelian Principle, but we have seen that choices regarding a plan of life tend to be influenced by inclinations and talents and social circumstances. Given the limitations of time and resources, a preferred pattern of activities tends to fill up our lives. Rawls adds a Darwinian twist to the Aristotelian Principle by claiming that specimens that desire to engage in more complicated and demanding activities would be, and have been, favored by natural selection. However, once again, the question is not how to justify the Aristotelian Principle, but rather to figure out how to design a just society given the fact that the Aristotelian Principle obtains. Even if the Aristotelian Principle does not characterize everyone, the idea of the Aristotelian Principle still operates as a regulative ideal. For example, if an otherwise intelligent person develops a plan of life focused on counting blades of grass, we legitimately think that this person is not all that he or she could be, Rawls thinks. Indeed, we are surprised to find out that there are such persons in the world. Or we might wonder about the state of the person’s psychological well-​being. In this regard we are all Aristotelians in spite of ourselves (tj 430–​433).

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Virtue

More needs to be said about the role of virtue in the Rawlsian view. In addition to the misleading criticism of Rawls not being sufficiently committed to community, and of not being sufficiently committed to the historical dimension of human experience, it is also common to hear that he did not pay sufficient attention to the (Aristotelian) virtues. However, it is important to note the distinction between two sorts of virtues: political virtues and those linked to the relatively nonpolitical lives of citizens with their separate comprehensive doctrines. Rawls is especially interested in the political virtues: toleration of reasonable differences, civility, a sense of fairness, and reasonableness itself. However, Rawls also notes the importance of the virtues connected with the socialization process of citizens in families and associations (including neighborhoods and sports teams and churches). That is, socialization into a virtuous life of some sort is needed, as both Aristotle and Rawls emphasize, in order to eventually have mature citizens who are capable of the political virtues (see tj sec. 70–​72). But a just society cannot expect all citizens to develop those virtues that are idiosyncratic to some comprehensive doctrines but not others, as in theological virtues found in some religions but not others and certainly not in the lives of religious skeptics. The virtue of faith is a prime example here. In different terms, the common good of common goods that characterizes a just society requires the political virtues that are essential parts of the societal common good, in general, but only permits those found in the more specific common goods at the associational level of differing comprehensive doctrines (see Downing and Thigpen 1993; Macedo 1990). In a limited sense, liberal neutrality extends to both communities and their virtues, although a just state is not neutral regarding the need for political virtues nor regarding the need to develop cooperative virtues within familial and associational life, a development which, like capital, can accumulate over time (pl 157). One thinks here of the way that both churches and youth sport teams inculcate the virtues of respect for others, sportspersonship, and team cooperation. It would be a gross error to think that Rawls privatizes virtue in that “the personal” is by no means synonymous with “the private” in Rawls. Indeed, well-​ordered societies depend on the existence of citizens who have developed the communal virtues, both the cooperative virtues developed within the context of one’s familial/​associational life as well as the political virtues per se (see Luppi 2022; Costa 2004).

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The Capabilities Approach

The fruitfulness of a comparison between Rawls and Aristotle becomes especially apparent when the capabilities approach is highlighted. A prime example of this approach is found in the thought of Martha Craven Nussbaum, who is noteworthy for being an accomplished Aristotle scholar and a political liberal who is thoroughly familiar with Rawls’s thought. Her unique blend of Aristotle, Rawls, and liberal feminism will be helpful in the effort to understand both the degree to which there is a profound debt to Aristotle in Rawls’s thought and the degree to which Aristotle needs Rawls in a condition of pervasive pluralism (see Brooks 2015). The capabilities approach involves the Aristotelian claims that overall well-​ being is of primary importance and that well-​being should be understood in terms of people’s capabilities. The origins of the capabilities approach lie in Amartya Sen’s criticisms of restricted and misleading utilitarian measures of well-​being, measures that have for some time dominated economic thought (see Sen 1993; 2006; 2009). For example, those who live for a long time in deprivation might understandably lower their expectations as a coping mechanism, but this does not mean that the absence of intense pain in their lives makes their deprivation justifiable or that they have closely approximated well-​being. Nussbaum expands on Sen’s critique of narrow utilitarian conceptions of well-​ being by emphasizing the need to focus on both quality of life considerations as well as the concept of justice itself. Regarding the latter, it should be noted that it is not merely distribution of resources that is important, but fair distribution of such. Nussbaum’s version of the capabilities approach has the familiar Rawlsian characteristic of a “thin” framework of essential Aristotelian capabilities along with a “thick” theory of justice and resource allocation. Despite Aristotle’s theory of a succession of souls in human beings, which Nussbaum rejects, his thought is very much alive in the sense that it is still difficult, if not impossible, to imaging human flourishing without nutritive, sentient, and rational functioning. Capabilities as such are defined as real or substantive freedoms to do certain things or to be a certain sort of individual. Being well-​nourished, sheltered, and educated, respectively, are quintessential examples of the capabilities that are required for human well-​being or flourishing. Capabilities as freedoms should be conceived as real, rather than merely formal, opportunities. The formal freedom to vote in elections, say, does not matter much if the nearest voting place is 200 miles away with no means of getting there; conversely, if a voting booth is close by, this does not mean much to a female in a particular society that does not permit women to vote (see Robeyns and Byskov 2020).

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Clean water, adequate sanitation, and access to medical care are further capabilities integral to human well-​being conceived as integrally connected to nutritive, sentient, and rational functioning. That is, there is a family resemblance between Aristotelian and Rawlsian primary goods (or Rawls’s “thin” theory of the good), as made evident in Nussbaum’s articulation of the capabilities approach. The connection between these goods and the Rawlsian concept of justice is made readily apparent in Rawlsian reaction against a society in which there is plenty of food, but also some starving people who have little or nothing to exchange to get it. Or again, the impediments in some other societies to the development of human capabilities (inadequately expressed in utilitarianism in terms of the development of “human capital”) are religious intolerance, racism, classism, or sexism in its various manifestations. The very “thinness” of the Aristotelian or Rawlsian primary goods facilitates the acknowledgment of pervasive pluralism in society in that each individual (or association of individuals) has a unique set of conversion factors that enable one to turn capabilities into actual functionings and overall well-​being. The range of potentially relevant functionings is very broad among citizens whose capabilities have been allowed to, or even encouraged to, develop. Of course, many functionings are not compossible, as when one exercises the capability to work by choosing one job, making it impossible to take another. By focusing on capabilities and not actual functionings, we can avoid an idiosyncratic account of the good life, thereby opening up a range of possible ways that each person or each relevant association can live life in ways consistent with justice. Although Aristotle’s account of well-​being may well have flourished in a pre-​liberal, nondemocratic setting, in Nussbaum and Rawls it is essential for human beings to live in at least an approximately democratic society in order to have some capabilities flourish and hence in order to approximate well-​ being. Among these are the capability to make autonomous choices in politics. For human beings who are capable of rationality, there is a need to make responsible choices. For those human beings who are not (or who are not yet) capable of rationality—​e.g., the mentally disabled (or infants)—​there is nonetheless the importance of achieving well-​being within the limits of the capabilities exhibited by a particular human being at a certain stage in life. Here regarding human beings with disabilities Nussbaum supplements Aristotle and also Rawls in an insightful way. From a Rawlsian point of view in political philosophy, the most crucial capabilities are those that are needed for a person to participate as a citizen. These would include, on Nussbaum’s reckoning, life itself, bodily health, bodily integrity, practical reason, etc., in a context of politically liberal institutions that function well. Presumably the list of capabilities would, or at least could, be derived from Rawlsian overlapping consensus,

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although Aristotle thought that at least some of these are more basic biological requirements for a human being to flourish. It is perhaps understandable why Sen does not want too much specificity in the articulation of capabilities. His fear is that those making up the list would paternalistically force a certain style of life or belief on unwilling participants. But political liberals, in general (including Rawls, Nussbaum, and Sen), can agree that individuals and communities should decide for themselves which capabilities and which functionings should apply. For example, everyone can agree that eating food is a necessary capability for human well-​being, but the actual function of eating can be variously interpreted and practiced. Further, Aristotle may well be correct that people can make mistakes about their own well-​being, say when they think that consuming large quantities of alcohol is leading them to a good life. Hence it is worth emphasizing that Aristotle’s eudaimonia (problematically translated as “happiness”) is not a purely subjective phenomenon, like the taste for chocolate. Here we are once again led to consider the Aristotelian method of reflective equilibrium, where our capabilities and values are submitted to a process of scrutiny and public reasoning. So long as Aristotelian perfectionism is held in check, Aristotle can contribute a great deal to this process. As before, reflective equilibrium is compatible with a limited or weak sort of foundationalism and a fallibilistic quest of objectivity. Nussbaum herself early in her career sounds more Aristotelian in her list of capabilities as biological necessities; later she sounds more procedural and Rawlsian in the attempt to reach reflective equilibrium with other scholars and with people from other cultures regarding those capabilities that are, in various contexts, conducive to long-​term, cross-​ cultural well-​being for individuals and communities (see Nussbaum 1988; 1992; 2006; 2020). It is clear that matters become even more complicated when attention shifts from Rawlsian concern for ideal justice to nonideal conditions. In the intersection between Rawls and Aristotle found in Nussbaum’s philosophy, it can be readily seen what Rawls brings to the table: a theory of justice that enables us to find the appropriate role for several required capabilities and that creates enough elbow-​room for different citizens and associations to accentuate some of these and have them flourish in a multitude of ways that are nonetheless compatible with justice. In this regard, ideal theory should guide our responses to nonideal circumstances such that the distinctness of persons is respected and the priority rules enforced. Disaster is sure to follow if, in nonideal conditions, ideal theory is tossed out the window. Concerning the priority rules, the equality principle or the first principle of justice (i.e., each person has an equal right to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties which is compatible

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with a similar scheme of liberties for all) has priority over the second principle of justice, and within the second principle of justice the opportunity principle (i.e., social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that the positions and offices to which they attach are open to all) has priority over the difference principle (i.e., social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to the benefit of all, especially the least advantaged). These priorities will ensure that an unequal distribution of wealth will not be seen as acceptable if it comes at the price of thwarting basic capabilities—​both material and abstract, as in the capability to eat food and the capability to choose one’s own comprehensive doctrine—​that should be secured for all citizens. It should also be clear what Aristotle brings to the table. He enables us to avoid a problematic interpretation of Rawls that is implicitly dualistic or Kantian in a pejorative sense wherein human dignity is identified exclusively in our capability to be rational and not at all in our embodied existence. The nutritive and sentient capabilities embedded in an Aristotelian view of human beings encourages us to also see human beings as dignified as embodied animals. When disputes arise regarding which capabilities are required or which need to be accentuated for human (or nonhuman animal) well-​being, and which should be promoted for a closer approximation to a just society, Aristotle’s method of reflective equilibrium enables us to avoid both relativistic paralysis and the dogmatic sort of paternalism feared by Sen. 12

Conclusion

There are major differences between Rawls and Aristotle. Most notable among these is Aristotle’s commitment to teleological perfectionism in which there is only one reasonable and rational good. Once again, this commitment is at odds with the pervasive pluralism of comprehensive goods found in modern societies explicitly and in ancient ones implicitly. Further, Aristotle puts more weight on self-​evidence than is compatible with Rawlsian reflective equilibrium. Self-​evidence, if it exists, would be yet another component within the balance of reasons involved in the method of reflective equilibrium. This component would be in competition with other components, including, indeed especially, the reasoning found in the original position. Rawls is also skittish about the essentialism of the political in Aristotle. This tendency in Aristotle is continued in contemporary philosophy by civic humanists who think that it is only by robust participation in public life that one can be truly human. Whatever the merits of this view, its essentializing character makes it one comprehensive doctrine among many in the polyglot world in which we live.

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However, there is much in Rawls that is derived from Aristotle, especially the overall method of reflective equilibrium itself, even if Aristotle and Rawls apply this method in different ways. Rawls also derives his concept of basic goods from Aristotle, those goods that any rational person would want when deliberating behind a veil of ignorance. The natural sense of justice that Aristotle detects in human beings is also suspiciously like Rawls’s natural sense of fairness. Both philosophers see opposition to pleonexia, translated in a loose way as compulsive consumerism, as crucial in the effort to live well together. Further, vices like envy and spite have no place in a just society, although unjust societies may have a tendency to encourage these vices, say due to the unfair distribution of wealth. In a related way, both Aristotle and Rawls find odious the effort to tailor social arrangements so as to benefit one’s own interests; in fact, the original position is precisely a device intended to prevent this from occurring. It should not come as a surprise that Rawls also benefits from Aristotle’s concept of the common good, at least so long as the common good is seen as a political ideal, rather than as the expression of the values found in a particular comprehensive doctrine. Also, happiness as an inclusive (rather than dominant) end is very much in play when Rawls defends what he calls the Aristotelian Principle, which involves a purely formal definition of the good, in partial contrast to Aristotle’s own view that contains more substantive requirements for a good life. In addition to the method of reflective equilibrium, the most important thing that can be learned from a comparison of Aristotle and Rawls concerns the historic battle within the history of liberalism between the ancients and the moderns. The differences between these two systems of liberty are significant, according to Rawls, precisely because of the historical and cultural background in ancient Greece that distinguishes it from any modern state. That is, Rawls is acutely aware of the significance of historical, cultural, religious, and economic background in influencing the political philosophy of a particular society. The allegedly overly abstract apriorism of Rawls’s political philosophy is, quite frankly, a misunderstanding of his view. Finally, the capabilities approach championed by Nussbaum brings together the best in Aristotle and Rawls by emphasizing both those basic goods that are required for nutritive, sentient, and rational functioning of human beings as well as the politically liberal institutions that are needed in a condition of pervasive pluralism to make sure that the concrete functioning of these capabilities is fair to all.

­c hapter 3

Rawls and Augustine: Sin, Pluralism of Comprehensive Doctrines, and Nonideal Theory 1

Introduction

The changes in Rawls’s view of St. Augustine’s thought are more pronounced than any other modifications he may have made in his assessments of other major figures in the history of philosophy. One is struck by the dramatic change from Rawls’s undergraduate thesis, where the Augustinian theme of salvation through grace alone via faith is crucial, to his later belief that Augustine was one of the two darkest minds in the history of Western thought, the other being Dostoyevsky! (sf 229; lpp 302). In the present chapter I would like to examine why Rawls’s view of Augustine went through such an eye-​opening reassessment. I will concentrate on the Augustinian view of sin (including original sin) as well as on Rawls’s criticism of Augustine’s assumption, which was shared by pre-​liberal political philosophers in general, that the goal of political philosophy is to determine the good for human beings and to get those who understood it into power. I will also examine two issues in applied philosophy or in nonideal theory—​just war theory and abortion—​that link together Augustine and Rawls in surprising ways. A further aim of the chapter is to explore Rawls’s criticism of Augustine as it relates to the concept of God, despite the fact that Rawls largely agrees with Augustine in his anti-​Pelagianism. We will see that, although Rawls’s overall assessment of Augustine changed dramatically from the time of his undergraduate thesis to his mature writings, two convictions remained constant, one negative and the other positive. Whatever Rawls’s own religious beliefs may have been, he remained skeptical of Augustine’s concept of God; I will offer an alternative neoclassical or process concept of God that might have appealed to Rawls, were he exposed to it. Nonetheless, until the end Rawls remained Augustinian in his anti-​Pelagianism. 2

Sin

In his very early career Rawls wanted, like Augustine at certain points of his own career, to avoid both a harsh predestinationism as well as the Pelagian view that human merit could be flaunted. The undergraduate Rawls also

© Daniel A. Dombrowski, 2022 | DOI:10.1163/9789004520271_005

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defends the distinction made by Augustine between spirit and flesh. Although it is not clear that Rawls was defending metaphysical dualism, it is clear that he recognized something in human nature that is quite different from “flesh.” But this something called “spirit” stands for nothing other than the capacity of a human being to enter into community and the capacity to respond to love (and the capacity to repudiate love and thereby sin). That is, Rawls was very interested in human society from the very start. He notes that, although Origen viewed the body as punishment for sin, this was not Augustine’s view. Nor was it the view of the very early Rawls (sf 147–​148; also Augustine, City of God 14. 2 and 11. 23 [Rawls used the Healy translation], as well as Nicene and Post-​Nicene Fathers ii. 218). Rawls also follows Augustine in taking a strong (Kant-​anticipating) stand against lying, a view that we saw previously in his condemnation of the “noble lie” in Plato (sf 155; also Augustine, Enchiridion, ch. 22, as well as Nicene and Post-​Nicene Fathers iii. 245). We should also note Augustine’s and the very early Rawls’s opposition to the aforementioned thesis in Plato’s Protagoras that virtue is knowledge. That is, Augustine is to be credited with the discovery of the will that so greatly influences Kant and philosophers (like Rawls himself) in the wake of Kant. Augustine is perhaps different from Plato in this regard only as a matter of degree, not in kind, but it is a difference in degree that is significant. In any event, Rawls notices that Augustine knew more than anyone about how difficult it was to lead a good life. The difficulty was due not to the Manichean belief that it was “the stars” that were controlling us, but rather to our own ability to mess things up. Rawls also opposed the Manichean belief that the material world itself is inherently evil, a deprecation of the world that exonerated us from the evils that we commit (sf 131, 132, 141–​142, 168–​169, 175–​ 177, 190, 192). It seems fair to say that everything Rawls claims about faith and sin in his undergraduate thesis is imbued with Augustine’s thought. Sin was seen as the repudiation and destruction of community, whereas faith was defined as the affirmation and enhancing of community. The sort of relations that were communal were those between persons (including God as personal, as we will see), relations that were natural were those between persons and an object, and relations that were causal were those between objects. Rawls faults Augustine in following the Greeks by shortchanging communal relations and by thereby overemphasizing natural and causal ones, including the effort to depersonalize God and thereby turn God into an object. On Rawls’s account, Augustine’s thought was marred, as was Plato’s and Aristotle’s, by “naturalism,” as he uses the term (sf 8, 10, 42–​46, 107, 113–​114, 122, 189, 193; also see Nygren 1932, vol. 2, part 2).

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Egoism was seen as a type of sin wherein communal relations were turned into natural relations (e.g., when people were treated as objects). Egotism (with a “t”) was a more basic type of sin that consisted in self-​love. In fact, egoism was claimed to be an external manifestation of egotism such that the latter was really the master sin. Whereas egoism fails to embrace personal relations and settles for natural relations, egotism embraces personal relations only to destroy them from within (sf 122–​123, 193, 203, 209, 211). At this early stage in his career, Rawls anticipated a third sort of sin to appear in the future: despair. This was because the prime result of sin was loneliness and absence of community, which was seen as the most terrible condition for a human being. Even Rawls’s early view of sin was primarily social rather than metaphysical. Despair is a type of hopelessness, suggesting that living without hope is a type of sin. One is reminded here of Rawls’s later attempt to sustain reasonable hope for liberal democracies (sf 206, 213). Although the root of sin was passion (specifically, the passionate tendency toward self-​love), and although the ancient Greeks gave a great deal of attention to passion, they did not arrive at an adequate conception of sin. The proximate cause of the very early Rawls’s view of sin was the Augustinianism of neo-​orthodox theologians popular in the mid-​decades of the twentieth century, as in Emil Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Anders Nygren. This included the doctrine of original sin (sf 145, 152, 171–​173). It is ironic, given his later social contract stance, that the very early Rawls saw the view of society as based on mutual advantage as sinful. At this point in his career he also saw both bad institutions and anxiety as signs of sinfulness. That is, he rejected the Manichean view that sin was due to a cause external to us. Rather, we deprave ourselves, which is the heart of the doctrine of original sin when interpreted not literally as the inheritance of Adam’s sin, but as a metaphor for humanity’s tendency to foul its own nest, as it were (sf 189–​192). Later in his career Rawls identified Kant’s moral psychology as Augustinian in that our moral failures were seen by Kant as due to the exercise of our free power of choice. By contrast, Jean-​Jacques Rousseau criticized the Augustinian doctrine of original sin in that he saw our moral failures as due to external causes (lmp 294, 303; lpp 205, 208–​209). In this regard the mature Rawls was much more like Rousseau than Kant, whereas the very early Rawls leans heavily in the direction of Augustine (and, by implication, of Augustine’s influence on Kant). As we have seen, he even came to see Augustine as one of the two darkest minds of Western thought (lpp 302). Indeed, in his very late essay “On My Religion” he came to see the doctrine of original sin as “repugnant” (sf 263). This strong language is surprising given that one of the reasons for

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deliberation in the original position behind a veil of ignorance is the pervasiveness of bias in theorizing about justice, a pervasiveness that makes sense on the Augustinian belief in original sin. Rawls’s repudiation of the doctrine of original sin is required in order to understand his view at the very end of The Law of Peoples to the effect that if a reasonably just society, or a global society of peoples, is not possible, then the explanation would probably be due to the inability of the members to subordinate their power to reasonable aims. If human beings are incurably self-​ centered (which the mature Rawls denies), then Rawls wonders “whether it is worthwhile for human beings to live on the earth” (lp 128). It should be noted that Rawls’s undergraduate thesis grew out of a course he had with Norman Malcolm on the problem of evil, a course in which he read Augustine. The prevalence of moral evil in the world was enough to turn both Augustine and the very early Rawls against Pelagius’ thesis that human beings could save themselves and hence we should either diminish the importance of divine grace or dispense with divine grace altogether. The British monk Pelagius, in effect, had denied human depravity. However, Rawls was also intent on avoiding the predestination defended in the later writings of Augustine, in contrast to Augustine’s earlier work on free will titled De Libero Arbitrio or On the Free Choice of the Will (sf 18, 42–​44, 170–​178, 264). That is, a transition in Augustine’s thought leads to a certain lack of clarity in the very early Rawls’s thought to the extent that he was influenced by Augustine. The early Augustine in De Libero Arbitrio defended free will, but by the time of City of God he was not so sure. The switch to predestination was primarily due, it seems, to a concept of divine omniscience with respect to future “contingencies” that precluded human freedom. It is to this concept of God that I will return momentarily. 3

Infancy and Childhood

There is a stark contrast between Augustine’s view of sinful human nature and that of the mature Rawls, if not of the very early Rawls. This contrast can be highlighted through a careful consideration of Augustine’s view of infancy and childhood in Book 1 of his Confessions and Rawls’s view of childhood development in A Theory of Justice (sec. 70–​72). Colin Starnes has paid needed attention to Augustine’s view wherein the first book of the Confessions is seen to be important not only for the biographical information contained in it, but also for the view of human nature found there that had a positive impact on the very early Rawls and a negative one on the mature Rawls.

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I do not disagree with Starnes’s interpretation of Augustine. But I would like to criticize the very heart of Augustine’s theory of infancy and the continuation of this theory regarding childhood. I criticize Starnes only to the extent that he agrees with Augustine’s theory. In my critique I will rely on the research of the great Swiss psychologist-​philosopher Jean Piaget, a thinker who also had a profound influence on Rawls (tj 460–​461). The main thrust of Starnes’s interpretation of Augustine is that the particulars of Augustine’s theory of infancy are instances of humanity’s universal condition. Specifically, they show that a human being is both a sensitive and rational animal. Seeing the infant as a sensitive animal is to differentiate the infant from an inanimate object or vegetative creature. Proof of this sensitive nature is found in the sucking and crying of an infant, which presuppose sensible perception. These activities are manifestations of the separation between the infant and the object of the infant’s desire. But the infant is also a rational animal in Augustine’s eyes. Crying is a device used by the infant that attempts to overcome the aforementioned separation. A cry is not merely an inarticulate sound, but the expression of a ­rational desire. The infant, on this interpretation, is not only conscious but self-​conscious of being independent of the rest of the universe, indeed of being in a hostile relation to the rest of the universe (Starnes 1975, 23). Although Starnes makes it clear that the infant can never be absolutely severed from the order of the whole, dictated by God, the infant is guilty of causing a harmful relation to the totality of creation, shown by displeasure as evidenced in an aggressive cry. The infant is also, in a way, guilty of death, which is the inevitable consequence of willful separation from the whole (Starnes 1975, 27). That is, because the infant is rational the infant is already somewhat dead. As Augustine himself puts it, the infant’s existence is either a dying life or a living death. By contrast, Piaget’s overall stance is to oppose those who have elaborated theories of knowledge in complete ignorance of the genesis of knowledge in infancy and childhood. Augustine agrees with this stance in part in that he saw no reason why we should denigrate what we first believed as babies, even if such beliefs were palmed off by parents with pious stereotypes. But for the most part Piaget criticizes a theory of infant intelligence very similar to that in Augustine. The theory is given the denigrating label of “intellectualism” by Piaget and stands for the position that explains intelligence by endowing it with an innate ability to know. This position justifies the activity of an intelligent subject by appealing to an Aristotelian hierarchy of souls (transmitted to Augustine by the Stoics): vegetative, sentient, and rational. Or perhaps more precisely, this position affirms the notion of a single principle of life (i.e., the rational soul) that is endowed at the same time with the powers of lower souls.

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Although Piaget identifies this position with Aristotle and Aquinas, he could just as well have put Augustine in this category (Piaget 1965, 369). The major problem with this position, as Piaget sees it, is that it assumes that intelligence is an ability that is essentially complete in its structure and operation at birth, and only needs experience or the ability to speak to make this essential nature explicit. Although Augustine never explicitly says that human intelligence is essentially complete in its structure and operation at birth, only needing experience or the ability to speak to make this essential nature explicit, it is his belief, on Starnes’s interpretation, that there is an intellectual power (animus, mens, ratio) present ab initio, an innate ability to know, whose exercise must await the normal development of the body (Starnes 1975, 21–​22). However, regarding the evolution of human intelligence Piaget argues that it is an open question regarding what is permanent in this evolution. Any talk of intellectual powers present in the infant from the outset runs the risk of begging the question, of presuming precisely what needs to be investigated. Piaget’s own philosophical position, which can be labeled genetic epistemology, is that the structures that are involved in human intelligence (or, in Rawls’s case, in moral development) vary according to the particular stage an organism finds itself in. Only the functional relationships between the organism and environment remain invariant. This theory has negative consequences for Augustine’s treatment of infancy and positive consequences for Rawls’s developmental theory of moral development from the morality of authority to the morality of association to the morality of principles. Piaget traces development of the infant through childhood in terms of six stages, the details of which do not concern us here. Very briefly, initially the infant relies almost entirely on the use of reflexes such that the transition from the instinctual level of animal organisms to a more recognizably human level is a matter of degree. Sucking and crying (noticed and emphasized by Augustine), as well as grasping and movement of arms and head characterize this initial stage. Eventually, however, the child exhibits acquired adaptations or (Aristotelian) habits. But there is no evidence that these adaptations are either self-​conscious or intended, as Augustine assumes. The infant exhibits a certain reflex that is favorably received, causing the infant to repeat the reflex. A typical example would be sucking one’s thumb. Although sucking is instinctual, sucking one’s thumb is not. This action is acquired because of the unintended satisfaction it gives to the infant. It is only eventually that intentional sensorimotor adaptations occur, with “intention” involving some sort of primitive consciousness of desire and of the distinction between means and ends. Actions that are produced by chance produce advantageous results and are then repeated on purpose.

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Eventually children try not only to recover past gratifications, but also try to pursue future-​related goals. Here it makes sense to talk about the rise of intelligence. And it is here that we can speak intelligibly about partial separation from the rest of the universe. This is where we can see the biggest difference between Augustine’s view and the developmentalist approaches of Piaget and Rawls. It is only eventually that active experimentation occurs, when the young organism searches for both future-​oriented ends and new means themselves so as to adapt to truly unfamiliar situations, a grasping of novelties in themselves because they are novelties. At this point we are on the verge of deductive reasoning where the organism no longer has to empirically grope, but can, in a way, generate truth when given certain starting points. Piaget’s theory, congenial to Rawls’s developmental approach to the gradual moral formation of proto-​citizens, sees the sensorimotor operations of infancy sandwiched in between the biological mode of organization and rational intelligence. For Piaget, everything that answers a need (biological or rational) of the organism is material for assimilation; and adaptation consists in accommodating and transforming biological and rational constraints into needs that can be met. Biological assimilation exhibits a “centripetal force” whereby the incorporated elements lose their specific nature and are transformed into substances identical to the body itself (Piaget 1965, 412). It is imperative to note that the infant comes into the world in a state barely removed from this biological mode of assimilation. Gradually, however, the “centrifugal force” of rational assimilation allows the infant to distinguish between subjectivity and the objective world. In the radical interaction between self and world there is initially no awareness of objects or of the activity itself, but an undifferentiated state. From this undifferentiated state emerge two complementary movements, the one of incorporation of things to the subject and the other of accommodation to the things (Piaget 1965, 415). That is, at the beginning of the infant’s life there is no differentiation between the subject and object. This differentiation occurs gradually and is not fully accomplished until around four years of age. Augustine, by contrast, has this whole relationship inside out. He assumes that there is, from the outset, a differentiation between subject and object in the infant, such that the baby, who is rational from birth, can consciously and intentionally cry in order to get what is wanted. It is this assumption that is at the root of his notion of pervasive human sinfulness, which had such a powerful attraction to the very early Rawls, and which turned off so powerfully the mature Rawls. We have seen that, on a Piagetian basis congenial to Rawls’s developmental view, crying and sucking are not conscious and intentional acts in the infant; the infant is not initially aware of the separation of self and the

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object of desire; and the infant is not self-​conscious of being independent of the universe through rationality in that rational intelligence is not obtained until later in childhood. Augustine’s mistake lies in thinking that rationality is preformed in the subject, a mistake that is integrally connected to his fixation on the problem of sin, even in a day-​old infant. It is hard to see how the infant could ever be guilty of any charge whatsoever. A cry is neither a sign of alienation from God nor an indication of displeasure with the cosmic order. Since the infant is not yet rational, the infant cannot be guilty of death as a result of rationality, as seems to be the case in Starnes’s interpretation of Augustine. It is perhaps this sort of negativity that led Rawls to claim that Augustine was one of the most pessimistic and dark thinkers in the entire Western tradition of thought, as was noted earlier (lpp 302). Of course, Augustine is a major figure in this tradition for good reasons, hence we should not be surprised that at one point in the first book of his Confessions he might be seen to grant Piaget’s point when he says that an infant cannot understand reproof. But only partial rapprochement between Augustine and Piaget/​ Rawls is possible when it is realized that Augustine nonetheless thinks that the infant might nonetheless deserve such reproof. It is partly due to custom that the infant is not punished, a custom that does allow punishment for the same behavior in later years. This view is presumably related to the theological view defended by Augustine in opposition to deferred baptism (see Bourke 1945, 3; Brown 1967, 344, 385). The doctrine of original sin seems operative throughout the first book of the Confessions. It seems that the only reason why Augustine would even attempt to attribute sin to the infant is because he anticipated finding it there through the doctrine of inherited culpability. Above I admitted that there might be some legitimacy to the concept of original sin if this concept refers to the fact that human beings are capable of ruining things for themselves and ought not to blame others for their own misused freedom, as both the very early and the mature Rawls might agree. But Augustine seems to have a much more robust concept in mind (also see Enchiridion, ch. 13) wherein original sin is fused with intellectualistic/​moral preformism. Much more plausible is Rawls’s view in A Theory of Justice (once again, sec. 70–​72) that the child only gradually becomes capable of moral sensibility, first heteronomously through a morality of authority where the child learns about morality by imitating/​obeying parental authority; then the child grows into an associational morality by learning how to get along with others in school and on sports teams, etc.; then even later the child, perhaps in late adolescence, becomes capable of autonomous morality based on reasons. In this developmental view, Rawls seems to have been positively influenced not only by Piaget (indeed, it was reading Piaget

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that suggested to Rawls his own theory of moral development from moralities of authority and association to morality of principle), but also by Lawrence Kohlberg, a follower of Piaget. Rawls was also aware at the time of A Theory of Justice of criticisms of Piaget and Kohlberg by Martin Hoffman, if not the famous feminist criticism of Kohlberg by Carol Gilligan. In sum, my hypothesis is that Augustine, by assuming the doctrine of original sin in a robust sense, was therefore forced to assume the sinfulness of the infant; and in order to avoid the injustice of imposing a concupiscence on the infant from without, he was forced to infer a developed personality in the infant from birth, a personality that cried because of self-​determined hubris. Applying the principle of charity to Augustine, we might say that the acts of the infant are reprehensible in the sense that the infant is placed in a world of sin and in which the infant will eventually have an incriminating hand. In our more democratic (Rawlsian) age, however, it would seem more just to assume that the infant is innocent until proven guilty. 4

God as Personal

In the very early Rawls’s view, there is a price to pay for failing to distinguish between communal/​personal and natural relations, as in the cases of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas viewing God as the most desirable object. Human beings are peculiar because they inhabit both the personal and natural worlds. The former opens one up to a realm of spirit and depth. By contrast, “naturalism,” as the very early Rawls uses the term, leaves us in a realm of appetite, including religious appetite. In this regard, the very early Rawls thinks that even Augustine and Aquinas can be seen as “pagan” (i.e., non-​personal) philosophers. Although throughout his life (even as late as “On My Religion” in 1997) Rawls had little confidence in natural theology or the ability of reason to discourse intelligibly regarding the concept of or the existence of God, the very early Rawls did criticize the concept of God found in Augustine and Aquinas. Both thinkers adopted the Greek view of Plato (in some passages, but not others—​ see Dombrowski 2005) and Aristotle that God is a completely static being. This has the effect of objectifying or naturalizing a personal deity. In addition to problems associated with a static deity, Augustine ultimately leaves us with a static, block universe. This is due to Augustine’s beliefs in divine eternity (not in the sense of God existing everlastingly throughout all of time, but in existing eternally outside of time altogether) and divine omniscience (in the sense of God eternally knowing, with absolute assurance and in minute detail,

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the outcome of what are, from a human point of view, future contingencies). Rawls concludes that Augustine’s problems stem from the allegedly Platonic assumption that God must be changeless (sf 246–​247). I would like to make four general comments about Rawls’s surprisingly insightful comments regarding the concept of God in Augustine (surprising because of Rawls’s own distrust of natural theology). First, Rawls is victim to a simplistic, but very common, view of the concept of God in Plato and Aristotle. There are two significant ways in which Plato talks about God (theos). In the first instance he inherited from Parmenides the notion that being is eternal, immutable, and self-​same. This notion was the starting point for the tradition of classical, monopolar theism (to be treated momentarily), a tradition exemplified by Augustine. This tradition denies any shadow of change in divinity in that if God is perfect, there would be no need to change in that any change would be for the worse. This tendency is evidenced in Book 2 and elsewhere in the Republic, in the Phaedo (78–​80), and in the Symposium (202–​203). But there is no textual foundation for the popular identification of Plato’s God with the form of the good, an identification unfortunately exhibited by Rawls (e.g., sf 115). Although it must be admitted that, as the greatest knower, God would understand better than anyone else the form of the good and other forms. Even when talking about divine eternity and immutability, however, the divine locus for divinity is psyche or nous. It comes as a shock to some readers of Plato who have read only the Republic, Phaedo, and Symposium that in the Phaedrus (245, etc.) Eros is claimed to be divine. Here Plato discovers, according to Leonard Eslick, a new, dynamic meaning for perfection, a dynamism that makes possible the view of God as personal that is crucial to the very early Rawls. The perfection that is dynamic is the perfection of life itself, treated not only in the Phaedrus but in Book 10 of the Laws as well. In the Timaeus and Sophist both poles in Plato’s theism are brought together: the perfection of divine immutability and the perfection of divine life. The former is identified in the Timaeus with the Demiurge, who eternally and without change contemplates, but is not identifiable with, the archetypal models, the eternal forms. The latter is identified with the World Soul, whose essence is self-​motion, but whose motions include both actions and passions, as we will see. Unfortunately, Aristotle’s own concept of God as completely unmoved loses the second tendency in Plato’s theism. This loss fueled the mesmerizing influence Aristotle had on the history of theism, including on Augustine (through the neoplatonists) and Aquinas. That is, the very early Rawls is correct to be suspicious of the completely static God found in Augustine and he is also correct to suspect that this version of divine immutability is incompatible

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with belief in God as personal. But because Rawls seems to be unaware of the other, dynamic tendency in Plato’s theism, he mistakenly blames the problems in Augustine and natural theology, in general, on “the Greeks.” Second, the excellent-​inferior contrast is the truly invidious contrast when applied to the concept of God. If to be invidious is to be injurious, then this contrast is the most invidious one of all when both terms are applied to God, because God, by definition, is only excellent. God is inferior in no way. Period. To suggest that God is in some small way inferior to some other being is no longer to speak about God, but about some being that is not supremely excellent, all-​worshipful, or the greatest conceivable. The neoclassical or process theist’s major criticism of classical theism is that it assumes that all contrasts, or most of them, when applied to God are at least somewhat invidious. In this regard it makes sense to see Rawls as a neoclassical or process theist in spite of himself, given his distaste for natural theology. Let us assume for the sake of argument that God exists. What attributes does God possess? Consider the following two columns of attributes in polar contrast to each other: one being activity permanence necessity self-​sufficient actual absolute abstract

many becoming passivity change contingency dependent potential relative concrete

Classical theism tends toward oversimplification. It is comparatively easy to say, “God is strong rather than weak, so in all relations God is active, not passive.” In each case, the classical theist decides which member of the contrasting pair is good (on the left), then attributes it to God, while wholly denying the contrasting term (on the right). Hence, God is one but not many, permanent but not changing, and so on. This leads to what can be called the monopolar prejudice, a prejudice initiated by Aristotle in his truncated version of God and then passed on (ironically via the neoplatonists) to Augustine and other classical theists who are criticized by Rawls.

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The problem here is the assumption that excellence is found by separating and purifying one pole (on the left) and denigrating the other (on the right). That this is not the case can be seen by analyzing some of the attributes in the right-​hand column. Classical theists have been convinced that God’s eternity means not that God endures through all time everlastingly, but that God is outside of time altogether, and is not, cannot be receptive to temporal change and creaturely feelings. Augustine and Aquinas (following Aristotle, who was the greatest predecessor to classical theism) identified God as unmoved. Yet both activity and passivity can be either good or bad. Good passivity is likely to be called sensitivity, responsiveness, adaptability, sympathy, and the like. Insufficiently subtle or defective passivity is called wooden inflexibility, mulish stubbornness, inadaptability, unresponsiveness, and the like. Passivity per se refers to the way in which an individual’s activity takes account of, and renders itself appropriate to, the activities of others. To deny God passivity altogether is to deny God those aspects of passivity that are excellences. Or, put another way, to altogether deny God the ability to change does avoid fickleness, but at the expense of the ability to lovingly react to the sufferings of others, a reaction that is crucial to Rawls’s view of God as personal (see Hartshorne 1953, 1–​25). The terms on the left side also have both good and bad aspects. Oneness can mean wholeness, but it also can mean monotony or triviality. Actuality can mean definiteness, or it can mean nonrelatedness to others. What happens to divine love when God is claimed by Augustine to be pure changelessness? God ends up loving the world, but is not intrinsically related to it, whatever sort of love that may be. Self-​sufficiency can, at times, be selfishness. The task when thinking of the concept of God is to attribute to God all excellences (left and right sides) and not to attribute to God any inferiorities (right and left sides). In short, excellent-​inferior, knowledge-​ignorance, or good-​evil are invidious contrasts, but one-​many, being-​becoming, and the like are noninvidious contrasts. Evil is not a category and hence it cannot be attributed to God. It is not a category because it is not universal, and it is not universal because animals cannot commit it, even if they can be its victims. That is, both animals and God can feel evil, but they cannot commit it, God because of the supreme goodness in the divine nature, animals because of their ignorance of moral principles. Within each pole of a noninvidious contrast (e.g., permanence-​change), there are invidious or injurious elements (inferior permanence or inferior change), but also noninvidious, good elements (excellent permanence or excellent change). The dipolar, process theist does not believe in two gods, one unified and the other plural. Rather, there is a belief that what are often thought to be contradictories or contraries are really mutually interdependent

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correlatives. The good is unity-​in-​variety or variety-​in-​unity. Too much variety leads to chaos or discord; whereas too much unity leads to monotony or triviality. Supreme excellence, to be truly so, must somehow be able to integrate all the complexity there is in the world into itself as one spiritual whole. The word “must” indicates divine necessity, along with God’s essence, which is to necessarily exist. The word “complexity” refers to the diverse influences that affect a personal God through creaturely decisions. In the classical theistic view, however, God is identified solely with the stony immobility of the absolute, implying nonrelatedness to the world, a view rightly criticized by Rawls. God’s abstract nature. God’s being, may in a way escape from the temporal flux, but a living, personal God is related to the world of becoming, which entails a divine becoming as well, if the world in some way is internally related to God. The classical theist’s alternative to this view suggests that all relationships to God are external to divinity, once again threatening not only God’s love, but also God’s nobility. A dog’s being behind a particular rock affects the dog in certain ways, and thus this relation is an internal relation to the dog, but it does not affect the rock, whose relationship with the dog is external to the rock’s nature. Does this not show the superiority of canine consciousness, which is aware of the rock, to rocklike existence, which is unaware of the dog? Is it not therefore peculiar that God has been described by Augustine and Aquinas solely in the rocklike terms that Rawls found unacceptable: pure actuality, permanence, having only external relations, unmoved, being and not becoming? (once again, see sf 246–​247). One may wonder at this point why classical theism has been so popular among theists when it has so many defects. One can imagine at least four reasons, none of which establish the case for classical, monopolar theism: (1) It is easier to accept monopolarity than dipolarity. That is, it is simpler to accept one and reject the other of contrasting (or better, correlative, noninvidious) categories than to show how each, in its own appropriate fashion, applies to an aspect of the divine nature. Yet the simplicity of calling God “the absolute” can come back to haunt the classical theist if absoluteness precludes relativity in the sense of the personal internal relatedness to the world defended by the very early Rawls. (2) If the decision to accept monopolarity has been made, it is simpler to identify God as the absolute than to identify God as the most relative. Yet this does not deny divine relatedness, nor that God, who loves all, would therefore have to be related to all, or to use a roughly synonymous term, be “relative” to all. God may well be the most relative of all as well as the most absolute of all, in the senses that, and to the extent that, both of these are excellences. Of

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course, God is absolute and relative in different aspects of the divine nature. It is unfortunate that Rawls was apparently not aware of the versions of process theism defended by Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, and Charles Hartshorne that were available at the time of his undergraduate thesis. The misfortune lies in the fact that process theists have many of the same criticisms Rawls has of the tradition of a strictly permanent deity devoid of change and hence devoid of personal/​communal relations with creatures. (3) There are emotional considerations favoring divine permanence, as found in the longing to escape the risks and uncertainties of life. Yet even if these considerations obtain, they should not blind us to other emotional considerations, like those that give us the solace that comes from knowing that the outcome of our sufferings and volitions makes a difference in the divine life, which, if it is all-​loving, will certainly not be unmoved by the suffering of creatures. (4) Monopolarity is seen as more easily made compatible with monotheism. Yet the innocent monotheistic contrast between the one and the many deals with God as an individual, not with the dogmatic claim that the divine individual cannot have parts or aspects of relatedness with the world. In short, the divine being becomes or the divine becoming is. God’s being and becoming form a single reality and there is no reason to leave the two poles in a paradoxical state: God always changes and both words are crucial. There is no logical contradiction in attributing contrasting predicates to the same individual provided they apply to different aspects of this individual. Hence, the remedy for “ontolatry,” the classical theistic worship of being that the very early Rawls detested, is not the contrary pole, “gignolatry,” the worship of becoming. God’s existence is everlastingly permanent, but God’s actuality (how God exists concretely from moment to moment) is constantly changing. Third, on the neoclassical, process view that should have been congenial to the very early Rawls, omniscience refers to God’s ability to know everything that is knowable. Past actualities are known as already actualized, present realities are known in the present to the extent that they are knowable, and future possibilities or probabilities are known as possibilities or probabilities. To claim to know a future possibility as already actualized is not supreme knowledge, but nescience regarding the at least partially indeterminate character of the future. According to process thinkers like Whitehead and Hartshorne, time is asymmetrical in that the relationship between the present and the past is quite different from the relationship between the present and the future. This has an effect on process theodicy because a plurality of partially free agents, both human and nonhuman, face a future that is not completely determined

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in advance and that cannot be foreknown in any detail. This makes it possible, even likely, that these agents will get in each other’s way. This revised view of divine omniscience should have been congenial to the very early Rawls in his condemnation of the predestination found in the writings of the late Augustine, a view that was still operative in the neo-​ orthodox theological circles within which the very early Rawls moved. The classical theistic view that God knows with absolute assurance and in minute detail the outcome to future contingencies takes away the very notion of contingency that is required for human freedom to be even possible. Once again, neoclassical or process theists help us to think through more carefully than classical theists the logic of perfection, in this case the concept of a perfect knower. To claim to know the outcome of future contingencies as necessary is not an example of supreme knowledge but of a sort of category mistake. And fourth, there are at least three general reasons to be critical of the classical theistic doctrine of omnipotence. The first is that it creates the nastiest version of the theodicy problem in that every intense pain and moral evil is, on the omnipotence hypothesis, either sent by God or at least permitted by God. For example, the excruciating suffering experienced by a young child with a birth defect could, on the doctrine of omnipotence, be prevented. Religious skeptics are correct to point out that the doctrine of divine omnipotence is at odds with the doctrine of divine omnibenevolence. Given a forced choice between the two, neoclassical or process theists think that omnibenevolence is the easier doctrine to render consistent with the logic of perfection. In short, omnipotence is an impediment to belief in an all-​loving God. This is because so long as the doctrine of omnipotence is in play, there is a tendency for the religious believer not to be drawn positively to omnibenevolent love, but to question why particular sufferings exist. In this regard it is crucial to notice that Rawls struggled with the theodicy problem throughout his life such that certain experiences of evil he had during World War Two, detailed in his 1997 essay “On My Religion,” led him to abandon traditional, classical theology as found in Augustine and the Protestant Reformers. This abandonment led him to a sort of Kantian fideism wherein one could affirm some sort of faith in God without trying to rationally articulate how that faith is compatible with the existence of evil in the world. Once again, neoclassical or process theists have the same problems with classical theism as Rawls had throughout his life. Or again, it is no wonder there are atheists and agnostics in the world given the inadequacies of classical theistic theodicy. Further, omnipotence is at odds with the Platonic metaphysical claim defended by process theists that being is power (dynamis—​see Sophist 247e),

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specifically the dynamic power both to exert influence on others and to receive influence from others, in however slight a way. This is a major theme in process theism. If omnipotence refers not to the quite intelligible abilities to influence all and to be influenced by all, as neoclassical theists believe, but rather to the ultimate possession of all power, then the concept of God becomes unintelligible. That is, if each existent has some dynamic power of its own to influence and to be influenced, in however humble a fashion, then no being, not even a divine being, could have all power because such power would render everything else powerless, i.e., nonexistent. But beings other than God do exist, hence the unintelligibility of omnipotence. Finally, the concept of omnipotence has been closely connected historically to the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. However, this doctrine makes no sense due to the fact that, although relative nonbeing or otherness makes sense (as in the claim that a carrot is nothing like a corkscrew), absolute nonbeing or nothingness is a contradiction. To say that absolute nothingness is is to talk gibberish and to turn absolute nothingness into somethingness, yet the doctrine of creation ex nihilo says precisely this. It comes as a surprise to many classical theists to learn that the biblical account of creation at the beginning of Genesis is not ex nihilo, but rather consists in a shaping or luring of order out of the aqueous, disorderly muck that is there everlastingly on the scene along with the persuasive agency of God (see Levenson 1988; May 1994). This is creation ex hyle (out of matter) rather than creation ex nihilo. This consideration is important when the sort of biblical normativity of the very early Rawls is noticed. In fact, he says that the bible is always the last word in matters of religion (sf 254). It must be admitted that a world without an omnipotent God involves risks in that a world that involves creative agency contains no guarantee that the creative agents will not get in each other’s way. That is, a world without risks is not genuinely conceivable in that a totally risk-​free world would be a dead one without living agents; but there are living agents. On the neoclassical view, by way of partial contrast with the classical theistic view, God’s power consists primarily in divine unsurpassable love. In Whiteheadian terms congenial to the views of the very early Rawls, God’s power consists in the worship and love that divinity inspires. In addition to similarities to process theology, Rawls’s personalism also reminds one of the I-​Thou relationship with deity found in Martin Buber, as noted by Robert Merrihew Adams. Although Rawls probably did not read Buber, he did read neo-​orthodox theologians who were certainly familiar with Buber’s own personalism. Abraham Heschel also has a kindred view in viewing God, in contrast to Aristotle’s or Aquinas’s unmoved mover concept, as the

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most moved mover, in dipolar fashion (see Adams 2009, 97, 99; Buber 1958; Heschel 1962; Berkowitz 2009). In sum, it seems that Rawls’s distaste for natural theology may be due to two factors. The first of these is Kantian fideism wherein Kant’s first critique puts a damper on any hopes for rationally articulating religious belief. But the second of these is Rawls’s apparent lack of familiarity with any version of theism other than the classical theism found in Augustine, Aquinas, and the Protestant Reformers. (Indeed, regarding the concept of God, in contrast to the existence of God, even Kant himself is a monopolar classical theist.) That is, his critique of Augustine’s view of God as strictly static and as pointing toward predestination (and a rejection of human freedom) was motivated by the assumption that these defects were due to the ancient Greeks and not to an insufficient job of thinking through the logic of perfection. If Augustine and Aquinas got half of the concept of God roughly correct (see the divine attributes on the left side of the above diagram), then this should be seen as a very high percentage in that they philosophized in the 5th and 13th centuries, respectively. But much has happened since then such that natural theologians and metaphysicians and philosophers of religion have as an incentive the goal of clarifying the other half. 5

Pluralism of Comprehensive Doctrines

To a large extent, the mature Rawls left behind the issues in theology that interested him in his very early period. But he continued to be concerned about religion as a political problem. It must be admitted that the overlapping consensus that characterizes Rawls’s thought from the time of Political Liberalism on is not utopian. But the principle of toleration that developed with the end of the wars of religion in the early modern period—​first as a modus vivendi or Hobbesian truce and then later as a stronger overlapping consensus—​seems to be the only fair alternative, given the pluralism of comprehensive doctrines that characterizes modern and contemporary societies. Augustine unfortunately fostered the belief that it was the duty of the ruler to uphold the one true religion and to repress the spread of heresy and false doctrine. This over-​ confidence in one comprehensive doctrine also characterizes Aquinas’s view, as well as those of Martin Luther and John Calvin (jf 192, 195). In the prior transition from the ancient world to the medieval one, I have noted that Rawls thinks that the latter period (that stretched into the early modern era via the Protestant reformers) was especially characterized by authoritarianism; by a belief that the Church was the only means to salvation;

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by a confidence in creeds as highlighting what is crucial in religion; by a tendency to think that the clergy has the (sole) authority to dispense the means to salvation; and by an expansionist mentality that was driven to convert the world as a whole. When two different religions started to vie with each other, with each of the contending parties exhibiting the above features, a combustible mixture was created that only needed a spark to set off a conflagration. Augustine is a monumental figure in the history of ideas for several reasons: he wrote the very first full-​length autobiography, thus in effect creating this genre; as we saw earlier, he was the discoverer of the concept of the will; he articulated in canonical fashion two of the major theories of time that have vexed philosophers and theologians until the contemporary era (eternalism and presentism—​see Books 10–​11 of the Confessions); etc. But he was not helpful in guiding us regarding how to live together in a harmonious way given pervasive pluralism in society. In this regard he is like pre-​liberal thinkers, in general, including Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas. Further, today we have to deal in a fair manner with not only religious pluralism, but also with pluralisms created by widespread agnosticism and atheism (pl xxv–​x xvi). From Rawls’s point of view, reasonable pluralism is not unfortunate, given the fact that the human species is populated with members who are highly individuated. It becomes a problem only if we assume that society is a community united in affirming a single comprehensive doctrine, whether religious or non-​religious. The continued shared understanding of this solitary comprehensive doctrine can be maintained over time only by the oppressive use of state power. This was true even in Augustine’s time in the 4th–​5th centuries, given the pluralism of comprehensive doctrines in his day: orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Manicheanism, Gnosticism, vestiges of Greek and Roman religion, Donatism, Arianism, various indigenous religions, etc. (see Brown 1967). That is, pluralism did not appear for the first time in the early modern period, even if the first significant steps in the effort to deal in a fair manner with reasonable pluralism did not occur until this period. The contrary assumption that one must have the truth of a comprehensive doctrine within one’s grasp in order to rule justly makes the rise of the Inquisition several centuries after Augustine quite understandable. But this assumption holds for any comprehensive doctrine that runs roughshod over others in a condition of reasonable pluralism, including utilitarianism, Marxism, Islam, secularism, atheism, even comprehensive Kantianism when defended in a dogmatic way (pl 37; cp 490, 603). One of the deepest distinctions in political philosophy, and one that is at the heart of the present book, is that between political views that allow for a plurality of reasonable, yet opposed, comprehensive doctrines and political views that hold that there is but one such doctrine that must be recognized,

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or at least not contradicted, by all citizens who are rational. Augustine, like Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, falls into the latter camp. Despite their obvious differences, they all hold that institutions are justifiable to the extent that they effectively promote the good and that the purpose of political philosophy is to determine the nature and content of this good, rather than trying to figure out how to treat people fairly in a condition where the nature and content of the good life are contested territory (pl 134–​135). From the time of Constantine in the 4th c., a century in which Augustine himself lived, it was assumed that it was legitimate to punish heresy and to weed out false doctrines in politics. The list of atrocities is well known. As Rawls puts the point, “persecuting zeal has been the great curse of the Christian religion.” John Courtney Murray, a Jesuit Catholic theologian who heavily influenced the Vatican ii endorsement of religious freedom in the 1960s, and who is cited favorably by Rawls, is one example of a Christian thinker who emphasizes that the religious concept of human dignity has implications favorable for political liberalism or at least for some version of democracy, implications that should have been anticipated, it seems, in earlier thinkers (lp 21–​22, 127, 142, 154, 166–​167; also see Wills 1999; Murray 1960). If it is true that A Theory of Justice failed to pay sufficient attention to pervasive and reasonable pluralism in society, this alleged defect is certainly remedied in Political Liberalism and other later writings on the part of Rawls. It is a “grave error” to think that the type of separation of church and state found in several contemporary liberal democracies is primarily for the benefit of secularists or agnostics. Such a separation does, in fact, protect unbelievers, but it also protects religious believers. A just society is one that protects the state from religion as well as religion from the state; further, a just society is one that protects citizens from each other. Contemporary Augustinians might also think that Rawlsian political liberalism fosters individualism, but I think that this is also a misconception in that liberal freedoms, in addition to legitimately applying to individuals, are also associational. That is, we should want a society where present-​day followers of Augustine can flourish together collectively (cp 490, 603, 621; see Elshtain 1995). 6

Just War Theory

Despite Rawls’s criticisms of Augustine and other pre-​liberal political thinkers regarding their insistence on one comprehensive doctrine dominating the political realm, there are at least two topics in applied ethics (or, in Rawlsian terms, in nonideal theory) where Rawls is very much indebted, whether

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explicitly or implicitly, to Augustine. The first of these is just war theory. In broad outline, Rawls follows Augustine, one of the founders of just war theory, in thinking that a just war involves two main sets of criteria: jus ad bellum (or a just cause to fight for) and jus in bello (or just means used in the conduct of the war). It will be seen, however, that although Augustine and Rawls are just war theorists, they are also alike in ironically making important contributions to the two main alternatives to just war theory: pacifism and realpolitik theory (see Dombrowski 2001, ch. 10; 2011, ch. 2). It is well known that the early Christians were universally pacifists, and not merely because the Romans would probably not have wanted them in the military. Their pacifism was a matter of principle in light of Jesus’s pacifism, as they interpreted the life of Jesus. But pacifism eventually came to be seen as “otherworldly,” especially due to the fact that, as the Roman empire started to crumble, there was a need for Christians to concern themselves with governance of “this” world. Augustine himself lived during the very period in which Rome fell and was largely responsible for developing the theoretical justification for the use of violence in the defense of rights. Augustine realized, however, that his defense of just war theory was open to certain objections, as in the claim that a Christian could not be a warrior due to Jesus’s admonitions that “All who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26: 52) and “I say to you, offer the wicked man no resistance” (Matthew 5: 39). Augustine’s response to these admonitions (a response that favorably influenced Aquinas—​see Summa Theologiae 2a2ae, 40, 1) is that if Christian teaching forbade war altogether, those who looked to the salutary advice of the gospel would have been told to get rid of their weapons and to quit soldiering. Instead, they were told to be content with their pay. If they were told to be content with their pay, it is alleged, they were not forbidden a military career (Epistle 138 to Marcellinus—​see Augustine’s letters in The Works of Saint Augustine; also see Luke 3: 14). These soldiers were, in fact, told this in the gospels, but Augustine notes that Jesus did not speak these words; they were spoken by John the Baptist. Jus ad bellum or a just cause is one that is fought by legitimate authority and both avenges wrongs and does so with proper intention. In this context proper intention involves ultimately promoting goodness, even if killing is used as a means in such promotion. That is, if one fights for reasons of aggrandizement, or out of cruelty, etc., one is fighting unjustly. Augustine thinks that the aforementioned biblical passage regarding all of those who draw the sword will also die by it (Matthew 26: 52) is meant to apply specifically to those who draw the sword and spill blood without command or lawful authority. Therefore, according to Augustine, Jesus was prohibiting private persons from using the

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sword when he chastised Peter in the Garden of Gesthemene. The biblical text itself, however, quite simply says that all (pantes) who draw the sword will die by it, not all who draw the sword without legitimate authority (see Contra Faustum xii, 70 and 74). On Augustine’s view (which would seem to be acceptable to Rawls in The Law of Peoples) sometimes states must go to war either for the common good or for the good of their opponents with a type of oxymoronic “benign severity” (Epistle 138 to Marcellinus). The benign character of the severity of a just war refers to the fact that a just warrior must ultimately intend peace: war is for the sake of peace and not vice versa (Epistle 189 to Boniface). In a peculiar way, one must remain internally peaceful even in the midst of war. As before, the early Christians were universally pacifists such that the first Christians who were known to be soldiers are not found until 177 C.E. It seems that Jesus, in disarming Peter, had unbelted every soldier (see Ramsey 1968). But by 403 C.E. only Christians could be soldiers in the Roman Empire. The very early Rawls seems to agree with Augustine that this switch signals the social triumph of Christianity rather than its fall. One of the little noticed, yet fascinating, features of Augustine’s and Rawls’s thought is that, despite the fact that they were just war theorists, they also contribute insightfully to the two most important positions that are opposed to just war theory: pacifism and realpolitik. Douglas Lackey is one scholar who notices that Augustine’s version of just war theory is quite different from Aquinas’s in that the former, as we have seen, thought that war could be justified, but not an individual right of self-​defense. Hence, Lackey refers to Augustine’s view as a type of private or limited pacifism. When the concerns of others are threatened, on Lackey’s view of Augustine, one’s right to be a pacifist looks more like a privilege (Lackey 1989, 16–​17; also see Brock 1976). But when the rights and concerns of others are not threatened, Augustine seems to have more in common with the pacifist tradition than might have been expected. Rawls, like Augustine, is not a pacifist. But it is an open question as to whether Rawls should be a pacifist on the basis of his own politically liberal principles. Rawls, like Antoine Lavoisier, makes a great discovery, even if he is mistaken about its precise character. (Lavoisier is given credit for discovering oxygen in the eighteenth century, although he mistakenly thought that he had discovered “dephlogisticated air.”) Rawls thinks he has discovered why politically liberal, democratic states must uneasily move beyond just war theory to realism (and then slip back again to just war theory when a supreme emergency is over), as we will see, whereas the logic of his most lasting contributions to political philosophy should lead him away from just war theory and toward pacifism. In this regard I will try to separate Rawls’s theory from

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the details of his own life, which was intimately connected to just war theory, both in support of the Allied cause in World War Two (as a philosopher and as a member of the military) and in opposition to the United States’ participation in the Vietnam War (see Pogge 1999, 1–​15). These details are extremely interesting, however: his head was grazed with a bullet in the war, leaving a scar for the rest of his life; he actually saw the remains of Hiroshima after it was struck with an atomic bomb, etc. (see Freeman 2007b, 3). The whole point of political liberalism is to find a political conception with which all reasonable parties can agree, which is quite different from finding a common comprehensive doctrine. People once killed each other over religion, but they need do so no longer in politically liberal, democratic states. Indeed, political liberalism arose in response to the wars of religion in order to find a way for reasonable people, who nonetheless differ uncompromisingly in the comprehensive doctrines that they affirm, to live together in peace. Granted, the domain of the political always involves at least the threat of coercive power, as Augustine also well realized. But this does not mean that a just state would be characterized by Hobbesian stability, which is a nonliberal sort of realism based primarily on the fear of brute force. Rather, a just state is stable for the right reasons, which are themselves entirely pacific (see Freeman 2007b, 246–​ 247, 468). The politically liberal view that Rawls defends sees the cause of war as rooted in the internal nature of states and not primarily in the anarchic character of their mutual relations (although international anarchy is, no doubt, part of the story). Politically liberal, democratic states are peaceful among themselves because they have no reason to attack each other: they insist on freedom of religion and liberty of conscience, their industry and commerce meet their social and economic needs, and so on. The familiar historical (and mostly unjust) reasons to go to war, as in the imposition of a comprehensive doctrine on unwilling subjects, do not apply among these states (lmp 361–​363; also see Doyle 1983). The intoxicating pride of ruling, noticed by Augustine and Rawls alike, is quite simply at odds with Rawlsian justice as fairness, as is the very notion of a confessional state where everyone is forced to adhere to one comprehensive doctrine or philosophical doctrine, whether religious or nonreligious. Rawls laments the fact that politically liberal, democratic states are still marked by considerable injustice, oligarchic tendencies, and monopolistic interests, factors that in large measure account for the fact that the separate peace among politically liberal, democratic states themselves often does not extend to relations between such states and nondemocratic states (lp 19, 29, 44–​54).

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I am claiming that there is a tight connection between Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness and pacifism, a connection that Rawls himself severs when he defends just war theory and especially when he drifts toward realism. Rawls’s better angels hover above him, I think, when he says that pacifism accords well with the principles of justice. These principles have a certain affinity with pacifist doctrine. There is a common abhorrence of war and the use of coercion and a belief in the equal moral/​political status of all citizens. Given the tendency of nations to engage in war unjustifiably, a tendency noticed by Augustine as well, the respect accorded to pacifist ideas serves the purpose of alerting citizens to the moral wrongs that governments are prone to commit (tj 370–​371). By taking detours through both just war theory and realism, Rawls, like Augustine, might detract from the best insights of their respective positions. A conceptual reversal can be detected here. In effect, the goals of Christian and other religious pacifists are supported by political liberalism itself. Although the reasons for these various positions obviously differ, the fact that they converge in their conclusion is worthy of notice in that it might otherwise be erroneously assumed that pacifism is necessarily a sectarian view that relies exclusively, say, on imitation of the life of Jesus when he is interpreted as a pacifist. The reversal consists in the realization that, whereas I think it is generally true that since the end of the wars of religion in the early modern period liberalism has civilized religious believers, it is also true that contemporary, countercultural, pacifist religious believers have the very real potential to make political liberals more acutely aware of one of their own core values. The core value I have in mind is that differences among reasonable parties need not end in violence. Martin Luther King (who read and appreciated Augustine as well as process liberals like Alfred North Whitehead—​see Henning 2022) and other contemporary pacifists are important figures to consider precisely because of the light they shed on political liberalism. The complexity of Augustine’s and Rawls’s views is also apparent in the way that they shed light on, and make partial concessions to, the realist view of politics and war. There is no shortage of realpolitik theorists who have acknowledged an intellectual debt to Augustine. One convenient example is George Weigel, whose book Tranquillitas Ordinis is explicitly named after the idea from Augustine which suggests that peace is achieved only through rationally ordered political community, which includes the threat of both violent punishment if heinous crimes are committed domestically and just war if one state tries to illegitimately dominate another through aggressive means. Human sinfulness of an Augustinian sort is a standard item in the realpolitik theorist’s view of the world. This view acts as a counterweight, Weigel thinks,

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to the contemporary tendency toward Pelagianism, which I will examine again momentarily. Rawls, like Augustine, is generally opposed to the realist view of war. In fact, he is generally consistent with the traditional Christian doctrine of just war theory formulated by Augustine. But this is not the whole story, however. In fact, under the influence of Michael Walzer’s now classic study Just and Unjust Wars, Rawls concedes part of the realist’s case (lp 95, 98; cp 566–​571; also see Walzer 2006, ch. 14 and 16). The scope of realist opposition to just war theory covers both the jus ad bellum and jus in bello dimensions of just war theory. That is, the thoroughgoing realist thinks that war and morality are mutually exclusive with respect to both the start of war and the conduct of the war itself. Although Rawls often gives the impression that he is a just war theorist through and through, he is actually a just war theorist only with respect to jus ad bellum issues. He thinks that if one is fighting for a just cause, then one can, albeit in rare cases, suspend or override justice in the conduct of the war. In this respect he is very much like Walzer (lp 103; cp 572; Walzer 2006, 32–​33). To be fair to Rawls, it should be emphasized that under most circumstances in war he also defends jus in bello constraints. For example, he thinks that the bombing of cities late in World War Two was a very grave wrong (lp 95, 102–​103; cp 568). However, his opposition to these civilian deaths is not part of a consistent, deontological condemnation of the killing of civilians in war. There are two sorts of exception to jus in bello constraints that Rawls would permit; these exceptions remind one of the (at least partial) realism of some thinkers under the influence of Augustine. First, in several places Rawls indicates that enemy soldiers, but not civilians, may be killed directly in war (lp 96; cp 566–​567), leaving open the possibility that civilians may be killed indirectly. Although some scholars will find surprising Rawls’s implicit use of the (Thomistic) principle of double effect in these texts, it is very much consistent with Walzer’s use of it (Walzer 2006, 151–​159; also lpp 442). It should be remembered that Rawls himself says that his view of war does not differ in any significant respect from Walzer’s, an admission that leads one to conclude that he is open to Walzer’s use of the principle of double effect and the concept of utilitarianism of extremity (lp 95). The sort of example that Walzer, at least, has in mind is found in the Allied raid on Vermork, Norway, in World War Two, where civilians were knowingly killed in the effort to take out a heavy water plant that the Nazis were constructing (Walzer 2006, 157–​159). At times Rawls suggests (mistakenly, I think) that attention should be paid to jus in bello constraints not because of the very nature of just war theory, dating back to the time of Augustine (although the principle of double effect is due to Aquinas), wherein knowingly killing civilians is seen as inherently

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unjust. Rather, he thinks that attention should be paid to jus in bello constraints because of the devastation brought about by World War Two, in particular (cp 554; lp 26–​27, 79, 102). By apparently permitting the indirect killing of civilians in war, Rawls has left himself vulnerable to all of the traditional objections to the principle of double effect as it was used historically in theological casuistry. To ask just one question about this principle, what is the moral significance of saying that the killing of civilians in the Vermork raid was “indirect” when the bombers knew before the attack that these civilians would be killed if the plant were bombed? It is one thing to say that no moral wrong is done when civilians are killed in war as part of a genuine accident, and quite another to say that no moral wrong is done when civilians are knowingly killed. In the latter case it seems that the nonaccidental killing of the civilians is either morally permissible or not, such that the distinction between direct and indirect killing seems to have little or nothing to do with the key moral question. And the key moral question is whether one can ever knowingly kill civilians. Second, and even more troubling, is that, assuming for the moment the relevance of the Rawlsian distinction between direct and indirect killing of civilians, Rawls even permits the direct killing of civilians in war in conditions of what he calls extreme crisis (what Walzer calls supreme emergency). In these conditions civilians are killed not as an indirect byproduct of what might be a legitimate target in war (e.g., a heavy water plant that was designed for the purpose of constructing atomic weapons) but are killed directly. Rawls condemns the bombing of German and Japanese cities late in the war in part because there were alternative methods of bringing the war to a successful conclusion. At this late period in the war, it was clear that the Allies were winning and that victory was only a matter of time. But Rawls thinks that before the tide turned in favor of the Allies, say before the battle of Stalingrad, bombing of German cities may have been justified. The crucial point for Rawls is that Germany under the Nazis could not be allowed to win the war (cp 568–​ 569; lp 98–​99). The degree of evil must be quite high in order to bring about a supreme emergency or an extreme crisis, in partial contrast to the normal emergencies and crises faced by politically liberal, democratic states in war. That is, the pull toward realpolitik provided by an Augustinian view of human sinfulness is somewhat resisted by both Augustine himself and Rawls, but the sort of threat posed by the Nazis encouraged Rawls to temporarily leave behind just war theory for the sake of realism. When the supreme emergency is over, the Augustinian/​Rawlsian task is to return to just war theory. The labels used by Walzer seem to apply to Rawls as well when the two of them operate as realpolitik theorists: moral realism or utilitarianism of extremity (Walzer

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2006, 231, 326). Despite Rawls’s aforementioned remark about the darkness of Augustine’s mind, Rawls’s own partial capitulation to realism during the time of supreme emergencies in war indicates that he never completely left behind his very early attachment to Augustine’s thought. 7

Abortion

Another conceptually interesting and surprising link between Augustine and Rawls can be found surrounding the issue of abortion. Perhaps the best kept secret in the Catholic intellectual tradition is that the dominant view until the 17th c. in Western Christianity regarding the moral status of the fetus was delayed hominization. John Noonan hyperbolizes when he says that condemnation of abortion has been an almost absolute value in history, since, at the very least the ancient Greeks tolerated abortion, as Paul Carrick details (see Noonan 1970; Carrick 1985). When, in the Hippocratic Oath, the physician is prohibited from performing abortions, it seems that this prohibition has more to do with defining a physician’s area of specialization than it does with moral respect for the fetus in the early stages of pregnancy; other specialists were to do the abortions. Noonan is on safer ground when he suggests that condemnation of abortion is the prevalent view in the history of Catholicism. The question, however, is whether the change from ancient permissiveness regarding abortion to early Christian condemnation of abortion had more to do with a change in attitude toward sex or to a change in attitude regarding the moral status of the fetus in the early stages of pregnancy. I will claim that it is the former. It is important to ask why abortion was condemned in Augustine (and Aquinas). Many or most people believe that Christian opposition to abortion stems from the conviction that a new human person exists from the moment of conception and this person has as much right to exist as any other person. But this immediate hominization stance was not Augustine’s view of the matter. Rather, he saw a tight link between moral sexual activity and procreation such that, even if the fetus were not a human person, abortion would be viewed as evil (see McCartney 1983). This may be called perversity opposition to abortion in contrast to ontological opposition. Whereas Augustine condemned abortion in the later stages of pregnancy on ontological grounds, his condemnation of abortion in the early stages of pregnancy rests simpliciter on the view that abortion is a perversion of the true function of sex and marriage. It seems to me that Ockham’s razor can be used fruitfully on the beard of the ontological position when dealing with the fetus in the early stages of pregnancy, a view

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that will be seen to be compatible with Rawls’s view of abortion. In this regard I would like to look at five texts from Augustine: 1. Augustine’s position on sex is quite forcefully put in his work On Marriage and Concupiscence (in Nicene and Post-​Nicene Fathers, i, 17). Married persons who have intercourse only (sola) for the wish to beget children do not sin, whereas those who mix pleasure with sex, even if sex with one’s spouse, commit sin. A remarkable view! It must be granted that this sin is venial (i.e., venia or pardonable), but the mere fact that it is a sin at all should alert us to how negative Augustine’s view of sex is. Even worse than intending pleasure in sex is to try to prevent pregnancy, say through an evil appliance (opere malo). For Augustine those who use such contraceptive devices retain no vestige of true matrimony, which is synonymous with, and not accidentally connected to, propagation. These people sometimes (aliquando) go so far as to have abortions in their lustful cruelty (libidinosa crudelitas). Since Augustine also accuses those who have merely used contraceptive devices of being cruel, we can be sure that it is not cruelty to a human person inside the womb that he is worried about. It is Augustine’s own clever pen that makes this clear when he rephrases his accusation as cruel lust (libido crudelis). Lust itself (or even the desire for sexual pleasure) is cruel, whether or not a fetus is aborted. If an abortion takes place, however, Augustine is careful to distinguish between a conceived seed (conceptos fetus) that has not yet received vitality (prius interire quam vivere) and that which has, and to distinguish between that which was advancing toward (human) life in the womb (aut si in utero jam vivebat) and the newborn infant. The point to Augustine’s use of these distinctions is not to claim that all or even some abortions are examples of murder, but rather that all abortions and all attempts at contraception are examples of cruel lust or harlotry or adultery. Augustine indicates that sex is a necessary evil; it is necessary, that is, for having children. 2. Reading present ideas into the thought of past thinkers is perhaps the greatest danger faced by any historian of ideas. For defenders of current opposition to abortion, this danger often surfaces in the attempt to take the relatively recent abolition of the distinction between (to use Augustine’s terms) the inanimate and animate fetus as normative for the whole history of Catholic thought. In Against Julian (in Opera Omnia vi, 14, 43) Augustine indicates that if an infant (infans) in the womb is baptized, there is no need to baptize it again after birth, but this presupposes that the fetus in question is an animate fetus rather than an early, inanimate one.

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In City of God (xxii, 13) Augustine asks whether aborted fetuses will have part in the resurrection. He does not deny that they will be resurrected, but he does not make any positive claims on the topic even if the fetus in question is developed to the point where Augustine compares it to an infant (infantibus). Because Augustine is tentative even with respect to the developed fetus, it is understandable why he does not even consider the possibility of the resurrection of the undeveloped fetus. 4. In the Enchiridion (85–​86) Augustine makes an attempt to consider the possibility that aborted fetuses (abortivus fetibus) that were not fully formed (de iis qui jam formati sunt) might be born again. But if there will be a resurrection for these fetuses, it could occur only if the defect in form were remedied in such a way that the fetuses’ incomplete states were completed. None of this is to be taken to mean that present unformed, incomplete fetuses are human persons. He rhetorically asks, “Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed abortions (informes vero abortus) perish like seeds that have never been fructified (sicut semina quae concepta non fuerint)?” 5. Finally, consider Augustine’s Commentary on the Septuagint (in Quaestionum S. Augustini in Heptateuchum ii, 80). It must be admitted that there is no fixed set of terms that Augustine uses to make the distinctions he wants to make regarding the fetus. Sometimes he talks in terms of the difference between the unliving and living (vivere and its cognates) fetus (i.e., living as a human being—​homo, etc.), sometimes in terms of the unformed and formed (forma, etc.) fetus, and at other times in terms of the inanimate and animate fetus (i.e., animated by a soul—​anima, etc.). But some such distinction is found in all of the texts I have mentioned. Here Augustine considers the possibility that the unformed fetus could nonetheless be animated. Characteristically, however, Augustine says that this is too large a question to answer. Augustine is abundantly clear, and repeats the point several times, that the pregnant woman who has an abortion is not to be accused of murder (ne praegnans mulier percussa in abortum compelleretur) because the question of homicide is not even pertinent with respect to the unformed fetus (Quod vero non formatum puerperium noluit ad homicidium pertinere …. et ideo no sit homicidium … .ideo Lex noluit ad homicidium pertinere). My conclusion is that Augustine’s opposition to abortion of an unformed fetus is based on the perversity view, not on the ontological one. We have seen previously that Augustine refers to the unformed fetus as a seed (semina), and here in the Commentary on the Septuagint vegetative metaphors abound, as, for example, when he claims that a human person is not destroyed

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when a cutting is clipped from a sprout in utero (also see his use of tale—​a cutting, deputo—​to prune, and germen—​a sprout). Indeed, the word fetus itself has vegetative connotations, as does abortion, which comes from abortus, the suppression of the fruit of the body. These vegetative metaphors refer to a fetal stage preliminary to the existence of sentiency or of human personhood. Augustine also indicates that sentiency is a necessary condition for a human person to be present in the womb, hence only eventually, in later stages of pregnancy, is abortion homicide. It is difficult for Augustine to imagine how there could possibly be animation without the fetus at least having sensation (quia nondum dici potest anima viva in eo corpore quod sensu caret, si talis est in carne nondum formata, et ideo nondum sensibus praedita). Augustine’s stance is not unrelated to Rawls’s view of abortion. This is because it is hard to consistently imagine a pre-​sentient being as either a moral agent or a moral patient (see Dombrowski 1997a). Thus, there is a certain degree of wisdom in the well-​known Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in the United States, a decision supported by Rawls that legalized abortion early in pregnancy and allowed the individual states to legislate regarding late-​term abortions. When there seems to be a standoff, as there is regarding abortion, citizens ought not to resolve the case merely by appealing to their own comprehensive doctrines. Rather, they should speak in terms of public reason, as Rawls sees things. Let us consider the case of a woman who wants an abortion early in pregnancy. Rawls thinks that there are at least three important political values involved that concern public reason, in possible contrast to the reasons found in a particular comprehensive doctrine: respect due to human persons, the ordered reproduction of society (including the family) over time, and the equality of women. Rawls gives evidence in Political Liberalism (243–​244) that the political value of the equality of women overrides whatever value the fetus may have relatively early in pregnancy and that it would be unreasonable to deny the pregnant woman a right to an early abortion. In fact, in some cases it would be “cruel and oppressive” to deny the woman a right to an early abortion, say in the cases of rape or incest. In a piece written after Political Liberalism (“The Idea of Public Reason Revisited”—​see cp 604–​607) Rawls refines his view. Although his view remains that a woman has a right to an abortion in the first trimester, he clarifies that he did not intend his comments in Political Liberalism to constitute an argument to that effect. His goal, he says, was a more modest one: to show that the only comprehensive doctrines that run afoul of public reason are those that cannot strike a reasonable balance of political values. It would not be reasonable to deny women a right to an early abortion because such a denial would not show

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a commitment to the rights of women. And it is reasonable to grant women a right to an early abortion, presumably because (although Rawls himself does not explicitly state why) it is not obvious or even clear that an early fetus has a necessary condition of humanity in the morally relevant sense: sentiency. (Obviously the fetus is human in a different sense of the term: it has human parents.) There may be other reasonable positions regarding the political morality of abortion, according to Rawls. It is noteworthy in this regard that he cites Judith Jarvis Thomson’s view, which permits abortion long after the first trimester (Thomson 1995). This view makes some sense when it is considered that the central nervous system (in partial contrast to individual nerve cells) does not begin to function until the end of the second trimester or the beginning of the third trimester (see, e.g., Morowitz and Trefil 1992). It is clear that Rawls does not want to settle the matter on the basis of metaphysical claims concerning the status of the early fetus, but rather in political terms. If one could prohibit abortion without violating the rights of the pregnant woman who wants an abortion, then Rawls would see the “pro-​life” position as politically reasonable. But this seems unlikely. By way of contrast, it is at least possible, and it is perhaps likely, that permitting first-​trimester abortions does not violate the rights of any person. Even Augustine (and Aquinas), I have argued, opted for delayed, rather than immediate, hominization, making an appeal to a Christian comprehensive doctrine to “solve” the problem of abortion quite problematic on religious grounds, quite apart from political ones. Although Rawls has a much stronger position on the moral status of women than Augustine, who was very much a creature of his time in his complicated treatment of this issue (see Stark 2007), and although Augustine was not a political liberal, as we have seen, and although he had a view of sexual ethics that would today violate the rights of citizens (cf., Rawls’s view at tj 450), the fact that Augustine explicitly and Rawls implicitly adopt a delayed hominization view of the moral status of the fetus should not escape our notice. Immediate hominization became the dominant view in Western Christianity in general only after the 17th c., when scientists, using primitive microscopes and magnifying glasses, thought that they saw fully formed fetuses (homunculi) just after fertilization. Unfortunately, when this biological error was noticed, churches did not return to Augustine’s delayed hominization stance. The point here is to show how murky this whole matter is, a murkiness that has political ramifications (see Dombrowski 2001, ch. 9; also 2000). We now know that women are persons worthy of political respect. If we knew the same about early fetuses then they would deserve political respect as well. But we do not have such knowledge. This is not to rule out immediate hominization altogether, nor is it to presuppose that Augustinian delayed hominization is

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obviously true. The fact that immediate hominization is a debated matter both within and outside of the bounds of comprehensive religious doctrine in Christianity should make us, from a strictly political point of view, suspicious of efforts to show disrespect to women who choose to have abortions early in pregnancy. The situation need not be seen as hopeless, however, given Rawls’s praise of thinkers like Joseph Bernardin, a Catholic cardinal who argued against abortion, but in terms of public reason rather than in terms of a particular comprehensive doctrine (see lp 169–​170; Bernardin 1986). That is, Rawls and Bernardin are both conducive to the development of political capital in the sense that political virtues like civility can accrue over time, even when dealing with complicated matters like abortion (see jf 117–​118). 8

Nelson on Pelagianism

It will be helpful to consider the scholarship of Eric Nelson, who has called attention to the intersection of ideas involving Pelagius, Augustine, and Rawls. This intersection will help to bring together the above treatments of several themes in Augustine and Rawls dealing with both theoretical and practical concerns. Indeed, Nelson is fond of calling Rawls’s political theory a secularized Augustinianism. Although we know very little about Pelagius himself, we do know that he was excoriated in the writings of the later Augustine. The anti-​Pelagian tendencies in both the late Augustine and Rawls throughout his career surface in their skepticism regarding the concepts of merit and desert. Specifically, the way in which we play the cards we are dealt is itself alleged to be simply a function of these cards, as Nelson insightfully emphasizes in his interpretation of Rawls. These “cards” include our character and motivation level. In opposing merit Rawls is self-​consciously repudiating the Pelagian theological tradition. By contrast, early liberal thinkers offered favorable versions of Pelagianism (see Pelagius 1993; Brown 2012; and Augustine 1992 for Augustine’s anti-​Pelagian writings; also see Nelson 2019, x–​x i, 63, 205). In short, a Pelagian is a rationalist who insists on the metaphysical freedom of human beings in order to address the theodicy problem. The Pelagians attempted to get the classical theistic omnipotent God off the hook, as it were, for the evil in the world. The tension between the Pelagians and Augustine is due to the fact that this robust version of free will (which is actually close to Augustine’s early view in De Libero Arbitrio) is at odds with the classical theistic view of divine omnipotence and omniscience, in contrast to the ­aforementioned neoclassical or process revisions of these concepts. That is, vindicating divine justice can be seen as compromising divine omnipotence

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and omniscience, as classically conceived. Further, the Pelagians denied original sin in that human evil was not due to our depraved human nature so much as it was due to misused human freedom, both individual and at a social level. As before, the early liberals (e.g., Milton—​see Achinstein and Sauer 2007; also Locke and in certain ways Kant) tended to be Pelagians. A corollary of the Pelagian view itself in the pre-​modern period is a confidence in natural theology in that an optimistic view of humanity’s ability to choose freely is related to confidence in the human use of reason in religion. In both areas Rawls is decidedly anti-​Pelagian. Rawls nonetheless has an affinity toward the Pelagian tendency to be tolerant in that a commitment to rational religion, in partial contrast to a particular revealed faith, makes it more difficult to justify religious coercion (see Nelson 2019, 3–​4, 15, 19; cf., Rengger 2017). Although Rawls is like the Pelagians in denying human fallenness and original sin, hence there is something somewhat hyperbolic in Nelson referring to Rawls as “stridently anti-​Pelagian” (emphasis added), Rawls is nonetheless very much like the later Augustine in remaining throughout his career skeptical of the concept of merit or desert. In Augustine’s case, this involved the belief that human beings are in bondage to sin, a view that heavily influenced the Protestant reformers and the neo-​orthodox thinkers who helped to shape the very early Rawls’s thought (see Nelson 2019, 21–​22, 25; also see Niebuhr 1948; Griffin 2021). From the above it should be clear that there has been a significant shift from early liberalism’s Pelagius-​friendly embrace of metaphysical freedom to contemporary liberalism’s (including Rawls’s) generally anti-​Pelagian stance. Nelson’s own view leans in a Pelagian direction. He is worried that contemporary Rawlsian liberalism’s basic commitment to the dignity of human beings as choosers may be undermined by the belief that a vast number of our “choices” cannot be attributed to human agents. On this view, Rawls’s emphasis on morally arbitrary winnings (and losings) in the natural and social lotteries in effect amounts to what Nelson calls a “fierce attack” on the Pelagian heresy. Whereas Augustine responded to the Pelagian challenge through the concept of original sin, Rawls largely does so through his famous principles of justice that are meant to counteract morally arbitrary inheritance in terms of both natural and social inequality. Or more precisely, although natural distribution of talents, etc., is neither just nor unjust, but is rather simply a fact, the way institutions deal with such distribution can be either just or unjust (tj 102). The transition in Rawls himself was from a very early opposition to the idea that human beings can “merit” election by God to the mature Rawls opposing the idea that citizens can “merit” a larger slice of the pie than others. Although Rawls abandoned Augustinian, orthodox Christianity, he did not abandon his qualified

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anti-​Pelagianism. The very early Rawls even suggests that the very idea of merit is rooted in sin (see Nelson 2019, 49–​52; sf 229–​230; also see Reidy 2010). Not even the very early Rawls defended an extreme Calvinist sort of anti-​Pelagianism wherein human beings had nothing to do with their fate, but throughout his life he remained decidedly anti-​Pelagian, although the mature Rawls defends a secularized version of this position. At times Nelson refers to the view of the mature Rawls as incompletely secularized so as to insightfully emphasize the formative role of Augustine in his intellectual makeup. The attack on desert in Rawls’s mature philosophy is fundamentally a legacy of his earlier apologetics, specifically an Augustinian desire to neutralize the Pelagian heresy. Nelson is like Robert Nozick in wondering whether the unexalted picture of human nature in the mature Rawls is compatible with the assumption of human dignity it is designed to embody. While the mature Rawls was not a practicing Christian, he was nonetheless anti-​Pelagian (Nelson 2019, 63, 66–​72; Nozick 1974; also see Galisanka 2019; Forrester 2019). As is well-​known, in A Theory of Justice Rawls permits an unequal distribution of wealth not so much because those who are talented and hard-​working deserve the larger share, but rather because the well-​being of the least well-​off can be maximized only under an unequal distribution. The debate between a contemporary Rawlsian and Nelson is analogous to the debate several decades ago between Rawls himself and Nozick: if our actions are as determined as some Rawlsian anti-​Pelagians think they are—​not merely influenced by natural advantages/​disadvantages and social forces—​then there is difficulty in explaining why human autonomy and choices matter in the way Rawlsians assume they do. Rawls himself seems to have seen the problem here in that he takes no explicit position on the metaphysical question of free will and determinism; he endorses neither metaphysical libertarianism nor compatibilism. But he does take a position by default on the issue as to whether moral responsibility is compatible with determinism. He thinks that it is because he regards the metaphysical question regarding free will as irrelevant to moral responsibility; political theory is independent of metaphysics and comprehensive views regarding free will or determinism (see Freeman 2007b, 295; also see Nelson 2019, 102, 124–​125). Whatever defects there are in Augustine’s or Pelagius’s views, Nelson is astute to point out that we should be no more surprised to learn of these defects as they surface in ethics or politics than we are to learn about their ignorance of relativity physics. That is, there is a history to political philosophy with both wisdom and folly prominently displayed; and there is still much work to do in this discipline, both regarding ideal justice and regarding how to more closely

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approximate justice in nonideal circumstances, many of which are legacies of historical mistakes (Nelson 2019, 152, 156; also see MacKenzie Bok 2017b). 9

Conclusion

Even the very early Rawls had some criticisms of Augustine’s thought. Prominent among these deals with Augustine’s tendency to “naturalize” or depersonalize God, a tendency that turned God into an object and hence was destructive of genuine community. The very early Rawls was also opposed to both the theory of predestination that characterizes Augustine’s later thought and the heavy emphasis in Augustine on the doctrine of original sin. However, it is important to notice that the very early Rawls defended views that were heavily influenced by Augustine himself and by neo-​orthodox theologians in the mid-​decades of the 20th c. who were themselves heavily influenced by Augustine. These views included a strong belief in salvation through grace via faith and a distrust of the Platonic identification of virtue with knowledge, an identification that trivializes Augustine’s discovery of the will. Like Augustine, the very early Rawls held the firm conviction that sin is to be defined in terms of a destruction of communal relations among human beings themselves and between human beings and God. The fact that the mature Rawls moved away from the very early Rawls’s fascination with Augustinian theology is evidenced in his claim that Augustine was one of the two darkest minds in the history of Western thought. This seems to indicate a very negative assessment of Augustine’s thought. Indeed, Rawls also indicates that he saw Augustinian emphasis on original sin as repugnant. A related concern is Augustine’s theory of infancy, which includes the idea that the infant is a sinner from birth. This Augustinian preformism is in contrast to Rawls’s (Piagetian) developmental approach to childhood intelligence and morality. He is equally critical of the tendency in the later Augustine toward predestinationism. Rawls’s personal break with orthodox Christianity during World War Two seems to have been due primarily to the inadequacies of Augustine’s version of theodicy, formed as it was by problematic versions of classical theistic omnipotence and omniscience. However, the greatest distance between the mature Rawls and Augustine concerns political philosophy, specifically the belief that Augustine shared with the other great pre-​liberal thinkers who are treated in the present book that the goal in politics is to discover the good and to get those who understood it into power and to keep them there. In a condition of pervasive pluralism of comprehensive doctrines, however, this dominance of one comprehensive doctrine can be sustained only if

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those with different comprehensive commitments are subjugated in an unjust manner. Nonetheless, despite the mature Rawls’s strong language regarding repugnance and Augustine’s dark mind, it is possible to overemphasize the distance between Augustine and Rawls. Both take strong stances against lying. And the very need for an original position behind a veil of ignorance is due to the felt need on Rawls’s part to counteract human beings’ seemingly natural tendency to be biased, which seems to indicate some sort of residual and attenuated attachment on Rawls’s part to original sin. Further, Rawls’s reliance on delayed hominization in his treatment of the abortion debate is surprisingly closer to Augustine’s view than many would have assumed. Rawls also relies on Augustine in the development of his version of just war theory, both in its jus ad bellum and jus in bello dimensions. Both thinkers also have more in common with pacifist theory than appears to be the case initially, yet they are also ironically tempted by the realpolitik view, in Rawls’s case especially when dealing with the difficult issue of supreme emergencies in war. The most significant similarity between Augustine and Rawls, however, again despite Rawls’s language regarding repugnance and the dark mind of Augustine, lies in their common opposition to Pelagian merit. Whereas Augustine was adamantly opposed to the Pelagian idea that we can deserve salvation, Rawls was equally opposed to the Pelagius-​inspired idea that someone can deserve a larger share of the social pie than others. It is not without reason that one can call Rawls’s version of luck egalitarianism a sort of secularized Augustinianism.

­c hapter 4

Rawls and Aquinas: Deliberative Rationality, Love, and Justice 1

Introduction

The mature Rawls viewed St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae as a “magnificent” achievement. Just as Leibniz rendered the scientific discoveries of the 17th c. compatible with Christian orthodoxy, Aquinas confronted the new Aristotelianism of the 13th c. so as to restate Christian thought in Aristotelian terms (lmp 12, 106). This praise of Aquinas contrasts with the very early Rawls, who opposed the naturalism of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas to Christian personalism, as we have seen. Rawls defended the latter and denigrated the former. Once again, by “naturalism” Rawls did not mean “materialism.” Rather, naturalists like Aquinas were those who saw human beings as essentially oriented toward an abstract good instead of toward a personal (dipolar, neoclassical) God and toward human persons. The danger, he thought, was that naturalists like Aquinas turned God into an object (a strictly impassible unmoved mover) and, because of this depersonalized character of naturalism, encouraged egoism and egotism and hence the destruction of community (sf 119–​120, 161–​162, 178, 182, 189, 209, 217, 220–​221). Both the very early Rawls and the 1997 Rawls of “On My Religion” opposed the predeterminism of Aquinas (alleged to be every bit as severe as that of Calvin) as well as Aquinas’s effort to offer rational proofs for God’s existence. Throughout his life Rawls seemed to remain a fideist (rather than an atheist or agnostic) and skeptical of natural or rational theology (sf 224, 247, 263–​264). Rawls thinks that his own view that justice is a complex of three ideas—​ liberty, equality, and reward for services contributing to the common good (once primary goods are fulfilled regardless of contribution)—​is compatible with Aquinas’s political philosophy. But Aquinas failed to draw out the implicit egalitarianism of these three ideas. What is needed is not merely the announcement of these ideas, but also their interpretation and application (cp 193). In the present chapter I will try to draw out these implications that unite and divide Rawls and Aquinas. In this regard I will be examining Aquinas’s and Rawls’s views regarding the common good, the concept of natural duty, and sin and faith. I will also examine their views of embodiment and animality so as to better appreciate

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the importance of human deliberative rationality. This effort will require a distinction between inclusive ends and dominant ends and a consideration of the role of love in Rawlsian justice. The scholarship of Samuel Freeman and Thomas Pogge will be especially helpful in the examination of these topics. 2

The Common Good

Rawls’s view is compatible with Aquinas’s stance regarding the common good and solidarity when it is expressed in terms of a political value, rather than in terms of a value associated with a particular comprehensive doctrine. It can thus be said that Rawls’s view is that of a (political) common good of (various comprehensive and often conflicting) common goods. In this regard Rawls’s view is also compatible with the stances of Thomists like Jacques Maritain and John Finnis (cp 582–​583; lp 142; Maritain 1951; Finnis 1980). In a similar vein, Rawls’s view is compatible with Aquinas’s stance regarding the dignity of the human person when it is expressed as a political conception of the person, rather than in terms of a conception of the person peculiar to a particular comprehensive doctrine. Regarding the latter, Thomists tend to say that all human beings desire, even if unknown to themselves, the vision of God, just as Platonists tend to say that all human beings desire a vision of the good. Political liberalism sets aside comprehensive accounts of human nature such as these, although it should also be noted that it permits them as long as they are reasonable (lp 172). Rawls’s view is especially at odds with Aquinas’s (along with Plato’s, Aristotle’s, Augustine’s, and the Protestant reformers’) stance that there is only one reasonable and rational good such that political institutions are justifiable to the extent that they promote this good. On this basis, intolerance of those who impede this good is justifiable. This sort of intolerance, which is based on (very often dogmatic) confidence in one’s own comprehensive doctrine, is different from (very often reluctant) intolerance based on a concern for justice in a liberal society. Decision-​making in the original position favors equal liberty of conscience that can be limited only when it interferes with public order and the liberty of others. Or again, liberty can be constrained only by liberty itself (tj 215–​216; pl 34). A dramatic example of the difference between Aquinas and Rawls on the basis of intolerance is provided by Aquinas’s defense of the death penalty for heretics on the ground that corrupting the soul is worse than counterfeiting money—​the latter of which was a capital crime in the 13th c. (see Summa Theologiae IIaIIae, ques. 11, art. 3). The view that intolerance of heretics is

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necessary for the safety of souls is only apparently reasonable, according to Rawls, in that it relies on one comprehensive doctrine that is forced on everyone else (tj 215–​216; cp 91). Likewise, in Rawls’s later works comprehensive liberalism, in contrast to political liberalism, is utopian in the pejorative sense, and is no better than the comprehensive religious views of Aquinas or Luther when these are imposed on others (cp 490; jf 188). But Rawls anticipated this point even in A Theory of Justice in his rejection of the “omnicompetent laicist state” (tj 212). However, Rawls agrees with Aquinas on the good when simpler cases are involved, concerning which reasonable people do not disagree (e.g., that cruelty is wrong). Here he is also in agreement with philosophers who have been positively influenced by Aquinas like Philippa Foot (tj 400). And he also agrees with Aquinas that play and amusement are crucial in the effort to moderate one’s pursuit of a dominant end in life, otherwise such a pursuit, according to Rawls, tends to lead to fanaticism or irrationality, as we will see (tj 548–​554; also see Summa Contra Gentiles book 3, ch. 25). 3

Natural Duty

The importance of natural duty in Rawls (tj 333–​342) also indicates overlap with Aquinas’s view of natural duty. But because the compatibility between Rawls and Aquinas lies at the level of political values, rather than at the level of comprehensive doctrine, there is no overlap between Rawls and Aquinas regarding the latter’s belief that eternal law is the basis of ethics and politics, regardless of whether eternal law is defended in terms of divine command theory or natural law theory. That is, natural duty in Rawls is affirmed without a metaphysical account of its underlying basis. Such a basis, if there is such, is left for those who adhere to any one of a number of comprehensive doctrines (lmp 7; tj 333–​342). Nonetheless, Rawls appreciates the monumental contributions to a politically liberal society made by Martin Luther King, Jr., who held the Thomistic view that unjust laws were those that violated eternal law, including natural law, as in Jim Crow laws that denigrated blacks (pl 250). As before, on a Rawlsian basis, a natural duty is one that all reasonable people agree on and that we do not need a social contract to construct, as in the natural duty not to be cruel. When one thinks of the family resemblance among the concepts of natural law, natural rights, and natural duty, Aquinas immediately comes to mind as perhaps the crucial exemplar. These concepts clearly do not function to the same degree in Rawls’s thought. Indeed, I suspect that many or most scholars might be surprised to learn that they function at

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all in the thought of the quintessential social contract theorist. Here regarding natural duty, and earlier in the chapter on Aristotle regarding the concept of natural rights, we can nonetheless see the significant roles played by these concepts in Rawls’s thought, even if these roles are carefully circumscribed and held in check by reflective equilibrium. 4

Faith and Sin

We have seen that one learns about Rawls’s own approach to religious faith in published writings at the very beginning and the very end of his career. In his undergraduate thesis at Princeton in 1942 he indicated a religious faith under the influence of neo-​orthodox Protestant thinkers like Emil Brunner. At this stage he thought that faith in God was not sheer fancy and that one could give some reasons for religious belief, even if he did not have a great deal of confidence in the sort of natural (in contrast to revealed) theology or rational theology for which Aquinas was famous. By “faith” we have seen that he meant a spiritual disposition to be fully integrated into community and to be rooted in the divine source that sustains it. That is, faith is inherently personal, in contrast to “belief,” which is a cognitive attitude that holds certain propositions to be true or false. Strictly speaking, he thought, one might believe that God exists, but one has faith in God as personal. At this very early stage in his career, the opposite of faith, I have noted, was “sin,” which he defined as the destruction of personal community (sf 113, 123–​125, 214). Late in life (1997) Rawls drafted an essay titled “On My Religion,” in which he described the history of his own religious beliefs and attitudes toward religion, including his aforementioned abandonment of orthodoxy or classical theism during World War Two, largely due to the inability of this position to deal convincingly with the theodicy problem. Here Aquinas seems to have been as unpersuasive as Augustine. Apparently, Rawls’s views changed several times over the years. Although it is clear that he abandoned orthodoxy or classical theism, it is not clear that he abandoned theism, in general. In fact, he explicitly speaks of his “fideism” (sf 261, 263). In addition to this late essay, it also makes sense to suspect that Rawls’s own religion is illuminated by his comments on “reasonable faith” in Kant in that Rawls’s own comprehensive doctrine seems to have been Kantian until the end of his life (lmp 16, 147, 288–​ 289, 306, 309–​310, 319–​322, 363). Quite apart from his own religious faith or lack thereof, what is clearly more important in his thought is his treatment of faith as a political problem. Indeed, he is quite explicit that the origin of political liberalism lies in the aftermath of

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the Reformation, when it became clear that the lack of toleration among both Catholic thinkers like Aquinas and Protestant thinkers like Luther and Calvin created a huge problem: how can people of faith live together in justice when they are divided, often uncompromisingly so, in the comprehensive doctrines that they affirm? Rawls’s well-​known solution to this problem is to take questions of the highest good off the table as political questions (pl xxv–​x xxi, 159; cp 412; jf 192; lmp 347–​348). In this regard he was heavily influenced by both Locke’s famous “A Letter Concerning Toleration” and the not so well-​known “Colloquium of the Seven” by the 16th c. Catholic thinker Jean Bodin (pl 145; sf 266–​269), the latter of whom can be seen as someone who attempted to make explicit some of the more democracy-​friendly tendencies in Aquinas himself as found in the Treatise on Law (Aquinas 2000). In that many or most of the people that Rawls wanted to bring within the scope of political liberalism were persons of faith of some sort, his hope was that, at the very least, a sort of truce or modus vivendi among all reasonable citizens could be established. Or better, he hoped that stability for the right reasons or an overlapping consensus could eventually be reached among all reasonable citizens, both those who professed religious faith as Thomists or Lutherans or Calvinists or Jews or Muslims, etc., and those who did not (cp 616–​622). That is, religious faith need not be fanatical or irrational or mad, although admittedly there is the possibility that it could exhibit these qualities (tj 554; lp 126–​127, 173). In this regard it is noteworthy how well Catholics and Protestants get along in a fair manner these days. We have seen that Rawls’s undergraduate thesis at Princeton dealt primarily with the concepts of faith and sin. The latter was defined as the repudiation and destruction of community, whereas the former was defined as the affirmation and enhancing of community. The sort of relations that were communal were those between persons (including God as personal), relations that were natural were those between a person and an object, and relations that were causal were those between objects (sf 113–​114, 122, 193). Here we can see certain differences between Augustine and Aquinas. That is, regarding the possibility of human community, Aquinas’s view of human nature and sinfulness is much more optimistic than that of Augustine, hence it can be said that the very early Rawls was more Augustinian than Thomistic, whereas the mature Rawls’s move away from Augustinian negativity led him to a stance much closer to Aquinas’s. Clearly there is a role for sin in Aquinas, but within selfish human nature there are more grounds to be sanguine than in Augustine. Another way to put the point is to say that, in Aquinas, in addition to original sin there is also original virtue or original innocence (see Whitehead 2021, 392).

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The reason for Aquinas’s more positive view of human nature than Augustine’s seems to be connected to the former’s at least partial escape from dualism. If we interpret Augustine as a dualist who was led to this position by his idiosyncratic appropriation of both Plato and St. Paul, then one can understand Augustine’s negativity toward the body and its passions (especially sexual passion). That is, if one is really a mind or a soul that is connected only accidentally to the body, then it makes sense to privilege the nonbodily aspect of humanity and to denigrate the body and its concerns. We are thrown into bodies that are occasions for sin, on Augustine’s view, where the body is something external to who we really are. By way of partial contrast, Aquinas’s hylomorphism, to the extent that he defended this view (Summa Theologiae Ia, ques. 75–​89), sees what it means to be human to be integrally connected to embodiment. To coin some helpful descriptions, on a hylomorphist basis we can refer to human beings as “mindbodies” or “soulbodies” so as to emphasize the intimate connection of mind/​soul and body as well as the composite character of a human being, rather than as minds or souls accidentally connected to, or pulled down by, bodies, as in Augustine. If mind or soul is the form of a human body, then we have a hard time imagining mind or soul without body, just as we have a hard time imagining body without form of some sort. It is well-​known that there are also dualist elements in Aquinas’s thought that he thought were necessary so as to secure belief in immortality. Indeed, Aquinas scholars have spent a great deal of time and energy determining the extent to which he is an Aristotle-​inspired hylomorphist and the extent to which he is a Plato-​inspired dualist (see Pasnau 2002; Henle 1956). The latter tendency in Aquinas ensures that there was no absolute break from the Augustinian view of human nature (see Weisheipl 1974). To the extent that Aquinas was a hylomorphist, however, we can expect that his view would more closely approximate Rawlsian optimism regarding human nature and its capacity to develop just institutions. Likewise, regarding sexual ethics, Aquinas’s views were not much of an improvement over Augustine’s view in that Aquinas thought that—​quite incredibly—​sex without the possibility of procreation was the worst sin after murder! (Summa Contra Gentiles book 3, ch. 122). The point is that Aquinas should have had or at least could have had a more optimistic view of human embodiment than Augustine on the basis of his own hylomorphic stance concerning human nature as integrally connected to embodiment. To be fair to Augustine, even he can be seen as offering a peculiar sort of moderate view of sexual ethics if he is seen as mediating between the profligacy of the Roman legions (which included Augustine’s own father) and the Manichean or Gnostic view that there is nothing whatsoever positive about sex; Augustine at least thought that it was good for procreation.

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Nonhuman Animals

In the present section I would like to build on the previous section’s treatment of human embodiment by considering Aquinas’s and Rawls’s views of nonhuman animals, which are in many ways compatible, and point toward the following section’s treatment of the uniquely human mode of reasoning via deliberative rationality. The biblical background to Judeo-​Christian views of nonhuman animals is assumed by many scholars to be summed up in Lynn White’s well-​known thesis that these religions provide the conceptual background for anthropocentrism. But even if White is correct that anthropocentrism is dominant in these traditions, in the sense that the rest of the natural world, including nonhuman animals, is meant to serve the interests of human beings, there is a view that runs counter to this dominant tendency. After all, theists are supposed to be theocentric rather than anthropocentric. Nonhuman creation is believed to be for God, but through humanity. The magisterium of the Catholic Church brings Thomistic anthropocentrism up-​to-​date via recent papal encyclicals and other writings. Central to religious anthropocentrism is the idea that a human being is imago Dei, an image of God, as evidenced in human rationality and freedom of the will, evidence that informs Rawls’s view of the subject matter in question. It is surprising that it comes as a shock to many people to learn that the Garden of Eden was a vegetarian paradise. This prelapsarian condition of nonviolence is altered in Genesis 9 when, in the violent postlapsarian world, human beings are permitted to kill and eat animals so long as certain restrictions are met, not so much because of the inherent justice in such violence, but rather as a way of keeping human sinfulness within limits. We are accustomed today to separate houses of worship from slaughterhouses, but the ancient temple provided the locus for both worship and the killing of nonhuman animals. This gave rise to numerous complaints from various Hebrew prophets regarding the stench and inappropriateness of nonhuman animal sacrifice. There is a proleptic character to the Edenic myth, which points the way toward an eschatological vision of what should be, or at least of what could be, in the future. This alternative view has obvious implications for how we should view Jesus, who is quite clear that God cares even for the fall of a sparrow (Matthew 10: 28), even if each one of us is of more value than many sparrows (how many we are not told). The cruelty-​free food found at the Last Supper (bread and wine) leads one to suspect that Jesus was a countercultural Jew who was at odds with the dominant anthropocentric culture of his day. Religious traditions can

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be seen as vast rivers with different swells and tributaries, some of which go unnoticed for centuries only to reappear again as objects worthy of consideration. The imago Dei hypothesis is amenable to different interpretations. The dominant view has used this hypothesis primarily for the purpose of exclusion of nonhuman animals and to dominate the earth for human aims. The alternative view sees the hypothesis as pointing toward the unique calling of human beings to be responsible for nonhuman animals and the rest of nature. We will see both of these tendencies exhibited by Rawls. Being made in the image of God might mean that we are supposed to emulate the kenotic love of God: the obligation is on the shoulders of the “higher” to sacrifice for the sake of the “lower.” That is, in biblical terms there is quite a difference between Elohim, the nonviolent God of Genesis 1, and the God of Genesis 9, who inculcates fear and dread into postdiluvian humanity. The meaning of radah or dominion changes significantly from one to the other. In this regard, Noah’s ark is something of a floating Eden that, although not a historical reality, can nonetheless function as a hope that is both practical and eschatological. As is well known, however, throughout most of their history Christians have interpreted human dominion in violent terms. The Thomist tradition of reverential or mindful slaughter of nonhuman animals, although preferable to careless or mindless slaughter, nonetheless leaves them equally slaughtered. The alternative eschaton does not mean a temporal end, but rather something like a rationally defensible liberal goal of a nonviolent economy vis-​à-​vis nonhuman animals. As before, prelapsarian harmony with animals has the potential to animate and inspire us even in the cruel world in which we live. Our very real current struggle to find a just society is thus framed on either side by Edenic and eschatological harmony. Augustine thought that to refrain from the killing of animals was the height of superstition and that we need not behave toward animals with care. Symbols, property, inferior pieces of creation meant for human beings: such were nonhuman animals for Augustine. This attitude is somewhat understandable in that the Manichees were vegetarians, and Augustine, himself a Manichee for over a decade, wanted to divorce himself from this part of his past. He was right in suggesting that the vegetarianism of the Manichees was little else besides superstition. The elect, it was believed, could extract spiritual power from eating plants, and even here only under special conditions, but not from eating animals. Most importantly, nonhuman animals were disassociated from us because of their lack of reason (see Augustine 1966, 91, 102; 1909, book 1, ch. 20). Aquinas largely continues Augustine’s view. He tries to supply metaphysical support for the belief in human dominion, namely the control human beings

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have over their actions, a control that nonhuman animals lack. Human beings are, in a way, causes of their own behavior, or better, they are self-​movers, whereas nonhuman animals act as mere instruments for the welfare of human beings, presumably because nonhuman animals are not self-​movers. Because only intellectual nature is free, nonhuman animals are naturally slaves because they are not rational. Intellectual human creatures hold the highest place in the universe because they approach nearest the divine likeness, except for the angels. Therefore, Aquinas concludes, all others exist for the sake of human beings (Summa Contra Gentiles, book 3, ch. 112). Six points need to be made regarding Aquinas’s view. (1) Given Aquinas’s contention that nonhuman animals have no control over their actions, one wonders what he would say about the practice, which must have existed in the 13th c., of chastising a dog that had relieved itself where it was not supposed to. (2) One could ask, what does cause a nonhuman animal to “move,” if not itself as the cause, in a way that does not similarly “move” human beings? Aquinas gives little, if any, indication. To say “nature” or “instinct” is to beg the question, since human beings are also natural beings with instincts. Indeed, they are animals themselves. (3) It is not at all clear that nonhuman animals lack rationality completely, as we will see. (4) Even if human beings do approach nearest the divine likeness, it does not follow that all beings “beneath” human beings are there for the sake of human beings. (5) There is quite a gap between noticing that a being lacks freedom and rationality, on the one hand, and, assuming for a moment that nonhuman animals lack these, arguing that therefore it is a slave or mere instrument, on the other. And (6), because Aquinas, following Aristotle, was wrong in defending the natural slavery of some human beings, which many Christians never fully rejected until the 19th c., one might be led to question whether or not the natural inferiority of nonhuman animals is as intuitively obvious as Aquinas seems to think. Aquinas finds himself in a bind of sorts. When he contends that it is not wrong for human beings to make use of nonhuman animals, either by killing or in any other way, he seems to be in conflict with some scriptural passages that forbid us from being cruel to nonhuman animals (e.g., Exodus 23: 19). Aquinas’s solution is ingenious and has remained popular ever since, as in Kant: it is wrong to be cruel to nonhuman animals not because of the pain inflicted on them, but because it might lead one to be cruel to human beings (again, see Summa Contra Gentiles, book 3, ch. 112). It is assumed by Aquinas in Summa Theologiae (2a2ae, ques. 64, art. 1) that it is necessary for human beings to eat meat. Although, along with Augustine, he may understandably condemn Manichean thought, one wonders what reason he would have to suspect the health of the Manichees. Indeed, he thinks

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that God loves all things that exist (e.g., Wisdom 11: 25), yet human beings, according to Aquinas, could not be charitable to nonhuman animals even if they wanted to (Summa Theologiae 2a2ae, ques. 65, art. 3). This is for three reasons: (1) Charity is a kind of friendship and we wish good for our friends, but nonhuman animals are not capable of experiencing good. (2) Friendship is based on fellowship and no nonhuman animal can have fellowship with a human being. And (3), charity is based on the fellowship of everlasting happiness, which nonhuman animals cannot gain. Once again, several comments are in order. (a) It is not clear why we cannot condescend to show charity to nonhuman animals when even God can do so. It should be remembered that Jesus commended his Father for caring even for the fall of a sparrow. (b) Aquinas does not show why having the ability to possess good is necessary for one to be shown charity. The whole point to Christian agape, as opposed to passionate eros, is that it is a love that does not demand love in return. (c) Some nonhuman animals do show fellowship to human beings, especially pets who are parts of the household. And (d), it is not readily apparent why charity can only be given to those who are capable of eternal life. My hope is that by understanding the anthropocentrism of Aquinas (see, e.g., Reichmann 2000), as well as the alternative to anthropocentrism within the Abrahamic religions that Aquinas could have adopted but did not (see, e.g., Barad 1988), we would be in an enviable position to appreciate the complexities of Rawls’s view. Rawls is clear in A Theory of Justice that the basis of equality does not extend to nonhuman animals. This is because they are not moral persons with the two moral powers: the ability to develop a conception of the good and a sense of justice or the right. Strictly speaking, equal justice applies only to those with these two powers. Hence animals are left out of Rawls’s famous social contract experiment. Another way to put the point is to say that it is those who can give justice who are owed justice. In this regard Rawls seems indebted to the history of Christian anthropocentrism that goes back to Augustine through Aquinas (tj 17, 504–​512; also see lp 92, 171). In an earlier piece, “The Sense of Justice” (1963), Rawls asked the question, “who is owed justice?” His response was that the capacity to be just was a necessary and sufficient condition for receiving justice. He admits that establishing that the capacity to be just is a necessary condition for receiving justice is much more difficult than establishing that the capacity to be just is a sufficient condition for receiving justice. In A Theory of Justice Rawls is not explicit that the two moral powers are necessary for being owed justice, only that they are sufficient for being owed justice, although the necessary condition may be

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implied. Nonetheless, he concludes that we have no duty of justice to nonhuman animals, as there might be in utilitarianism where possession of sentiency seems to be a sufficient condition for being a full subject of rights or “rights” (cp 112–​116). Once again, Rawls’s view seems very much consistent with, if not identical to, the traditional religious anthropocentrism found in Aquinas. Rawls is aware of the fact that high-​level criteria for being owed justice, like the aforementioned two moral powers, have implications not only for nonhuman animals, but for some human beings as well. Once a certain minimum level of the two moral powers is met, citizens are entitled to equal justice, Rawls thinks. In A Theory of Justice he does not examine those human beings who do not meet this minimum level, but he does say that the vast majority of human beings have the capacity for, if not the actual ability to enact, the two moral powers. Thus, for practical purposes, he thinks, “all” humans “originally” possess moral personality. And the capacity for love and affection are universal among human beings. Once again, he chooses not to examine those who have lost these capacities through congenital defect or illness or accident (tj 504–​512; cp 112–​116). I will argue that there is a high price to pay for this neglect. Although nonhuman animals are not owed justice, and this because they do not have a moral status equal to human beings with the two moral powers, they should be afforded some protection. Because they are capable of feeling pleasure and pain, Rawls holds that we have duties of compassion and humanity toward them and thus we ought not to be cruel to them. And destruction of a whole nonhuman animal species is a great evil. But Rawls thinks that the protections that we ought to give to nonhuman animals are not the result of a duty of justice on our part. Rather, a conception of justice is only one part of an overall moral theory and there are moral virtues besides justice. That is, the principle of humanity is more inclusive than justice (tj 504–​512; cp 112–​116). In Political Liberalism Rawls expands on the relatively narrow concerns of A Theory of Justice by treating four problems of extension, three of which are amenable to resolution, he thinks (by extending the principles of justice to future generations, by expanding them so as to include the international law of peoples, and by covering the health care needs of citizens). But concerning the fourth problem of extension, he doubts if nonhuman animals can be brought within justice as fairness as a political conception. He admits that this may be due to a lack of ingenuity. If we start with full persons in adult society with the two moral powers, he cannot see how nonhuman animals can be included in the social contract (pl 21, 244–​246). The ambiguity in A Theory of Justice is removed in Political Liberalism: the two moral powers are necessary (not only sufficient) to be owed justice (pl 302).

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Also, in Political Liberalism he treats two contrasting views that have implications for nonhuman animals. The traditional Christian view (found in Augustine and Aquinas), on his interpretation, sees nonhuman animals as subject to our use, as in the biological and medical knowledge that they make possible. By way of contrast, the view of “natural religion,” which is either a separate comprehensive doctrine from the traditional Christian view or a countercultural tendency within that view, is one wherein nonhuman animals are seen as the loci of rights and are hence brought within the scope of justice. But this view, Rawls claims, cannot direct us toward a constitutional essential in that it is like opposition to abortion on strictly religious grounds. That is, the values cherished by the natural religionist are associational and hence nonpolitical. Rawls does not state explicitly that the traditional view of nonhuman animals (once again, as exemplified by Augustine and Aquinas) is also nonpolitical, leading one to wonder whether this is the view he endorses at a political level (pl 244–​246). This is reminiscent of the open question in A Theory of Justice regarding how to fit justice as fairness within a metaphysical system that explains humanity’s place within the natural world (tj 512). Rawls admits, relying on evidence provided by ethologists, that nonhuman animals resemble human beings in their desire for self-​realization. In a way, the aforementioned Aristotelian principle also applies to them, as is borne out by the facts of everyday life and which can be given an evolutionary explanation. In effect, natural selection, he thinks, would have favored nonhuman animals concerning whom the Aristotelian principle would have applied (tj 431–​432). The undergraduate Rawls saw a wide gap between human beings and other animals in that he opposed what he saw as the superficial modern view that human beings were merely biological animals. Human beings, he thought, were not so much biological animals as they were persons (sf 217–​218). This view is continuous with his later Kantian view (which is built on assumptions that can be traced back to Augustine and Aquinas) that we are not dignified as animals, but as personal beings with the two moral powers. In general, it can be said that the tension in the Judeo-​Christian tradition between traditional anthropocentrism and a theocentric view that is more nonhuman animal-​ friendly is mirrored in Rawls’s thought, which usually runs in an anthropocentric direction, but which also includes a consideration of a stance called “­natural religion,” as we have seen. Some Rawlsians think that there are resources within Rawls’s thought for a much more defensible view of nonhuman animals than is usually indicated in Rawls himself. Two different arguments are illustrative of this tendency. First, because Rawls admits (once again, tj 512) that we have a duty not to be cruel to nonhuman animals, even if we do not have a duty of justice to them, the

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most consistent Rawlsian view would include support for what has come to be known among animal rightists as the argument from sentiency. This argument provides the backbone for the animal rights movement and can be formulated as an Aristotelian syllogism: A. Any being that can suffer has, at the very least, the right not to be forced to suffer (or be killed) unnecessarily. B. It is not necessary that we inflict suffering (or death) on nonhuman animals in that human beings can lead healthy (or even healthier) lives on a vegetarian basis. C. Therefore, eating meat is an example of cruelty and ought to be avoided. The force of this argument has been felt for many centuries in the ancient and medieval worlds (see Dombrowski 1984; 1988) and into the contemporary era. It follows a familiar pattern in recent applied ethics: start with a general premise that is widely accepted, then add to it a particular premise that has escaped the notice of even morally reflective people, then an unexpected conclusion follows from these premises. This argument, it seems, should have been appealing to Aquinas (and Kant) as well in that there must be some reason why habitual cruelty to nonhuman animals makes it more likely that the perpetrator would become cruel to human beings. The argument from sentiency captures this connection in that cruelty, by definition, involves the infliction of unnecessary suffering or death on any sentient being. The hope is that a consideration of this argument would lead the defender of indirect duties to nonhuman animals to take the next step to a direct duty view. The second argument exhibits the Aristotelian/​Rawlsian method of reflective equilibrium. That is, it is a piece of dialectical, back-​and-​forth reasoning that is nonetheless quite strong. It is called the argument from marginal cases or the argument from species overlap. Suppose it is agreed for the sake of argument that the criterion for moral agency (for being able to act morally or immorally and to be held morally accountable for one’s actions) is rationality or related abilities like sophisticated language use, etc. Aquinas and Rawls would both seem to agree with this criterion. This still leaves open the question as to what a defensible criterion for moral patiency status might be (being able to receive moral or immoral actions from others or being able to be treated cruelly by others). It is precisely this debate regarding moral patiency status that has preoccupied moral philosophers for the past two generations. The argument in question is meant to illuminate moral patiency status. Any criterion for moral patiency status that is possessed by all human beings will not be possessed only by human beings. For example, all human beings, but not only human beings, are capable of feeling pain and suffering and hence can be treated cruelly. Although only human beings can solve

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complicated problems in mathematics, not all human beings can do this. To say that we can legitimately eat nonhuman animals, say, because human beings, but not nonhuman animals, are rational or autonomous or language-​ users, etc., is not true of many human beings. The “marginal cases” of humanity include infants, the mentally enfeebled, and so on. If we “lower” our standard for moral patiency status to that of sentiency (e.g., the ability to experience pain or suffer) so as to protect these human beings (and we surely do want to protect these people), we must, in order to be consistent, also protect nonhuman animals with central nervous systems, including those that are routinely killed for the table. If a nonhuman animal has morally relevant characteristics a, b, c … n, but lacks reason or autonomy or language, and a human being has morally relevant characteristics a, b, c … n, but lacks reason or autonomy or language, then we have as much reason to believe that the nonhuman animal has rights as the human being (see Regan 1978, 126–​133). I would like to make it clear that the argument in question is not suggesting than infants or the mentally enfeebled are marginal human beings, a result that would understandably bother both Aquinas and Rawls. Rather, it is when the thesis (which Aquinas and Rawls inherited from Aristotle, as in Politics book 1, ch. 8) that rationality should be accepted as the criterion for moral patiency status becomes normative that infants and the mentally enfeebled come to be seen as marginal human beings. Because this point might easily be lost in the heat of the nonhuman animal rights debate, it is understandable why some prefer the label “argument from species overlap” to the label “argument from marginal cases.” In addition to the common opposition to cruelty found in both Aquinas and Rawls, an opposition that paves the way to the argument from sentiency, there is the possibility in Rawls for a revised original position, as articulated by some Rawlsians (see Vandeveer 1979). The idea here is that the veil of ignorance should be thicker so as to occlude vision not only of one’s religious beliefs (or lack thereof), gender, race, etc., but also of one’s species membership. The original original position (not a redundancy) already has us consider what it would be like to be incarnated in the worst possible ways so as to determine what it would take to treat us justly in these deplorable conditions. These would include a level of rationality or language use that is ultra-​minimal, such that, if we protected sentient yet nonrational human beings, in order to be consistent, we should also protect nonhuman animals at the same or superior levels of affective and cognitive ability. This superiority is why the argument from marginal cases can also be called the argument from species overlap. Once one sees the disastrous consequences of making the criterion for moral patiency status too high at rationality, and once one also sees the disastrous

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consequences of making the criterion too low at, say, pre-​sentient life, in that on this basis even cutting grass would be morally problematic, one exhibits Thomistic prudence by settling on sentiency as a workable criterion for moral patiency status. A consistent application of this standard for moral patiency status would shake us loose of anthropocentrism, which should not be seen as problematic for a theocentrist like Aquinas. In any event, both Aquinas and Rawls have the resources within their respective theories for positions regarding the moral patiency status of nonhuman animals that are far superior to what they have actually defended. Now, however, I would like to move to the uniquely human ability to engage in the sort of deliberative rationality that justifies our belief that (most but not all) human beings are moral agents. 6

Deliberative Rationality

Given the voluminous commentary on Rawls’s classic A Theory of Justice, it is surprising that there are still complicated arguments in that work that have been left largely untouched. One that has not received the attention it deserves is section 83, titled “Happiness and Dominant Ends.” This section has not been entirely ignored since in conversations I have had with various scholars I have learned that in this section Rawls has given the impression to many readers that he thinks dominant-​end views like those of St. Ignatius of Loyola, whom he refers to explicitly, are “irrational” or “mad.” Ignatius’s famous version of a dominant-​end view is that all that we do should be for the greater glory of God (ad majorem Dei gloriam). This saying is the motto not only of the Jesuit order he founded but could also be seen as the motto for all theists in the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), including Aquinas, especially when it is considered that the great command in theism is to love God with one’s whole heart and mind and strength (Deuteronomy 6: 5; Matthew 22: 37). As a result, nothing trivial is at stake in the effort to understand Rawls’s meaning and his apparent hyperbole. After all, in the post-​secular society we live in at present, it should be clear that many or most of the citizens whom Rawls would like to bring within the sweep of the overlapping consensus that characterizes politically liberal societies are religious believers of some sort. In this part of the chapter I will argue for three points: (1) I will explicate Rawls’s view and suggest that the charges of irrationality or madness do not apply to Ignatius’s or Aquinas’s views. Here I will try to make Rawls’s view clearer than Rawls himself makes it. (2) I will nonetheless defend Rawls’s thesis

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that some other dominant-​end views are irrational or mad. And (3), I will indicate briefly the political importance of the topic at hand, which might initially seem to be quite abstract and removed from the practical world. I will also examine two recent commentators on Rawls whose work is related to the subject matter in question: Samuel Freeman and Thomas Pogge. My efforts in this chapter are meant to contribute to political philosophy in at least two ways. First, I have argued above that the overall method that is required in liberal political philosophy is that of Aristotelian reflective equilibrium and that this method can be best understood in processual terms. I am arguing here that neoclassical and other theists, including classical theists in the Thomistic tradition, can bring their convictions to bear in a politically liberal society within the confines of this method in a rational (rather than irrational or mad) manner. Second, I have also argued above that the very concept of contributing something to God makes no sense on a classical theistic basis, wherein God is seen as a fully actualized, strictly permanent being, a Thomistic unmoved mover who is outside of time altogether and who is not influenced by our strivings and sufferings. It seems to me that the motto of Ignatius as treated by Rawls only makes sense on a neoclassical or process theistic basis wherein God is the most moved mover, as defended as well by Abraham Heschel. In neoclassical, dipolar theism God is infinite in existence (that God always exists) but finite in actuality (how God exists from moment to moment) so as to be able to enter into relations with creatures who are finite in both existence and actuality. In Aquinas’s view, by contrast, relations between God and creatures may be real to the creatures, but they are not real to God. The neoclassical theism that I defend seeks to recover the positive sense of peras or limit that characterizes ancient Greek views about both human and divine value. It would be a mistake, as I see things, to identify God, as Aquinas (along with Augustine) does, solely with the amorphous apeiron or infinite. That is, there is much to be gained by trying to understand Ignatius’s motto, which no doubt would have been acceptable to (Augustine and) Aquinas, both politically and metaphysically. At this point it will be useful to distinguish in a Rawlsian way between inclusive ends and dominant ends. The most common “inclusive end” for a human life that has been defended in the history of philosophy is happiness. Rawls largely follows Aristotle in seeing happiness as consisting in a successful execution of a roughly rational plan of life that is arrived at under more or less favorable conditions. We tend to be happy when our rational plan of life is to an acceptable extent being executed. Like Aristotle, Rawls believes happiness is not a totally rational affair because, in addition to rationality, it also involves

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luck (tyche). Rawls is also an Aristotelian and Thomist in thinking that, despite the obvious subjective element in happiness, it is to be understood objectively. That is, if a person believes he or she is on the way to a successful execution of a roughly rational plan of life, but is mistaken or deluded in this belief, we should think that this person is unhappy regardless of his or her subjective satisfaction. A person in “fool’s paradise” is not really happy (see, e.g., Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 1097a–​b). Happiness is an inclusive end in part because it is self-​contained and is chosen for its own sake, not for the sake of something else. But this inclusive end leaves open many questions about how to experience happiness. A dominant end, by way of contrast, subordinates all other ends in a way that takes away the need for questions and for the weighing of evidence by way of deliberative rationality; a dominant end offers the false hope of an easy road to happiness. In this regard a person’s happiness is similar to a work of art like a novel or a painting. Even if a particular work of art is flawed in some ways, there is a certain completeness to it that makes it possible for a reader or viewer to notice aesthetic value in it that contrasts with the aesthetic value found in other works of art. When a human being approaches “blessedness” (Rawls’s word) it is analogous to a masterpiece in literature by William Faulkner or to a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. As Rawls puts the point in section 83, “happiness is not one aim among others that we aspire to, but the fulfillment of the whole design itself” (tj 550). The question quite understandably arises: how to choose rationally among possible plans of life? Rawls is famous (or infamous) for his effort to construct a fair decision-​making procedure regarding justice in an original position behind a veil of ignorance. Something similar is appealed to here in that a plan of life is one that would be chosen (albeit without the help of a community of all reasonable-​rational agents) with deliberative rationality. In both the original position and when choosing a plan of life there is a need to be lucid. One’s choice regarding a plan of life should stand up to critical reflection. For example, it would not be rational to decide to devote all of one’s skills to becoming an accountant if one has always had problems dealing with numbers. After some starts and stops (it is to be hoped that the stops are not tragic), we eventually decide on a plan we most prefer without further guidance from principle (something like Aquinas’s “prudence”). But along the way we always need to consider our aims carefully if we are to achieve happiness to some acceptable degree. Or again, on Rawls’s view it is possible that we could “arrive” at a plan of life simply by acting over time, with little explicit deliberation at all in that the “deliberation” involved is implicit. Rawls has us consider the deceptively simple example of planning a vacation. Should one go to Las Vegas to

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gamble or to New York to see museums? This is an easy choice if one is bored with gambling and if one enjoys paintings. The choice becomes more difficult if a museum lover is deliberating between going to see Leonardo paintings in St. Petersburg or in Krakow. (We should assume here that one does not have enough time or money to go to both cities.) The key point here is that in exercising deliberative rationality we can narrow the scope of preferential choice (given our limitations and interests, etc.), but we cannot limit the scope altogether, in contrast to the promissory note delivered by a dominant end that alleges that things can be made easy. Whitehead was fond of pointing out that the word “de-​cision” literally means the “cutting off” of some possible choices so as to leave others as live options (e.g., Whitehead 1978, 43). Decision involves indeterminacy of some sort. The word “deliberation” itself comes from the Latin for weighing, as if on a scale. It is only after a decision is made that the result is determinate. Before the decision is made there are (more or less) determinables, but nothing determinate. People have various aims, and there is no algorithmic standard or dominant end that tells us exactly how to decide, as would be the case if we had something like the laws of long division at hand to always get at the right decision, so long as we kept our columns straight and subtracted correctly, and so forth. In practical deliberation there are many pauses. It is at these moments of literal indecision that a single, dominant end seems alluring. A “dominant” end is different from an inclusive end. An inclusive end like happiness still leaves us with the need for deliberation and with many decisions to make, both trivial (or apparently trivial), like what to eat for lunch, and serious, like whether to look for a new career. By contrast, a dominant end holds out the prospect of escape from deliberation and decision-​making because, rather than helpful heuristic devices that vaguely point the way toward a decision that is conducive to happiness, one looks for a perfectly clear and precise procedure that cannot be resisted. To be explicit, a dominant end is like the aforementioned algorithmic laws of long division, which, if properly followed, always give the correct answer. In contrast, an inclusive end like happiness only permits heuristic devices like the following advice given to mountain climbers: make sure that the next step is higher than the previous one. Usually this advice works, but not always in that sometimes (say if one reaches a crevasse) one must go down a bit in order to find a route to the top. A dominant end theorist understandably wants to avoid a situation where aims conflict and where there is no infallible standard to decide among them. But can we avoid such situations? Is it really that easy to reach a condition

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where the only difficulties regarding a plan of life are computational or that merely involve a lack of information? Aquinas and Rawls are correct to be skeptical here. What a dominant end theorist wants is a method that the agent in question can use in order to always make a rational decision. Or more forcefully, what is desired is a first-​person procedure that is guaranteed to give the best result. But we have no procedures that meet these conditions when the topic in question is a plan of life rather than a problem in basic mathematics. The heuristic schemes we use in everyday life are influenced by our personal and cultural histories, and they are frequently modified. It is possible that such schemes are rational, but there is no guarantee that they be so. What we can hope for is that they be minimally rational and that they enable us “to get by” and to hold the wolf of despair at bay. There is a pragmatic element in Rawls’s thought, just as there is in Aquinas’s Aristotelian thought, that is underappreciated (see Botti 2017). Rawls’s Aristotelianism is a bit like John Dewey’s. The schemes we use in everyday life in order to be happy may very well fall short of the best that we can do, but we nonetheless are justified in thinking that we are happy and that our lives are indeed worth living. 7

Types of Dominant Ends

Thus far I have said nothing about the different types of dominant ends. It should be reiterated that happiness itself is not a dominant end, in that it is attained when a rational plan has been more or less executed, a plan that includes a plurality of aims, whatever these happen to be and however they happen to be ordered. If these aims are ordered in terms of certain dominant ends, however, it makes sense to say that such ends are irrational or mad, as Rawls rightly claims. Suppose one proposes as a dominant end the acquisition and exercise of political power or the gaining of social acclaim or maximizing one’s material possessions (a kind of hedonism, which both Aquinas and Rawls oppose). Our considered moral judgments are at odds with these aims when they are elevated to the status of dominant ends. That is, each one of these proposed aims must be moderated and brought within some sort of reflective equilibrium with other ends that reasonable people accept. Indeed, it seems inhuman to propose, say, that the maximization of political power is a dominant end that could trump the political rights of others. Likewise regarding the maximization of material possessions when proposed as a dominant end that could trump the rights of others to basic goods. By definition, a dominant end is one that is lexically

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prior to all other aims such that seeking to advance it takes precedence over all other aims. Rawls also cryptically suggests that another problem with some dominant end views, in additional to irrationally disrupting reflective equilibrium, is that they threaten the unity of the self. By making the desire for social acclaim a dominant end, we thereby take the rational part of the self and hide it in a corner, so to speak. Our desire to engage in reciprocal relations with others who are fair is relegated to a second self, as it were. Reflective equilibrium among all of the legitimate aims that we have—​the aim to be fair, the aim to have enough material possessions to exercise a rational plan of life, and so forth—​requires that we resist many dominant end views. Making the acquisition and exercise of political power a dominant end is precisely a recipe for fanaticism. Because each one of us has heterogenous aims, the human good itself is heterogenous. The irrationality or madness of some dominant end views consists in the subordination (or worse, eradication) of aims that, on reflection, strike us as perfectly legitimate. These dominant end views tend to disfigure the self for the sake of system. The question arises: does Ignatius’s or Aquinas’s or the theist’s version of a dominant end view necessarily lead to such a disfigurement, or worse, to irrationality or madness? Rawls is not clear on this point in that the text (tj 553–​ 554) could be read to have these charges apply only to dominant end views like the acquisition and exercise of political power, or it could be read to apply more generally to all dominant end views. It is at least possible to read him as saying that dominant end views like the acquisition and exercise of political power are irrational; but while problematic, Ignatius’s or Aquinas’s or the theist’s dominant end is not necessarily irrational or mad. I will pursue this latter approach while admitting that Rawls’s text itself is unclear regarding the extent of the charge of irrationality. In any event, Ignatius’s motto is at least problematic because on its basis we are still left with the project of figuring out how exactly to lead our lives. Although Ignatius’s dominant end, which again is compatible with Aquinas’s view, is not irrational, we will see that it is vague and ambiguous. How are we to glorify God if divine intentions are often left either unspecified from revelation or specified in confusing ways? Regarding the latter, consider the following example: at times in scripture we are admonished to do our good deeds anonymously so that the right hand knows not what the left hand does (Matthew 6: 3). In this way the good deeds are done deontologically for their own sakes. But at other times we are admonished to publicly and boldly witness to the good so that we should shout from the rooftops (Luke 12: 3). In this way we avoid tepidity.

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There is a long tradition in religious circles, the quintessential example of which is Aquinas, of emphasizing the need to use natural reason to figure out exactly how we should lead our lives, choose our friends, etc. That is, the solution to the problem of how to achieve happiness is only apparently solved by Ignatius’s supposed dominant end view in that, even on his own terms, we must balance principles and pieces of evidence, and we must determine precedence. Even if we accept Ignatius’s motto in the effort to achieve ultimate happiness, we must still work to bring about harmony among all of the complex factors involved. The need for intellectual effort indicates that a theocentric “dominant” end does not really dominate, despite the language about all of one’s strength, etc. It operates merely as a heuristic device to help a theist like Aquinas along the way. It must be admitted that the end of furthering divine intentions does provide some guidance in the life of a theist, since on this basis one would, other things being equal, prefer health to sickness, honor to dishonor, and friendship to animosity. Unless, of course, sickness acts as a spur to spiritual perfection, or apparent honor spoils us, or friends lead us astray. Stranger things have happened in theosis or the process of spiritual perfection. There seems to be no escape from “discernment,” to use an Ignatian term (see Ignatius 1991, “Principles and Foundation” in the first week and “Three Occasions When a Wise Choice Can Be Made” in the second week). And it is precisely this need for discernment that prevents Ignatius’s dominant end view from becoming irrational or mad, thus his stance is thoroughly consistent with Thomistic natural law. Ignatius is famous for the role of “indifference” in the effort to discern how to lead a life that is for the greater glory of God. I assume that there is a family resemblance among Ignatian indifference, Stoic adiaphoria, the Buddhist “no self,” St. John of the Cross’s nada, and Aquinas’s claim on his deathbed that all that he had accomplished was straw (see Weisheipl 1974). The common idea here is that we should not become attached to anything that could lead us away from ultimate happiness. As a result, there is a need for detachment. At times, however, this effort at detachment and commendable indifference is facilitated by play, sport, and other diversions, as we have seen. In themselves these ludic activities do not seem to be part of the elusive dominant end: ad majorem Dei gloriam. But these activities, as Aquinas realized and as noted by Rawls, relax the mind so that we can return to our “dominant” end with more vigor (Summa Contra Gentiles book 3, ch. 25; tj 554; also see Dombrowski 2009a). Various subordinate ends need to be weighed carefully in the effort to advance the nominally dominant one. A similar admonition can be found in the utilitarian tradition regarding the need to relax one’s relentless efforts to

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ameliorate pain in the world lest one contribute to the sum of unhappiness via poor health, fatigue, and so forth. Freeman is very helpful here in alerting us to the fact that there are two “ideal perspectives” in Rawls: the original position, which is designed to help us develop a defensible concept of justice, and deliberative rationality, which is designed to aid us in developing an appropriate concept of the good. Although the latter is, in a way, nonpublic, it is not exactly private in that efforts at deliberative rationality are open to criticism, as in the person who decides that he will pursue happiness by becoming a National Basketball Association player, despite the fact that he is over sixty years old and is less than six feet tall. In A Theory of Justice, and perhaps in a different way in Political Liberalism, stability in society is reached when there is congruence in most citizens’ lives between these two ideal perspectives, when most citizens’ conceptions of the good also further justice (Freeman 2007b, 265–​266). However, Rawls’s treatment of Ignatius calls into question Freeman’s assertion that there is little talk of religion in A Theory of Justice (see Freeman 2007b, 320; cf. Dombrowski 2001; 2011). Where he is helpful is in his emphasis of the point that reasonable people will not adopt “mad” doctrines (Freeman 2007b, 367; 2007a, 53–​54, 68, 73, 78) and that the main flaw of many varieties of perfectionism is that they leave little or no room for free deliberation. Or again, the relationship between teleological doctrines and deontological ones is strongly analogous to the relationship between theories that propose a single rational goal and those that deny this sort of dominance. And the problems here are not merely with religious versions of teleology like Aquinas’s, but also (and perhaps primarily) with hedonism as a dominant end view. 8

Justice

It should not be assumed that the topic of this chapter is peripheral to the major concerns of Rawls’s philosophy. The elaboration of a decision-​making procedure regarding justice in an original position behind a veil of ignorance is central to A Theory of Justice and is assumed as background in Rawls’s later books. Although a plan of life is part of what is called in Political Liberalism a comprehensive doctrine, it is nonetheless something that would be chosen with deliberative rationality. That is, although people are given considerable elbow room in a politically liberal society to choose whatever plan of life they wish, they are nonetheless constrained to do so within the bounds of justice. Likewise, in The Law of Peoples Rawls is clear that various peoples around the globe should be given the opportunity to have their culture flourish as long

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as the cultural practices in question would be compatible with the deliberations of reasonable/​rational contractors in the second and third original positions at the international level. In this regard we should notice that these deliberations are very much compatible with Aquinas’s natural law and the considerable influence the natural law tradition has had in the development of international law and the human rights movement. For example, Mary Ann Glendon details the enormous influence of Jacques Maritain and other natural law theorists on the development of the monumental Universal Declaration of Human Rights (see Glendon 2001). Rawls would be opposed to the adoption of a dominant end such as the acquisition and exercise of political power at the expense of the rights of others. One is not free to choose a dominant end that leads to fanaticism. Likewise, the maximization of possessions as a dominant end that would have hegemony over just distribution of wealth is not acceptable due to Rawls’s second principle of justice, especially the difference principle, the idea that unequal distribution of wealth would be just only if it maximizes the long-​term prospects of the least advantaged members of society. The justification of this principle centers on the idea that it would be agreed to by reasonable/​rational agents as a fair term of agreement. One is reminded here of the preferential option for the poor in Catholicism, a doctrine that is heavily influenced by Aquinas’s idea that those who live in destitution are owed assistance from those who are well off. It is a duty for the well off to give to the poor, not a mere option that can be resisted lightly (see Summa Theologiae IIaIIae, ques. 32, art. 5–​6). Rawls is not claiming that one needs to selflessly engage in supererogatory actions in order to be just or happy. In fact, saints and heroes might not even strive to be happy (in the popular sense of “happiness”) if they are always looking out for the interests of others. Nonetheless they may ironically be happy in spite of themselves by advancing the claims of justice or the well-​being of others, or by achieving the excellences for which they aim. Obviously, some religious dominant ends are as dangerous as the unvarnished quest for power or fame or fortune. As is well known, religious zeal is often accompanied by intolerance or injustice. But love of God does not necessarily entail misanthropy. To the contrary. If human beings are made in the image of God, as defended by Wolterstorff, as we have seen, and as claimed in Judaism and Christianity historically, and as implied in different terms in Islam, then literal phil-​anthropy and an Ignatian or Thomistic theocentrism are quite compatible. A plan that is regulated by principles of right or justice reduces indeterminacy such that the choices that remain require decisions among permissible ends. Although a dominant end may be defined as one that is choiceworthy for

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its own sake, we are still left on the basis of this definition with the problem of distinguishing between a dominant end and an inclusive end like happiness. If a dominant end is choiceworthy for its own sake, other choices are subservient to it, thus removing some indeterminacy. The dominant end theorist tries, however unsuccessfully, to eliminate even more indeterminacy, perhaps even to eliminate it altogether through an algorithm. In sum, the Ignatian and Thomistic belief that all that we do should be for the greater glory of God is compatible with the Rawlsian concept of the burdens of judgment and with justice. This is due to Ignatius’s and Aquinas’s emphasis on the need for discernment and rational deliberation in the religious life. Theists, in general, need not be irrational or mad. But despite the compatibility between the Ignatian motto and Rawlsian justice, one need not subscribe to Ignatius’s motto, nor even to theism of a more attenuated sort, in a just society. This is especially the case in Rawls’s later writings, where there is less of a tendency to speak of a thin notion of the good. Rather, a just society is one characterized by an overlapping consensus reached by reasonable/​rational individuals or associations who affirm various different thick conceptions of the good, only some of which are theistic. 9

Love

Something more needs to be said. It is not enough to argue that Ignatius and Aquinas are not necessarily mad and that religious believers could be good citizens in a just (or approximately just) society. It is also important to point out the positive connections between Rawlsian justice and the social goals of those like Aquinas who defend theistic metaphysics. Because a problem of justice does not even arise unless there is a significant difference of opinion on some serious issue, it does not make much sense to assume that the disputing parties are perfect altruists. Justice as fairness models the separate interests of individuals and associations that conflict in terms of the assumption of mutual disinterest in the original position. This is quite different from stating the (dogmatic) claim human beings are, by their very nature, egoistic. The parties in the original position are assumed to be mutually disinterested for the sake of method. Here is where Rawls’s method differs quite markedly from the utilitarian one. The latter appeals to an impartial sympathetic spectator in order to achieve objectivity. But there is another way to achieve this goal in that objectivity can more likely be reached in decisions made in the original position. “Instead of defining impartiality from the standpoint of a sympathetic observer, we define

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impartiality from the standpoint of the litigants themselves” (tj 190). That is, utilitarians tend to confuse impersonality with impartiality. The issue here should be of intense interest to readers of Aquinas who privilege agapic love when dealing with social issues. If agapic love involves the desire to advance the other person’s good, a difficulty arises when the claims of various persons to be loved conflict. One can legitimately wonder about what “love of mankind” could possibly mean. As Rawls puts the point, “benevolence is at sea as long as its many loves are in opposition” (tj 190). Love or benevolence is here seen as a second-​order notion in that it seeks to advance the good(s) of beloved individuals with the good(s) in question already given. If the distinctness of persons is respected, even loving agents need conceptual help. This help is ably provided by Rawls’s two (or three) principles of justice. Love is guided by what reasonable/​rational individuals themselves would agree to in a fair initial situation. “We now see why nothing would have been gained by attributing benevolence to the parties in the original position” (tj 191). To be sure, the sense of justice and love are compatible. Indeed, they can easily work in tandem even if love is wider than the sense of justice in that the former prompts supererogation that is not necessarily encouraged by the latter. The development of love can be traced through the morality of authority (where ideally parents love their children and children learn to love the parents in return), the morality of association (where fellow feeling for persons outside the family is enhanced), and the morality of principles, including the two (or three) principles of justice agreed to in the original position. These principles secure for all citizens those goods that would be desired for others in a society held together by mutual benevolence (tj sec. 70–​72). Here the sense of justice and agapic love mutually reinforce each other. Just as love for another makes one vulnerable, in that the other’s sufferings are vicariously felt by the lover (especially in the divine case, as we have seen, on the neoclassical concept of God), so also the fraternal and sororal bonds that characterize reasonable people in a just society entail that we agree to bear each other’s burdens, especially if they are due to arbitrary losses in the natural and social lotteries (tj 573–​574). Agapic love is a natural attitude that both undergirds the effort to approximate a just society, on the one hand, and extends the effort beyond what is required in its exhortation to supererogation, on the other. In other words, it frames justice. One who utterly lacked a sense of justice would probably be a person who felt that he or she was never loved and hence who felt the need to selfishly resist all appeals to reasonableness (cp 100–​110). For all our sakes it is to be hoped that such people remain few in number.

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The very early Rawls’s remarks on love help to illuminate what he says in A Theory of Justice about the relationship between love (or benevolence) and justice. Many Thomists and other religious believers are turned off by Rawls’s theory of justice because it strikes them that, even though Rawls’s social contract is not based on Hobbesian cunning, it is nonetheless cold and overly “rational,” in the pejorative sense of the term such that it prohibits love and other partial affections. One can imagine mutual anathemas being thrown back-​and-​forth: in Rawls there is much talk about justice but nothing about love, whereas in the Christian scriptures, say, there is a great deal of talk of love but little about justice. Actually, both accusations are false. The accusation against religious ethicists that they are overly agapistic is due to the fact that, largely under the influence of neo-​orthodox (and other) scholars such as Nygren, the multitudinous instances of dike and its cognates in the Christian scriptures have typically been translated as “righteousness” or “uprightness,” whereas the same term and its cognates when they appear in Plato’s dialogues are always translated as “just” or “justice,” as Wolterstorff correctly notes. That is, the impression that religious ethics is not focused on justice is to a considerable extent the result of the vagaries of translation rather than of anything integral to Christianity, in particular, or to Abrahamic theism, in general. Admittedly, this impression is accurate to the extent that neo-​orthodox thinkers like Nygren (and his influence on the very early Rawls) try to distance themselves as much as possible from Greek thought, including Greek thought about justice. There has to be some reason, after all, why scriptural translators often render dike and its cognates as “righteousness” rather than as “justice.” The above-​mentioned accusation against Rawls is also inaccurate. In the design of an appropriately defined decision-​making procedure, Rawls cannot stipulate that the participants in the original position are perfectly loving agents in that he would then be criticized for stacking the deck in his favor. (Further, there is the aforementioned problem regarding how to resolve the issues involved when loves conflict; we have seen that benevolence is at sea when multifarious “love of humankind” is considered.) Nor can he stipulate that these participants are selfish to the core in that such beings would be incapable of justice. Rather, he adopts the moderate position that they are capable of reciprocity by way of judicious deliberation. The important thing to notice here is that the mutually disinterested agents of construction found in the original position when constrained by the veil of ignorance produce a conception of justice that is very close to what would result if a just society were planned by purely loving agents! (For example, the difference principle, as noted above, is strongly analogous to the Thomistic preferential option for the poor urged

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by the contemporary Catholic Church and by the World Council of Churches.) This is one of the best kept secrets in Rawlsian philosophy, despite the explicit statement on this point in the text (tj 148–​149). In the very early Rawls it is clear that the ability to respond to love is what enables one to enter into any sort of community with others (sf 148, 251), including, we are to assume, what will later become the meta-​community of liberal citizens in an approximately just society. Thus, it is not strictly accidental that love and justice coincide in their results in his magnum opus. The impulse toward love and justice runs deep in Rawls, from his very early period to his latest works, even if the religious manifestation of love starts to look more and more supererogatory from the time of Political Liberalism on. But the fact that he never repudiated the difference principle, say, indicates that, in a peculiar way, his very early religious ethics endured until the end. It should be noted that the problem of conflicting loves is partially resolved in neoclassical theism in that in this version of theism God is not seen, in classical theistic, Thomistic fashion, as a supernatural being who is in a zero-​sum game with natural beings whom we might love. That is, in contrast to the cosmological dualism of classical theism, where a completely nonbodily being who is eternal hovers above the temporal, bodily world, on a neoclassical or process panentheistic view (wherein all is in God through divine knowledge and love) it makes sense to say that by loving one’s child one is also, in a way, loving the God in whom the child lives and moves and has her becoming. The criticisms we saw Rawls direct at Augustine’s view of God are directed at Aquinas’s view as well in that both thinkers are classical theists. As before, Rawls ironically seems to be a neoclassical or process theist in spite of himself, with the irony due to the fact that he had a distaste for natural or rational theology. But he did have a commitment to God as personal and as anything but an unmoved mover. 10

Freeman’s and Pogge’s Contributions

The complexity of the issues at hand is made apparent by appeal to Freeman’s treatment of the relationship between political liberalism and religion, a treatment that is, at times, harsher than that found in Rawls. For example, Freeman argues that very often the poor learn to accept their subservience to the rich through a misguided religion and that oppressive religious education very often spoils children as future citizens (Freeman 2007b, 179, 257). Freeman may be correct on these points (cf., Weithman 2002, ch. 2). But I think he is premature in claiming that the thesis that God created the realm of value leads

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to false belief. As I see things, one ought to bracket this thesis in politics so as to leave open the possibility that religious believers might be correct on this point, or at least that abstract objects like values or concepts in logic or mathematics are “intradeically” contained in the mind of God if not outright created by God (see Freeman 2007b, 322, 328; cf., Dombrowski 2005, ch. 3). Further, Freeman seems to identify religious belief with a commitment to miracles, a personal afterlife, and the existence of exotic spiritual beings (Freeman 2007b, 351). But these commitments characterize only some types of religious belief and not the sort of belief defended by neoclassical theists, in contrast to classical theists like Aquinas. That is, one must be careful not to offer a caricature or straw-​person version of theism based on exemplifications that are not the most cogent. Freeman is at his best on the topic of religion when he distinguishes between moral autonomy, in general, and political autonomy, in particular. If liberal freedoms are not merely individual freedoms (as many of liberalism’s detractors claim), but also associational freedoms, then there are good reasons for thinking that the government should be reluctant to intrude too much into family matters. The issue is notoriously difficult, not least because the family is arguably different from most other associations in that one does not choose to join it. But one legitimate requirement on the part of government is that the education of children include familiarity with democratic values, especially political autonomy. This is not to say that families committed to classical theistic religious beliefs have to inculcate into their children a comprehensive moral autonomy. After all, they might sincerely believe, along with Ignatius and Aquinas, that ultimately all that we do is for the greater glory of God. And they are not necessarily irrational or mad in having such a belief. Indeed, many religious believers might view comprehensive moral autonomy as a conceit. But in a just society, children need to learn that neither apostasy nor conversion are crimes (Freeman 2007b, 238–​239, 320, 362; 2007a, 184–​185, 304–​305). Pogge enables us to understand the relationship between political liberalism and religion at a deeper level still. It might be an embarrassment for a comprehensive liberal to find out that many or most theists in contemporary democracies support some version of political liberalism, but this fact is greeted with elation by political liberals. We should not overconcentrate on the restrictions that religious believers have to follow in order to become democratic citizens. Rather, we should encourage religious believers to find within their own traditions the grounds for respect for citizens in general, even if they do not share one’s own comprehensive doctrine. For example, liberal theism ought not be seen as theism-​lite, but rather as theism understood at a deeper level. Given the pacific character of the life of Jesus, there always was something fishy about

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versions of Christianity that encouraged or required intoleration and violence (Pogge 2007, 41, 57, 82, 140; Dombrowski 1991; Yoder 1972). Even Aquinas, who was a just war theorist, framed his key question regarding war in the following terms: is it always a sin to wage war? (Summa Theologiae IIaIIae, ques. 40, art. 1), which seems to imply that normally, or on prima facie grounds, war and violence are morally problematic. Pogge puts the matter as follows, in what I take to be a remarkable passage. He imagines what a liberal religious believer might say to herself just before she engaged in political discourse: I know which political outcome would be pleasing to God. But I cannot demonstrate this knowledge to my fellow citizens in a way that is accessible to them. Forcing the correct decision on them without being able to show them why it is correct—​this would not be a service to God but would, on the contrary, negate their God-​given freedom. Urging them to accept this truth without being able to show them its grounds would deny them the respect they are due as equally endowed with reason by our Creator. In public political discourse, I should therefore appeal to the values and facts all citizens can acknowledge together and should support whatever political decisions seem most reasonable on this basis. Some such political decision will go against religious truths. But, from the divine standpoint, this is a lesser evil than denying other citizens the respect due them as creatures endowed with reason and conscience. pogge 2007, 141

This fictional piece of reasoning strikes me as very much in the spirit of Thomistic natural law at its best and captures well the claim that religious believers respect the duty of civility not in spite of their religious beliefs but because of them. That is, the separation of the right or the just from the good poses no threats other than the usual ones to the unity of the self in that, once one comes to grips with the fact of reasonable pluralism, it is relatively easy to distinguish one’s own comprehensive view from the principles that would be appropriate for the determination of a just society. Pogge, more than Freeman, emphasizes the point that on the Rawlsian view one is not only permitted to provide deeper foundations for the freestanding character of justice as fairness as a political doctrine, one is encouraged to do so. The broadening of overlapping consensus is not at all at odds with deepening one’s justification of respect for persons. Perhaps it will be objected that if someone thinks that he or she is in possession of religious truth then this person will have less reason to observe the duty of civility than others. The proper

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response to this objection, again rightly noted by Pogge, is that reasonable religious believers affirm that the duty of civility just is part of religious truth (see Pogge 2007, 144, 159, 176–​177, 186–​187, 195), as is exemplified the Aquinas’s disputations in Summa Theologiae, where all relevant objections are both articulated and considered carefully. In effect, religious intolerance has come to be seen by most religious believers in democratic societies as an attenuated (at best) or distorted (at worst) form of religious belief itself. It changes things quite a bit (in a positive way) when “public reason” is distinguished from “secular reason,” with the latter signifying the reasoning found in nonreligious comprehensive doctrines. With this distinction in place, it can be seen that religious believers are not required to “assimilate” in the pejorative sense of the term, although they are required to exhibit allegiance to liberal political values. To put the point sharply, the omnicompetent laicist state is unjust, but we should resist not only this kind of state but also those religious comprehensive doctrines that completely reject the modern world, including its liberal political values like the political autonomy of citizens, especially women (see Lehning 2009, 112, 120, 130, 161, 163, 171, 203; also see tj 212). In this regard, it counts in Aquinas’s favor that only some of his contemporary followers preserve his pre-​liberal conservativism and exhibit a contempt for the modern world. Others are commendably at the cutting edge of scholarship regarding what it would take to truly approximate a just society given the various factors (religion, race, class, gender, et al.) that could easily divide us. Aquinas’s robust confidence in human reason has, in a way, civilized all of us. 11

Facilitation of a Just Society

From the perspective of political liberalism, not only is Ignatian or Thomistic religious belief not irrational, it can actually facilitate the goals of a just society in two ways that might not otherwise be easily achieved. The first of these was treated in the section above on love: the mutually disinterested agents of construction found in the original position when constrained by a veil of ignorance produce a conception of justice that is very close to what would result if a just society were planned by purely loving agents. It should not escape our notice at this point that neoclassical theists like Hartshorne have claimed that the whole point of neoclassical theism is to better understand the claim that God is love. Indeed, this claim was his deepest conviction (see Hartshorne 1984, 101). For these reasons theists, in general, and followers of Aquinas, in particular, should be strongly motivated to take Rawls seriously and to willingly contribute to the sort of society that he defends. That is, theists should embody the

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reasonableness (i.e., the willingness to abide by fair terms of agreement) that is required for high-​level discourse concerning a just society. A consideration of the second way can be introduced in terms of the following oddity: that someone who is influenced by some version of reductionism, and who views a human being as nothing other than protoplasmic stuff that is the accidental byproduct of blind evolutionary history, might nonetheless belong to Amnesty International. It is precisely this oddity that leads one to ask: why should we view human beings as politically free and equal and worthy of moral respect? As far as I can tell, there are three stages in Rawls’s career relative to this question. a. The very early Rawls gives abundant evidence of support for the thesis that human beings are made in the image of God, hence there is something heroic or semi-​divine about a human life that makes it special. This thesis is very close to the views of Augustine and Aquinas. On this basis, it makes perfect sense to pay one’s dues to Amnesty International. As an image of God, a human being is thereby capable of entering into community with the same in that a personal God is in the divine nature itself communal; hence, to be made in the image of such a being is to share in some fashion this communal nature. Further, it is because human beings are made in the image of God that the very early Rawls thinks that they can be held accountable for their actions (sf 113, 121, 193, 203, 205–​206, 208, 219). b. There is also the Kantian view of the human person in A Theory of Justice. Given what the very early Rawls says in defense of the imago Dei hypothesis, we can see why it makes sense to suspect that behind Rawls’s Kantian view of free and equal persons in A Theory of Justice lies a natural rights view or something else that has a family resemblance to the Judeo-​Christian and Thomistic view of the human person that derives from Genesis, as we have seen Wolterstorff argue earlier in the book. It also makes sense for Lucien Goldmann to suspect that behind the Kantian view of the human person as an end-​in-​itself (apparently adopted by Rawls in A Theory of Justice) lies theistic metaphysics. As Jurgen Habermas as well as neoclassical theists like Franklin Gamwell and David Ray Griffin have correctly noted, the human rights movement has been heavily insured; it has been living off of the capital of the religious ages for quite some time now, but not necessarily by paying the premium required in terms of an explicit defense of theism (see Griffin 2007; Gamwell 1995; 2002; 2005; Habermas 2002). c. It is understandable, given the fact of pervasive pluralism, why Rawls in Political Liberalism moves away from the comprehensive Kantian view of

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the human person in political philosophy, although one gets the impression that Rawls’s own comprehensive moral doctrine remained Kantian (and hence implicitly theistic or at least fideistic) until the end, including a Kantian conception of the human person. As I see things, this third stage need not be as problematic as some scholars think it is. From a political point of view, theists like myself are free both to indicate why we think that it makes sense to defend the thesis that human beings and sentient beings of whatever species deserve moral respect and to ask religious skeptics who are reductionists to provide the reasons that provide the justificatory warrant for their Amnesty International (or peta) membership. Despite their problematic classical theism, wherein God is strictly permanent and unmoved, Thomists can provide such reasons. But the latter freedom should be exercised at the associational level, rather than at the political one, in that deep metaphysical reasons for one’s political beliefs are themselves not political, contra Aquinas. The Rawlsian method of reflective equilibrium itself eliminates the requirement that there be absolutely secure starting points in political philosophy, say those that would be provided by the certainty that human beings are made in the image of God. That is, even with insecure starting points provided by our intuitions, the back-​and-​forth process of reflective equilibrium from intuition to objective rationality (as in the Rawlsian original positions), back to intuition, etc., leads to a conception of justice as fairness that is as secure as a reasonable being would, in good conscience, want it to be, given the fact of reasonable pluralism. The attempt in this chapter to compare and contrast Rawls and Aquinas is crucial in the contemporary context due to the continued volatility of the relationship between politics and religion. For example, in the 19th c. there was a tendency on the part of Catholic thinkers to argue against liberalism and against any version of a separation of church and state. This tendency was largely supplanted in the mid-​decades of the 20th c. by various versions of Catholic “fusionism,” which tried to bring together traditional Catholic principles of natural law derived from Aquinas and liberal rights. I have mentioned Maritain and Murray and King in this regard. Unfortunately, the gains made by these thinkers are now threatened by a new generation of “theoconservatives” or “integralists” who wish to rethink the Catholic truce with liberalism (see Deneen’s 2018 book titled Why Liberalism Failed). The fact that a majority of the current members of the United States Supreme Court are Catholics serves to highlight why the debate between political liberals and their critics is more than a merely theoretical skirmish. Highlighting the complex relationship between Rawls and Aquinas might contribute positively to this debate (see MacDougald 2020).

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Conclusion

As with the other three historical figures studied in this book, there is much in Aquinas’s thought that is acceptable to Rawls, so long as Aquinas’s contributions are taken in a political sense rather than in terms of the particular comprehensive doctrine that Aquinas affirmed. The common good as a political doctrine, the dignity of persons as a political doctrine, and justice and love as political concepts are noteworthy examples in this regard. All of these concepts can play a significant role in the defense of political liberalism once they are disengaged from Thomistic metaphysics. Of course, the biggest difference between Aquinas and Rawls consists in Aquinas’s defense of intolerance of those who adhere to comprehensive doctrines different from his own. This does not mean that Rawls denigrates religious faith, only that faith poses a political problem that liberalism is meant to solve. Further, despite Rawls’s forays into theological debate very early and very late in his career, Rawls does not have the confidence in natural or rational theology that is evidenced in the Thomistic synthesis of faith and reason for which Aquinas is famous. I have also noted that the very early Rawls denigrates Aquinas’s naturalism as well as the objectification of, rather than the personification of, deity. This denigration applies as well, as we have seen, to Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine. Despite the clear differences between Aquinas and Rawls, it is also important to notice the profound similarities. Rawls himself praises Aquinas’s ­magnificent achievements in philosophy and wishes to draw out the implicit egalitarianism of Thomistic concepts like the common good and the human person as dignified, albeit as political concepts rather than as located in a particular comprehensive doctrine. Aquinas and Rawls are also alike in emphasizing human embodiment, the former in defense of a version of hylomorphism and the latter in defense of the embeddedness of human individuals in the associational and cultural lives of peoples with particular histories, economic class backgrounds, and concrete identities that are both racialized and gendered. It is precisely Aquinas’s greater comfort with human embodiment that leads him to a more robust sort of political optimism than Augustine in that there is no reason, on Thomistic grounds, to think of human institutions as necessarily flawed or hopeless. The problems that Rawls notices in Aquinas’s assumption that there is only one comprehensive doctrine that should inform politics also illustrate the analogous problems with comprehensive, rather than political, liberalism. Political liberals, in contrast to comprehensive liberals, can easily borrow concepts like natural duty and natural rights from the Thomistic tradition, so long as these are seen as political values. This is why a political liberal like Rawls can

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appropriate the best from the natural law view of Martin Luther King. A comprehensive liberal would have difficulty in doing this in that on this secular view there would be an obstacle posed by King’s explicitly religious comprehensive doctrine. Further, both Aquinas and Rawls straddle two quite different views of the moral patiency status of nonhuman animals: an anthropocentric stance inherited from the Judeo-​Christian tradition, wherein nonhuman animals are seen as valuable strictly for human use, and a more nonhuman animal-​friendly stance, also inherited from the Judeo-​Christian tradition. The arguments from sentiency and marginal cases point the way beyond anthropocentrism for both Thomists and Rawlsians, the latter of whom can be especially benefitted by a revised original position wherein the participants are ignorant of species membership behind the veil of ignorance. Rawls’s distinction between inclusive ends for a human life and dominant ends is crucial in the effort to show that religious believers in a democratic society need not be viewed as irrational or mad, but rather as amenable to commendable citizenship. It must be admitted, however, that some dominant ends (both religious and nonreligious) are at odds with reflective equilibrium. Rawls is also instructive in the way that he shows how love frames justice in that it both undergirds the morality of principles for which Rawls is famous and extends beyond justice toward supererogation. In a remarkable passage Rawls makes it clear that the agents of construction in the original position, when constrained by the veil of ignorance, develop a theory of justice that is very close to what would be devised by a community of purely loving agents or by a committee of saints. As long as the distinction between comprehensive autonomy and political autonomy remains intact, there is significant room for rapprochement between Aquinas, with his robust confidence in reason, and Rawls, when interpreted as a political liberal.

chapter 5

Rawls and History: Ahistoricism and Contextualism 1

Introduction

There is a recurring theme in the history of philosophy which suggests that some thinkers are overly abstract and do not sufficiently engage with the concrete, historical world in which we obviously exist. This alleged and pejorative abstractness is claimed to be exhibited quintessentially in Plato, Kant, and Rawls. The purpose of this final chapter is to argue against this thesis. As before, my aim here is primarily to understand Rawls such that any light that is shed on Plato’s or Kant’s thought is ultimately for the sake of better understanding the deeply historical character of Rawls’s philosophy, contra the common interpretation that swims in the other direction. Also, in this chapter I will indicate which events in history are especially crucial for each of the thinkers examined in this book, especially Rawls. These crucial points help to illuminate the fruitful tension between the alleged relatively ahistorical character of deliberations in the Rawlsian original position and the deeply contextual/​historical character of the wider process of reflective equilibrium that includes the reasoning in the original position. I will argue in addition that the ongoing nature of deliberative rationality in Rawls makes his view a version of a politics of recognition and respect, despite a common stance suggesting that his philosophy is at odds with such a politics. Robust reasonableness is a hallmark of justice as fairness and builds on the very best in the pre-​liberal thinkers who are the foci of the present book. I will also favorably examine Alexandre Lefebvre’s thought-​provoking thesis that the original position can be seen as a type of spiritual exercise. 2

Plato’s Philosophy of History

The dominant position among philosophers of history and historians themselves is that a truly historical mode of thinking was alien to Greek thought. Plato and Aristotle, it is alleged, were more concerned with stable essences than with the transitoriness of the historical flux. And Herodotus and Thucydides, although the founders of Western history writing, lacked both a comprehensive view of time as linear rather than as cyclic and a method of research beyond the reports of eyewitnesses to events. This view of the Greek

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conception of history is held in various ways by many different scholars (e.g., by R.G. Collingwood). Thus, it is often held that a historical way of thinking and a rigorous historical method were unknown to Plato. Since it is Plato’s contention that the objects of knowledge (episteme) must be unchanging, history can never give us knowledge. The study of history is therefore denigrated to the realm of opinion (doxa). Because this alleged denigration of the historical in Plato also characterizes much scholarship regarding Kant and Rawls, it will be worthwhile to briefly consider Plato so as to prepare the way for a more favorable stance regarding history in Kant and Rawls than many commentators are willing to admit. Paradoxically, Plato (like Kant and Rawls) seems most interested in the past. His interests span from an account of the origin of the world in the Timaeus; a myth concerning a fundamental change in history in the Statesman; a theory of an ideal state in the past, similar to the one described in the Republic, in the Timaeus and Critias; an account of the origin of “modern” states in the Republic and Laws; a theory of the degeneration of states in the Republic and Laws; a puzzling panegyric to the history of Athens in the Menexenus; to a theory of time; etc. In addition, Plato’s theory of knowledge allows for a certain sort of (dianoetic) historical knowledge on a par with the sort of knowledge found in other disciplines, short of mathematical precision. Likewise, the ontology of historical events is on a par with the status of other natural and social realities that Plato clearly thinks we can understand, once again short of mathematical knowledge. The leitmotif that runs throughout Plato’s dialogues—​i.e., the forms—​has implications for history in the way it does for ethics, aesthetics, and politics (see Dombrowski 1981). To cite one illustrative passage, in the Republic (501b) it is clear that the job of the philosopher is to look carefully back-​and-​forth in two different directions: at the material world in flux and at the motionless forms. By considering carefully the concrete manifestations of justice in historical or contemporary institutions, we are led, at least if we are intellectuals, to consider justice itself. And by carefully considering the concept of justice itself, we are led, at least if we are interested in practical wisdom as well as the theoretical sort, to consider the conditions under which the instantiation of this concept is possible or impossible, probable or improbable. To put the point in different Platonic terms, it is important to notice that the philosopher at the beginning of Book 7 of the Republic who exits the cave is also said to have re-​entered it. Perhaps it is best to imagine oneself inhabiting both worlds simultaneously: the historical world in which we live concretely is one that is nonetheless conducive to theoria and the formal world that we think about is rooted in the earthy

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ability of mindbody or soulbody animals like ourselves to exhibit both eating and thinking functions. The logical structure for the possibility of historical progress on a Platonic basis is provided by an argument type known as elenchus, which is exhibited many times in the dialogues (e.g., in the Euthyphro). Imagine an exchange where the character Socrates asks the question, “What is X?” Then his interlocutor responds by saying “X is Y.” In turn, Socrates then points out that if we accept Y, we are led to the contradictory conclusion Z and not-​Z. This means that we can be confident that not-​Y. That is, even if we cannot know the truth or which theory of justice is the best, we can nonetheless know that certain hypotheses are definitely false, thereby providing a (Popperian) method of error elimination in the grand pursuit of truth and justice. There are well-​known passages in Plato where this historical/​material world is contrasted with, or divorced from, that abstract formal world. But it is not necessary that we interpret these passages as pointing toward a metaphysical dualism wherein discourse about the form of justice can dispense altogether with the historical manifestations of this concept. In fact, there is much that is lost by insisting on this interpretation of Plato. It should also be noted that during the Romantic period it was common to interpret Kant as a Platonist who bifurcated reality between this phenomenal world and that noumenal one. In neither case, however, is it likely that Plato or Kant were that simple-​ minded. That is, each thinker is likely to have understood that reality in its historical/​material and formal complexity requires something other than a meat-​cleaver approach wherein the historical is utterly severed from justice. The hope is that these brief forays into Plato and Kant will make it easier for us to understand and possibly appreciate Rawls’s complex relationship to history, especially given the influence of Plato on Kant and of both on Rawls. 3

Two Interpretations of Kant

A common interpretation of Rawls is that he was influenced by Kant more than by any other philosopher and that Kant’s transcendental method thus draws both thinkers away from historical entanglements. There is much that can be learned from this interpretation. Much can also be learned, however, from Rawls’s departures from Kant or at least from the ways in which we could reinterpret the deeply historical character of Kant’s (and hence Rawls’s) philosophy. In the outstanding study by Jeffrey Bercuson, the author places needed emphasis on Rawls’s indebtedness to G.W.F. Hegel and Jean-​Jacques Rousseau, as well as to Kant. In fact, there is a rich relationship, Bercuson rightly notes,

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between Rawls, on the one hand, and most of the canonical figures in the history of political philosophy, including not only Hegel and Rousseau, but also, as I have argued above, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. The efforts to overcome Platonic and Kantian dualisms are not unrelated to the effort to bridge the gap between the alleged overly abstract, ahistorical character of A Theory of Justice and the contingent, history-​driven character of Political Liberalism (see Bercuson 2014, 1–​3). In many ways the morality of citizenship defended by Rawls is the outcome of historical processes and is not opposed to them. The Kantian transcendentalism and apriorism found in A Theory of Justice is real enough, but these features of Rawls’s thought should not prevent us from also noticing that the primary good in Rawls is the social basis for self-​respect (tj 440), otherwise known as a kind of politics of recognition, impediments to which are often due to historical injustices, as is well known. Further, we have seen that historical community was a central concern of Rawls from his very early career until the end of his life, although it must be admitted that at least by the time of Political Liberalism he was intent on defending the view that in politics we should expect to find only a meta-​community of more concrete communities due to the fact of pervasive pluralism. Of course, Kant’s philosophy, in general, and his moral philosophy, in particular, have been variously interpreted. The view I am calling into question is that which suggests that even in Kant’s practical philosophy there is an indifference to, or even an opposition to, the historical contingencies of social and political life. This ironically is the view of Kant held by Rawls himself, whose own political philosophy is often analogously (and wrongly, I think) characterized by this overly abstract quality. In addition to the transcendental account of Kant, however, there are also anthropological Kantians who look for Kant in the world. To be fair, there is considerable evidence for both views, hence I will not try to pick sides. But I do want to counteract the hegemony of the transcendental interpretation of Kant and a fortiori the influence this interpretation has on many or most interpreters of Rawls. That is, there is more to both Kant and Rawls than the transcendental, abstract, and a priori. Barbara Herman and Onora O’Neill are prominent anthropological Kantians who see something other than the strict independence of the human from both the natural and social worlds. These scholars emphasize that for Kant moral feeling is a matter of learning and gradual cultivation. In Rawls as well there is concern for moral education and maturation, which are historical processes, even if he is not quick to also notice these features in Kant (see Herman 1985; O’Neill 1990).

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The view that our very status as moral agents depends on our being members of a liberal meta-​community is clearly un-​Kantian, but it is nonetheless true that some social and political conditions might lead us to be more inclined toward morality, in general, and toward justice, in particular. That is, the subjective inclination to be moral can improve over time. It is true that Kant’s ethics, including Rawls’s interpretation of Kant’s ethics, is focused on individual moral agents. And it is also true that Rawls’s philosophy is primarily concerned with the justice of historical and present institutions. But these two positions are not mutually exclusive. Different emphases do not necessarily lead to incompatibility (Bercuson 2014, 20–​21). In Kant’s case, several essays that cluster around his third critique show his deeply historical sense, as in “What Is Enlightenment?,” “Conjectural Beginning of Human History,” “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View,” “The End of All Things,” “Perpetual Peace,” etc. (see Kant 1963). He was self-​consciously and avowedly part of the Enlightenment. This historical sense in Kant is close to Rawls’s use of reflective equilibrium, but processual reflective equilibrium in a very wide sense wherein the concept of justice must be congruent with a conception of ourselves with a particular historical past and particular aspirations for the future. The shared convictions about justice in democracies are clearly parts of a historical liberal tradition. Thus, it is incorrect to regard the original position as nothing other than the institutionalization of a priori principles grasped through intuition. Instead, it also includes a historical survey of competing accounts of justice. The original position serves as a means of public self-​reflection and self-​clarification that is the outcome of shared historical experience. Whereas the anthropological Kantians emphasize the gradual evolution of the moral sentiments, historical Rawlsians like Bercuson emphasize something analogous. As Bercuson puts the point: The task of political philosophy is not to provide a metaphysics of morals, or, by extension, a metaphysics of justice. Instead, according to Rawls, the primary task of political philosophy is to provide a philosophical account—​a synthesis—​of the principles and institutions that have characterized the evolution of this or that liberal democratic community …. [This] represents the [partial] rejection of the transcendental and a priori, as well as the embrace of the historical and the contingent …. [W]‌e learn from the world by embracing it and not by abstracting away from it …. [T]he fundamental task of philosophy … is to bring to the surface the latent wisdom in our history. bercuson 2014, 25—​material in brackets added

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Just as both of the aforementioned interpretations of Kant’s practical philosophy—​the transcendental, which overrelies on the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, and the anthropological—​ say something important about Kant’s philosophy, each also misses something important in Kant. Likewise, the formal and concrete historical approaches to Rawls each have strengths and weaknesses. 4

Crucial Points in History

For each of the thinkers treated in the present book, there is a crucial point in history where things change radically. Hence, there is in each case the imperative to understand philosophically these crucial points. For Plato and Aristotle, it was the recent discovery of philosophy that was crucial, particularly in the thought of Socrates, whereby traditional mythic stories had to submit to rational analysis. The origins of this word in Greek convey both the destruction of the entity under examination by breaking it into parts, on the one hand, and the ironic liberation of the entity studied, on the other. Plato, in particular, continued a close relationship with myth, but it is myth used for some rational purpose, in contrast to mythic stories blindly accepted merely because they were seen as time-​tested or as divinely approved. For Augustine and Aquinas, the biggest historical event was the life of Jesus, where Greek reason is supplemented by, or fulfilled by, agapic love. Although it is common (as in Nygren) to put reason and agapic faith in opposition to each other, it is characteristic of Augustine and especially Aquinas to find rapprochement between the two. It is not often noticed that this rapprochement informs Rawls’s own view, wherein the deliberative rationality that characterizes the agents of construction in the original position is rendered compatible with love or benevolence. Not only in Rawls’s very early work, but also in A Theory of Justice (148–​149), he sees it as important to note the mutual reinforcement between rationality and love. The mutually disinterested fictional beings in the original position, when constrained by the veil of ignorance, devise the basic principles for a just society that are almost identical to those that would be chosen by a committee of loving agents or a community of saints. What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?, it might be asked in Tertullian-​like fashion. Rawls’s surprising response seems to be: quite a lot! We are not burning our bridges behind us. The signal event of ancient Greek discovery of rationality is incorporated into Augustine’s and Aquinas’s views; and the Abrahamic discovery of agapic love is incorporated along with the

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discovery of rationality into Kant’s Enlightenment stance. The aspect of the Enlightenment that makes this period the fulcrum of history for Kant is the rise of modern science, especially as found in the famous Copernican Revolution that so powerfully influenced Kant and in the systematization of scientific knowledge in Isaac Newton. The Copernican Revolution in Kant refers not only to his first critique, but also to his ethics and political theory: rather than starting from a conception of the good given independently of the right—​as occurred in pre-​liberal political thought—​we should start from a conception of the right (see Silber 1959). Rawls brings together ancient Greek rationality, agapic love, as well as Kantian admiration for the Enlightenment. But the feature of the Enlightenment that is most crucial to Rawls, in addition to the rise of modern science, is obviously the rise of liberal political philosophy at the end of the wars of religion, as detailed in the Introduction to Political Liberalism and elsewhere. (The key texts to consider in this regard are documents like Locke’s famous “A Letter Concerning Toleration” and the less well-​known “Colloquium of the Seven” by Jean Bodin.) This does not mean, however, that Rawls is necessarily committed to “the Enlightenment project,” if this popular phrase refers to a comprehensive doctrine like comprehensive liberalism or comprehensive scientism. As before, Rawls is a political liberal. 5

Ahistoricism and Contextualism

Although the secondary literature on Rawls is vast, relatively little of it is historical. Further, the historical literature that does exist tends to concentrate on the 20th century history of analytic philosophy or, perhaps, to dip back as far as Kant. The paucity of attention paid to Rawls and history is somewhat understandable when it is realized that Rawls himself was a product of his time, including the rejection of 19th c. historicisms typical of 20th c. analytic thinkers. This rejection goes hand-​in-​glove with an attraction to formalism and an emulation of scientific reasoning, especially in terms of the quest for objectivity. Some scholars, however, notice that there was a gradual transition in Rawls away from the type of analytic philosophy that characterized earlier decades in the 20th c., which emphasized definitions. This transition was encouraged by the later Ludwig Wittgenstein (whose Philosophical Investigations was not translated by G. E. M. Anscombe until 1953) and the work of W. V. O. Quine, in the direction of naturalism and holism. In addition, early in his career Rawls taught with two noted Wittgensteinians: Norman Malcolm and Georg Henrik von Wright (see Bevir and Galisanka 2012). This transition is closely connected

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to what Rawls calls the method of reflective equilibrium, which, once again, is explicitly connected by Rawls to Aristotelian dialectic. The search for a hypothetical choice situation, a search that culminated in the famous original position, admittedly runs deep in Rawls, but so does Aristotelian dialectic or the processual, historical quest for reflective equilibrium. The latter quest means that reasoning is an activity, it is something that we do, in contrast to the more passive sort of reality found in algorithmic technique, once again found paradigmatically in the laws of long division. When reasoning activity finds certain beliefs to be inescapable (i.e., when we cannot figure out how they could be incorrect) we try to account for this remarkable fact. One way to do so is via Aristotle’s view that morality itself has a basis in our nature along with the natural emotions that Rawls took quite seriously. Once one moves away from the thesis that there is a complete set of principles whereby ethics (including political philosophy) could be done deductively, one is open to the view that there are degrees of justification and a need to balance various reasons and historical forces that are in tension with each other. Although some interpreters of Rawls believe that A Theory of Justice was intended to transcend historical context in the sense that the principles of justice found there applied at all times independent of any historical narrative, this belief does not seem to have been Rawls’s own view and increasingly it is suspect among his interpreters as well. Rawls’s later writings (Political Liberalism, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy) and the recent opening up of archival material force us to take the historical dimension of Rawls’s thought seriously, as we have seen. One must rest content with a unique blend in Rawls of ahistoricism and contextualism, of realism and perspectivalism. The tendency to have an inflationary assessment of the former element in each of these pairs itself is a historical contingency fostered by the formal, logical, and structural theorizing that dominated the analytic philosophical world of Rawls’s career in the late 1940s through the early 1970s (see Bevir and Galisanka 2012, 725). Philosophers as different as Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Richard Rorty have shown tremendous admiration for Rawls’s philosophy, but they have also complained about his ahistorical approach (Bevir and Galisanka 2012, 725). The point I have tried to emphasize throughout the present book is that these critics are at best only half correct in this complaint. It is important to get away from the tradition of Rawls scholarship that treats the original position as a founding event rather than as a hypothetical thought experiment that is but one moment in the overall method of reflective equilibrium or Aristotelian dialectic. Seen in this more modest role, the original position is very productive in the effort to determine what a just

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society requires given our democratic history. Political philosophy, in general, and the use of the original position device, in particular, can be seen as exercises in civic education or Bildung in the advancement of the institutional history of a political meta-​community. Political philosophy itself, on this account, can be seen as an exercise in civic virtue (see Bercuson 2014, 31–​33). The effort to historicize liberalism should include, I claim, liberalism’s historical genesis in pre-​liberal political philosophy. There is a complex relationship of differences and similarities between Rawls and the four pre-​liberal and pre-​modern thinkers considered in this book. Just as we should take Rawls seriously when he argues against Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas regarding their belief in an antecedent moral order that political institutions should imitate, so also we should avoid an analogous antecedent role played by the original position. Rapprochement with pre-​liberal thinkers can, however, be reached when we notice the importance of reasonableness or the gradual adoption by citizens of principles of justice and the institutions that embody these principles. Whereas the rejection of an antecedent moral order that functions as an ideal can be seen as anti-​Platonic, the importance of reasonableness can nonetheless be seen as implicit in the very structure and goals of Platonic dialogue. Rawls follows Hegel and the pre-​liberal thinkers considered in this book in seeing human beings as socially rooted in a deep way, including familial rootedness. This is why the enduring interpretation of Rawls as fostering an individualistic and atomistic society is seriously misleading. But human beings find themselves as parts of different root systems and it is precisely these differences (and not merely differences among individuals) that makes pervasive pluralism a problem that should not be ignored. Although the problem of pervasive pluralism of rooted communities is the focus of Political Liberalism, it would be a mistake to think that it was ignored altogether in A Theory of Justice. The problem is recast in the later book as an internal revision of, or expansion of, justice as fairness (see Bercuson 2014, 47–​48). Given what has been attempted in the present book, it is important to notice that the Rawlsian view is that in a just society favorable conditions are supplied for the realization of basic human potentialities via the Aristotelian principle (which no doubt would have been acceptable to Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas as well) no matter what comprehensive doctrine or rooted social background citizens affirm, so long as the comprehensive doctrine in question is reasonable. Human nature seems to be permissive in the sense that it can develop in multiple seemingly contradictory ways. But it is hard to imagine human flourishing that does not include the sort of nutritive, sentient, and rational functioning described in Aristotle’s De anima. Once again, there are both important

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similarities and differences between Rawls and the pre-​liberal thinkers studied in this book. Another way to put the point is to say that Rawlsian justice as fairness (and the sort of meta-​common good defended in justice as fairness) is the outcome of historical processes (see Bercuson 2014, 51). 6

Recognition

Another factor in the effort to understand Rawls’s relationship with history is Rousseauvian recognition. He emphasizes the natural psychological need for recognition and respect as well as the role of principle-​guided institutions to secure such recognition and respect. The remedy for lack of recognition and respect is the historical project of institutionalizing the rights of citizenship. A related concern of Rawls is the role of negative sentiments like envy and shame, which act as corrosive agents on the most important primary good: the social basis of self-​respect (tj 386). To really be a citizen one must feel secure concerning one’s place in society. Rawls is well aware of the fact that reaching the goal of recognition and respect for all citizens may be a long-​term project that could take many centuries, hence the connection between recognition and history (lpp 241). Political autonomy for all citizens occurs over time. Achieving this goal requires a proper balance of what we previously saw as the liberties of the ancients as well as those of the moderns. We have also seen that Rawls finds this balance at a point closer to the classical republican tradition, which endorses political participation as an important good among a multiplicity of competing goods, than to the civic humanist tradition, which sees political activity as the privileged locus of the good life in that human beings are seen by civic humanists as essentially political. Whereas the former tries to find the appropriate place for ancient as well as modern liberties, the latter is often associated with a romantic idealization of the ancients, who provide a model that we must emulate in order to be just. One of the problems with civic humanism is that it is hard to imagine how we could achieve a just society in the contemporary polyglot world in which we live on the basis of heroic self-​sacrifice and dedication to the political characteristic of more homogenous ancient Athens. Of course, some interpreters will see this skepticism regarding civic humanism and regarding the hegemony of the liberties of the ancients as a capitulation to modern egoism. A more felicitous way to put the point is to say that the proper task is to find a way to distinguish between a healthy self-​interest and a disastrous selfishness. Just institutions make it easier to hold selfish behavior in check, just as they tend to liberalize authoritarian and deleterious sectarian

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tendencies. It is decidedly not the case, as Allan Bloom alleged (see Bloom 1975), that the social contract tradition, of which Rawls is a major player, is necessarily built on selfishness and fear. Bloom, it seems, has followed Plato in the assumption that social contract theory is necessarily connected to a quality of manic egoism. Rawls’s version of social contract theory, by contrast, starts not with egoism but with the fact of pervasive pluralism, with all associations and individuals deserving of recognition and respect so long as they are reasonable (see Bercuson 2014, 62–​82). 7

Robust Reasonableness

Bercuson is surely correct that a more attractive view of Rawls is achieved when we see him as defending robust reasonableness, in contrast to the view of Rawls as endorsing ahistorical, universally applicable principles of justice. The reasonable, once again, refers to the willingness to honor terms of cooperation that are fair as well as the willingness to acknowledge the burdens of judgment. The presence of will in the definition of the reasonable, in contrast to the at times mechanical character of the rational, shows a debt to the great discoverer of the will, Augustine. By “burdens of judgment” Rawls means the idea that, when given a complex body of information, different individuals of good faith will understandably weigh the evidence differently, some emphasizing this datum, others emphasizing that. A helpful analogy is how people carry heavy objects: some with their left hand, some with their right hand, some with both hands, some carrying the weight on their hip, some putting it on their heads, etc. Over time it is possible to carry the burdens of judgment in ways that improve over previous habits. Unreasonable people are those who think that there is only one way to decide on complicated subject matters. It is their way or the highway! The democracy Rawls defends, by contrast, is literally deliberative and involves weighing evidence back-​and-​forth and consulting the weighing results of other investigators (see Bercuson 2014, 89–​96). In Law of Peoples Rawls expresses the hope that peoples around the world will develop over time the (Aristotelian) habit of reasonableness and abandon the view of politics as the (only somewhat tamed) struggle for power. This hope includes the idea that peoples around the globe should have a meaningful sense of their own political agency. In order for this to occur, however, there needs to be something better than mere begrudging acceptance of peoples. Really respectful recognition, once again, occurs willingly. It should be noted that recognition and respect and reasonableness are facilitated not only by how others view us, but also by how we view ourselves. Siding with Aristotle,

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Rawls thinks that there is such a thing as proper self-​respect, just as there is a sort of proper patriotism at the national level. These virtues mediate between extremes of excess and defect. This is one of the (controversial) reasons why Rawls opposes applying the difference principle at the international level. He thinks it would be detrimental to the long-​term development of collective self-​ respect in those peoples who are, at present, for whatever reason, not finding it easy to take care of their citizens. Rawls does not want to infantilize peoples in other parts of the world. This seems to point toward a sort of international multiculturalism wherein each people is given the opportunity to develop its own sort of polity, constrained only by the principles of justice that survive the method of reflective equilibrium, given the history of the people in question. The sort of deliberative democracy Rawls has in mind should be thought of diachronically without alleged adherence to principles of justice that function as pre-​established normative guides (cf., Forst 2001, 364). As Bercuson notes regarding Rawls’s view, a people’s identity is the result of a long sociopolitical and religious and economic process wherein the people in question build up systems of knowledge and belief. Further, this shared history can be the legitimate source of collective pride or shame or both, as the case may be (Bercuson 2014, 106). In political liberalism the state should remain neutral among comprehensive doctrines, but only if they are reasonable. That is, the state should not remain neutral regarding unreasonable comprehensive doctrines. Over time at least some comprehensive doctrines that are unreasonable can gradually become reasonable because liberal institutions that are at least approximately just have a way of positively affecting unreasonable ones, as if by osmosis. Political conceptions are affirmed by citizens through the respective comprehensive doctrines that citizens affirm, hence the importance of developing over time a robust reasonableness in various comprehensive doctrines. It is because of the political importance of these doctrines that Rawls does not, as is commonly assumed, prohibit them from entering the public square. But this entry often requires that the translation proviso be met. Especially when the coercive apparatus of the state (with its de jure monopoly on the use of force) is used to restrict the freedom of citizens, the terms of such restriction must meet the demands of public reason and not be idiosyncratic to some comprehensive doctrines rather than others. Think of Martin Luther King very successfully translating his religious comprehensive doctrine into the language of rights and basic freedoms such that even reasonable atheists or agnostics could easily understand his view and possibly accept it. Liberalism’s greatest historical achievement consists in the fair resolution of disputes among conflicting comprehensive doctrines that occurred at the end of the wars of

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religion in the early modern period and which still affects democratic politics until the present (see Bercuson 2014, 120). Comprehensive doctrines develop organically over time such that it is not easy to impose reasonableness on them from the outside. It is far better if adherents to unreasonable comprehensive doctrines uncover the resources within their own traditions that encourage the gradual acquisition of reasonableness and toleration of comprehensive doctrines different from one’s own. The way that natural law theory has developed over the past few centuries is a convenient example of how the more unreasonable aspects of Augustine’s and Aquinas’s views have been tamed and improved. It is the internal criticism of these undesirable aspects by Augustine’s and Aquinas’s own followers that is noteworthy. I have mentioned above that the human rights movement, in general, and the influential Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular, owe as much to Thomists like Jacques Maritain and others as to any other historical influence, including Kant and his followers (again, see Glendon 2001). There need be no intellectual schizophrenia between what one believes religiously and model citizenship. In times of social unrest it is easy to exaggerate the degree to which citizens disagree in that very often the disagreement concerns the application of commonly agreed to principles. Religious and secular comprehensive doctrines alike can be destabilizing forces, but there is no necessity that they be such. Indeed, they can be glues that keep us together, at least beneath the surface if issues in applied ethics appear very contentious at surface level. With the possible exception of fundamentalism, in the Abrahamic religions there has for several centuries been a tendency to reinforce politically liberal institutions. Even in Islam there is a possibility for historical progress, say if the early Mecca interpretation of Sharia is emphasized, where the equality of men and women is indicated, in contrast to the later Medina interpretation (see An-​ Naim 1990, 52–​57). Religious comprehensive doctrines need not be sunk by their pre-​modern origins, although admittedly it is possible that adherents to these doctrines retain some of the worst features of pre-​modern political philosophy. Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, the abolitionists and the civil rights movement point the way toward a more defensible appropriation of all four of the pre-​modern thinkers highlighted in this book. To cite another example, it is possible that defenders of religious comprehensive doctrines can play a crucial role in combating the tendency in secular comprehensive doctrines to overemphasize the importance of instrumental reason, the demands of vocational life, and financial success. That is, the religious value of love can help to counteract widespread character traits like acquisitiveness and manipulativeness (see Bercuson 2014, 132).

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Over time political structures influence choices and habits. These habits can even change what we think about human nature. Although at present we find ourselves in a self-​gratifying, acquisitive environment, there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that this social (or anti-​social) ethos will continue into the indefinite future. This is in contrast to G. A. Cohen’s view of Rawls as assuming a static (and somewhat egoistic) view of human nature. The radical demands of the difference principle, for example, when seen as part of what Rawls calls a property-​owning democracy (rather than a welfare state, as is often, and inaccurately, assumed), when instantiated over time, can understandably lead us to expect an oxymoronic realistic utopia (see lp 11–​23). Whereas a welfare state merely tries to redress the inequalities in present society that are to some extent due to injustices that have occurred in the past, a property-​owning democracy guided by the principles of justice as fairness tries to redesign the basic structure of society. In any event, the enormous changes that have occurred from the time of Plato (and the slave-​owning society of the ancient Greeks) until the present might lead us to reasonably hope for equally momentous changes for the better far into the future. 8

Lefebvre and Spiritual Exercises

One fruitful way to appreciate the deep historical connections between Rawls’s thought and ancient/​medieval thought is to adopt Alexandre Lefebvre’s stance that the original position is a type of “spiritual exercise.” The question of how it is possible for a human life to be worthwhile is clearly one that Rawls had considered, often under the rubric of burdens of judgment (see, e.g., pl lx). Lefebvre’s thesis is that the original position can be interpreted as a spiritual exercise designed to help people in liberal democracies to work on, transform, and render their lives meaningful. The original position can be seen as a personally formative practice. Because political liberalism is under attack worldwide, Lefebvre thinks, now is an opportune time to revitalize and defend the original position as a personal ethos for citizens in liberal democracies. This stance expands on the view of Joshua Cohen and Thomas Nagel that there is a “deeply religious temperament” in Rawls’s thought (sf 5). Lefebvre’s sense is that few contemporary individuals want to reject the Rawlsian idea that society should be a fair system of cooperation, but there is widespread skepticism about whether there is any real possibility that we can achieve this. Lefebvre refers to this as “zombie liberalism.” Something new is needed so as to infuse dynamism and direction to liberal political theory. But this newness is actually the revitalization of some old stuff, both old from

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Rawls and old from the history of philosophy and religion. Rawls is well aware of the need for a good life and of the difficulty in achieving such (tj 395–​399). Nonetheless, it might come as a surprise to some scholars to hear of the original position as a spiritual exercise and of Rawls referred to as a sage. This shock is probably due to the fact that spiritual exercises remind one of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises from the 16th c., a Christian version of an ancient Greco-​Roman tradition. The thinker who is most famous for renewing interest in the tradition of spiritual exercises is Pierre Hadot (see Hadot 1995; also Dombrowski 2009b). Two claims are noteworthy in his view: that from the time of ancient philosophy to certain early modern thinkers, philosophy was conceived in terms of a commitment to lead a certain sort of life and that philosophy itself was comprised of spiritual exercises. These spiritual exercises could be physical (as in dietary practices), discursive (as in philosophical dialogues), or intuitive (as in meditative practices). Lefebvre is astute to notice the personally transformative practices found both explicitly and implicitly in Rawls. Further, there is in Rawls a powerful existential attitude about what it means to live justly. In this regard the sage serves as an exemplar for a philosophical way of life (see Levi 1974). In addition to the alleged oddity of placing Rawls in the tradition of ancient and medieval thought, another surprise for some scholars, one that is anticipated by Lefebvre, is that by putting Rawls into the tradition of spiritual ­exercises we have made him into the sort of perfectionist that he would otherwise criticize. Lefebvre responds to this criticism by deemphasizing Rawls as a rights-​based thinker and emphasizing Rawls’s status as a conception-​based philosopher. He grants that it is pointless to look for a sage-​like figure in Rawls’s philosophy if he is seen as primarily a rights-​based thinker. But the situation looks quite different if the society Rawls has in mind is based on a concept of persons as citizens who are reasonable and who want to get along with others in a situation of pervasive pluralism so long as the terms of agreement with others are fair. That is, by reading Rawls as a concept-​based thinker we can bring him within the orbit of the work on spiritual exercises done by Hadot. Rawls is showing us a way of living in the political world of our time. It is also astute of Lefebvre to emphasize that, although a concept of justice has to be freestanding with respect to any particular comprehensive doctrine, this does not mean that it could be freestanding of all comprehensive doctrines. Nor must comprehensive doctrines be freestanding with respect to a liberal theory of justice. There is no reason why those with different comprehensive doctrines could not adopt the original position as a device of self-​ transformation. The sort of “perfection” defended here does not conflict with

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Rawls’s well-​known critique of perfectionism in a condition of reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines. It is democratic citizens qua citizens who are transformed, no matter their comprehensive doctrine, so long as the comprehensive doctrine in question is reasonable. The practices involved in original position thinking must, of course, be nested within the practices involved in reflective equilibrium. But the original position is, not unlike Descartes’ methodical doubt, a meditative exercise practiced on one’s own. First, one imagines oneself with a group of rational people who do not know their particular identities. Then one selects—​along with these imagined people—​the principles that would regulate the basic institutions of one’s society. These famous steps are parts of a hypothetical exercise and do not actually take place in, say, a New England town meeting. To use Hadot’s language, the point of the original position exercise is nothing less than to convert one’s life to a certain view of society or at least to make explicit a view that was there implicitly all along. It is important to notice that the attempt to see the original position as a spiritual exercise fits nicely with the aims of Part iii of A Theory of Justice. Whereas Part I identifies the principles of justice for a well-​ordered society and Part ii identifies the institutions associated with justice as fairness, Part iii is primarily concerned with congruence: why is it good for a person to be just? The goal is to get us to become the kind of people who want to adopt the perspective of the original position. Lefebvre’s memorable phrase in this regard is “soulcraft for liberals.” In Rawlsian terms, the hope is that there would be a unification or congruence of our reasonable and rational selves. Granted: [N]‌o relatively advantaged member of society would ever choose to enter the original position if he or she were thinking like a person in the original position. That is not an objection to the original position but instead a clarification as to what it is trying to accomplish. lefebvre 2021, 15

That is, in addition to being rational, we can also be reasonable, and there is no reason why with practice we cannot have congruence between these two. Hadot is helpful in pointing the way toward a cross-​cultural understanding of spiritual exercises in that they tend to share the following template: one tries to overcome the partial, biased, egocentric self in order to reach a higher self that is less partial, less biased, less egocentric. Rawls has received a significant amount of criticism by hyperbolizing the achievement of this higher point of view by describing it as an Archimedean point or as a noumenal self (tj 255,

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260–​263, 520, 584, 587). This hyperbole can be avoided, I think, by placing the original position within the overall context of Aristotelian reflective equilibrium. I think it is also misleading of Rawls (and to a lesser extent, of Lefebvre) to refer to this higher view as one that is sub specie aeternitatis in that this designation unwittingly plays into the hands of the classical theistic view of a deity that exists eternally outside of time and history. Neoclassical everlastingness throughout all of time and history is more defensible, as I have argued above. The “higher” view made possible by the practice of the original position is a better version of our historical selves and entails no commitment to any particular comprehensive doctrine, as the cross-​cultural evidence from Hadot shows. This is not the place to cite evidence from wisdom traditions around the world—​both theistic and nontheistic—​that supports the aforementioned template for spiritual exercises. With effort we can avoid being distorted or aided by our social position when theorizing about justice. This effort can be transformational. The transformation is brought about by screening out natural and social contingencies, by gradually becoming more impartial. The original position is designed to correct for the arbitrariness of the world. Although each time we enter the original position we are to deliberate as if it is our only chance to do so (this is to eliminate the temptation to test the waters regarding our demographics and identities and then tailor what we say accordingly), in reality we need to practice the original position often. This is especially the case when the four-​stage sequence is factored in (tj, sec. 31), where the original position is used not only at the most abstract level of political philosophy, but also at the levels of deliberations about constitutional essentials, legislative initiatives, and court decisions, not to mention ordinary citizenship duties like voting. The important thing to consider in a Lefebvre-​like way is that the original position is not a monastic retreat separated from our empirical lives, influenced as they are by various historical forces. Reflective equilibrium, in general, is even less of a hermitage separated from historical realities. To adopt Rawls’s method of reflective equilibrium, with its original position component, is to adopt a perspective in the world. Because the world, to some extent at least, corresponds to our moral aspirations, there is nothing unnatural or ahistorical about the Rawlsian method. In the effort to asymptotically concretize these aspirations, we can come to see original position objectivity as both a scholarly and a spiritual value. Politically liberal soulcraft involves the development of an impartial mind and heart committed to the practice of temporary self-​detachment from, and subsequent re-​attachment to, historical democracies.

158  9

Chapter 5

Conclusion

The relationship between the abstract and the concrete constitutes one of the most important tensions in the history of philosophy. There are clearly problems with overemphasizing the former at the expense of the latter. Several scholars have accused Plato, Kant, and Rawls of doing precisely this. But I have argued that these three thinkers were not so foolish as to sever ties with the concrete, historical world in which we live. I admit that it is understandable why some interpreters accuse Plato, Kant, and Rawls of being ahistorical thinkers. This is due to the fact that these thinkers’ most famous concepts are highly abstract, seemingly ahistorical, theoretical entities: the forms, the noumenal realm, and the original position, respectively. In all three cases, however, the whole point to thoroughly coming to terms with these inconcretia is to better understand and to deal practically with the concrete, historical institutions in which we live and move and have our being. That is, although understandable, it is not justifiable to have the ahistorical have the last word in our interpretations of Plato, Kant, and Rawls. Rawls is quite clear that the work of abstraction is put into motion due to disagreements on the ground level regarding the contours of a just society. The greater the disagreements, the greater the need for an abstract point of view high enough to get a clear vision of the disputes (pl lxii). It is this problem at the level of concrete, historical politics that the original position is meant to address. As I write in 2021, in the midst of the pandemic and shortly after the exit as President of the United States the most dire threat to political liberalism in recent American history, the disagreements among citizens on the ground (both in the United States and around the globe) are very wide, hence the need more than ever for a political point of reference that is abstract. One need not apologize for the supposedly unworldly character of philosophical reasoning that is ultimately intended to sort out worldly issues regarding fairness. It is important to notice that it is embodied people with “thick” selves (to use Michael Sandel’s designation) who populate Rawls’s original position. They have class, religious, racial, gender, and familial backgrounds. But they are asked to engage in a thought experiment, much like Plato’s famous thought experiments in the Republic regarding Gyges’ ring or the cave. In Rawls’s thought experiment, one imagines how one would think about justice if one were ignorant of one’s race or gender or generation, et al. After one engages in this thought experiment, along with others who also willingly submit to the discipline of the veil of ignorance, one then “returns” to one’s embodied, historical, thick identity, in contrast to one’s “thin” identity behind the veil. I place scare quotes around the word “return” because one never really

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loses one’s economic class background or religious upbringing, etc. These are “lost” imaginatively and for the sake of method. However, one “returns” to one’s thick identity with a difference in that the deliberation in the original position may very well put one’s previous beliefs regarding justice into disequilibrium and hence in need of further, ongoing analysis. Very Platonic, indeed.

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Index of Names Abraham 121, 132, 146, 153 Achilles 62 Achinstein, Sharon 103 Adam 74 Adam, James 29 Adams, Robert Merrihew 87–​88 Aeschylus 34 Alejandro, Roberto 34 Andrew, Edward 21–​22 Annas, Julia 27–​30 An-​Naim, Abdullahi Ahmed 153 Aquinas, St. Thomas 1, 4, 6, 42–​43, 77, 80–​81, 83–​84, 87–​92, 95, 97, 101, 107–​140, 144, 146, 149, 153 Archimedes 156 Arendt, Hannah 43 Aristophanes 15 Aristotle 1–​9, 22, 30, 39, 41–​71, 73, 76–​77, 80–​83, 87, 89–​90, 107, 112, 118–​120, 122–​ 123, 125, 137, 139, 141, 144, 146, 148–​149, 151–​152, 157 Anscombe, G. E. M. 147 Audard, Catherine 38 Audi, Robert 46 Augustine, St. 1–​6, 43, 72–​106, 107–​108, 110–​ 111, 114–​115, 116, 118, 122, 133, 139, 144, 146, 149, 151, 153 Barad, Judith 116 Barker, Ernest 9 Bercuson, Jeffrey 143–​145, 149–​153 Bergson, Henri 85 Berkowitz, Peter 88 Berlin, Isaiah 63 Bernadete, Seth 18 Bernardin, Joseph 102 Bevir, Mark 5, 147–​148 Black, Max 5 Bloom, Allan 17, 19, 28, 151 Bodin, Jean 111, 147 Boettcher, James 8 Bok, MacKenzie 5, 105 Bok, Sissela 27, 29–​30 Boniface 92 Botti, Daniele 5, 38, 43, 60, 125

Bourke, Vernon 79 Brickhouse, Thomas 26–​27 Brink, David 55 Brock, Peter 92 Brooks, Thom 67 Brown, Peter 79, 89, 102 Brunner, Emil 74, 110 Buber, Martin 87–​88 Buddha 127 Burkert, Walter 32 Byskov, Morten 67 Cahoone, Lawrence 19 Callicles 33 Calvin, John 88, 104, 107, 111 Carrick, Paul 97 Cephalus 19, 21 Cohen, G. A. 154 Cohen, Joshua 154 Collingwood, R. G. 142 Constant, Benjamin 62–​63 Constantine 90 Copernicus, Nicholas 147 Costa, M. Victoria 9, 66 Crossman, R. H. S. 11–​12 Daniels, Norman 54, 56, 61 Darwin, Charles 65 DeChiara-​Quenzer, Deborah 26–​27 Demos, Raphael 8 Deneen, Patrick 138 DePaul, Michael 52, 54 Descartes, Rene 59, 156 Dewey, John 125 Disraeli, Benjamin 29 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 3, 11, 72 Downing, Lyle 37, 66 Doyle, Michael 93 Dreben, Burton 58–​59 Dworkin, Ronald 44–​51 Ebertz, Roger 55, 60 Elshtain, Jean Bethke 90 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 11–​12 Epicurus 34

175

Index of Names Erasmus, Desiderius 29 Eslick, Leonard 81 Euthyphro 38

Hoffman, Martin 80 Homer 1, 32–​33, 40, 62 Hume, David 34

Ferguson, J. 12–​15 Field, G. C. 65 Finnis, John 108 Fite, Warner 11–​12 Fleming, James 34 Foot, Philippa 109 Forrester, Katrina 5, 104 Forst, Rainer 152 Freeman, Samuel 32, 52–​53, 58, 93, 104, 108, 122, 128, 133–​135

Ignatius of Loyola, St. 4–​5, 121–​122, 126–​130, 134, 136, 155 Irwin, Terence 12, 32

Galisanka, Andrius 5–​6, 104, 147–​148 Gamwell, Franklin 137 Gandhi, Mohandas 28 Gilligan, Carol 80 Glaucon 11, 13, 21, 34–​37 Gledhill, James 33 Glendon, Mary Ann 129, 153 Goethe, Johann 9 Goldmann, Lucien 137 Goodman, Nelson 44 Greene, Theodore 5 Griffin, David Ray 45, 103, 137 Gyges 37, 158

Kant, Immanuel 1, 6, 10, 24, 27–​28, 38, 41–​ 42, 51, 55, 70, 73–​74, 86, 88–​89, 103, 110, 115, 118–​119, 137–​138, 141–​147, 153, 158 King, Martin Luther 94, 109, 138, 140, 152–​153 Kohlberg, Lawrence 80

Habermas, Jurgen 1, 45, 137 Hadot, Pierre 155–​156 Hahm, D. E. 15 Hall, Dale 19 Hardie, W. F. R. 41, 59, 65 Hare, R. M. 35 Hartshorne, Charles 44, 53, 59, 83, 85, 136 Healy, John 73 Hegel, G. W. F. 42, 143, 149 Heidegger, Martin 58 Henle, Robert 112 Henning, Brian 94 Herman, Barbara 144 Herodotus 141 Heschel, Abraham 87–​88, 122 Hesiod 10 Hippocrates 97 Hitler, Adolph 11 Hobbes, Thomas 24, 34, 49, 53, 88, 93, 132

Jackson, Timothy 34 Jesus 91–​92, 94, 113, 116, 134, 146 John the Baptist 91 John of the Cross, St. 127 Jonkers, Peter 32 Jowett, Benjamin 11

Lackey, Douglas 92 Lavoisier, Antoine 92 Lefebvre, Alexandre 141, 154–​157 Lehning, Percy 60–​61, 136 Leibniz, Gottfried 107 Lenin, V. I. 38 Leon, Philip 9 Levenson, Jon 87 Levi, A. W. 155 Levinson, Ronald 16, 34 Lincoln, Abraham 60, 153 Lister, Andrew 34 Locke, John 44–​45, 52–​53, 103, 111, 147 Luppi, Roberto 66 Luther, Martin 88, 109, 111 Lyons, David 35 MacCormac, Earl 14 MacDougald, Park 138 Macedo, Stephen 66 Machiavelli, Nicolo 11, 24 MacIntyre, Alasdair 1, 35–​37, 148 Malcolm, Norman 6, 75, 147 Mandle, Jon 38, 60 Marcellinus 91–​92 Maritain, Jacques 108, 129, 138, 153 Marx, Karl 1, 55, 58, 89

176  May, Gerhard 87 McCartney, James 97 Mill, John Stuart 65 Milton, John 103 Moon, J. Donald 7, 11 Moore, G. E. 5 Morowitz, Harold 101 Murray, John Courtney 90, 138 Nagel, Thomas 154 Nelson, Eric 38, 102–​106 Nettleship, R. L. 9 Newton, Isaac 147 Niebuhr, Reinhold 74, 103 Nietzsche, Friedrich 9–​10 Nixon, Richard 29 Noah 114 Noonan, John 97 Nozick, Robert 53, 104 Nussbaum, Martha Craven 67–​71 Nygren, Anders 73, 132, 146 Ockham, William of 97 O’Neil, Onora 144 Origen 73 Page, Carl 19–​26 Paivansalo, Ville 33 Pangle, Thomas 18 Parmenides 81 Pasnau, Robert 112 Patroclus 62 Paul, St. 112 Peirce, Charles Sanders 52 Pelagius 3, 72, 75, 95, 102–​106 Peter, St. 92 Piaget, Jean 3, 76–​77, 79–​80, 105 Plato 1–​40, 42–​43, 47, 62, 73, 80–​82, 86, 89–​ 90, 105, 107–​108, 112, 132, 139, 141–​144, 146, 149, 151, 154, 158–​159 Plotinus 8 Pogge, Thomas 61, 93, 108, 122, 134–​136 Popper, Karl 10–​12, 15, 34, 38, 143 Pythagoras 33

Index of Names Reichmann, James 116 Reidy, David 5–​6, 104 Rengger, Nicholas 103 Robeyns, Ingrid 67 Rorty, Richard 1, 15, 38, 148 Ross, W. D. 42 Rousseau, Jean-​Jacques 74, 143, 150 Sagovsky, Nicholas 21, 34 Sandel, Michael 158 Sauer, Elizabeth 103 Sawyer, Tom 11 Scanlon, Thomas 56–​57 Scoon, Robert 5 Segall, Schlomi 22 Sen, Amartya 67, 69–​70 Shorey, Paul 11 Sidgwick, Henry 44, 61 Silber, John 147 Smith, Nicholas 25–​27 Socrates 1, 8–​9, 11, 15, 21, 30, 32, 34, 36, 39, 57, 143, 146 Stalin, Joseph 11 Stark, Judith 101 Starnes, Colin 75–​76, 79 Strauss, Leo 1, 7, 10, 15–​19, 24, 27–​31, 38 Talisse, Robert 8 Taylor, A. E. 8 Taylor, Charles 1, 148 Tebbe, Nelson 61 Tertullian 146 Thigpen, Robert 37, 66 Thomson, Judith Jarvis 101 Thrasymachus 24, 33 Thucydides 33, 141 Toulmin, Stephen 5, 44 Toynbee, Arnold 11–​12 Trefil, James 101 Trump, Donald 29

Quine, W. V. O. 147

Vanderven, Johannes 8 Vandeveer, Donald 120 Vlastos, Gregory 26 Von Neumann, John 5 Von Wright, Georg Henrik 147

Ramsey, Paul 92 Rashdall, Hastings 30 Regan, Tom 120

Walzer, Michael 95–​97 Weigel, George 94 Weisheipl, James 112, 127

177

Index of Names Weithman, Paul 133 White, Lynn 113 White, Nicholas 27 White, R. W. 65 Whitehead, Alfred North 44, 53–​55, 85, 87, 94, 111, 124 Williams, Bernard 1, 148 Wills, Gary 90

Wittgenstein, Ludwig 5, 38, 44, 147 Wolff, Robert Paul 36 Wolin, Sheldon 19 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 43–​59, 129, 132, 137 Yoder, John Howard 135 Zuckert, Michael 44–​46, 49, 51, 53