Comments on: Pre-Early Rawls

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Tue, 29 May 2007 16:30:16 +0000

I’m not sure why Tom Hurka (above) thinks of me as a “true believer”. Not that it matters, especially, but I think Harry might be closer to Rawlsian orthodoxy than I am. (I rather think of people like Andrew Williams and Samuel Freeman as being the keepers of the flame and I find myself disagreeing with them all the time.)

By: David

David — Tue, 29 May 2007 16:05:05 +0000

Rawls’s undergraduate thesis is being edited by Tom Nagel and will be published in due course by Harvard UP. It is a remarkable read (there are even passages that might have appeared in Levinas’s ‘Totality and Infinity’). Not only does it help to explain why JR never addressed certain so-called communitarian criticisms and draw attention to long-overlooked features of his thought (for example, in TJ he rejects utilitarianism in part b/c it doesn’t take account of the ways in which our desires and preferences are socially shaped), it raises very interesting questions about the unity of and continuities in Rawls’s thought, as well as about how he understood his own project and how well it has been understood by others.

Many of the most interesting thoughts worked out in the undergraduate thesis remained with Rawls after the War. He gave a talk sometime between 1950-55, likely while at Cornell after 53, on toleration. Toward the end he discusses religious arguments for toleration. He says that among the beliefs of which he is ‘certain’—as certain as he is of anything else—are that IF there is a judgment (he is himself no longer a conventional believer at this point), then a) it will take the form of exclusion from community (he quotes Meister Eckhart: “what burns in hell is sin in the circle of its own self-centeredness”), but b) no person will be alienated from this community solely for religious beliefs or practices held in conscience and c) none will be alienated from it forever and d) there is no gap between coming to understand and desire this community and coming to at least partial participation in it. Thus, while Rawls has clearly moved any theistic affirmation into the antecedent of a conditional, much of what he develops in the undergraduate thesis carries over into his thinking after the War. And this raises an interesting question of intellectual biography about the role of these beliefs in his thought later on. And while points of intellectual biography do not settle issues of philosophical interpretation, they can to some degree open or limit interpretive possibilities.

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:07:13 +0000

My mother was an expert on American constitutional law who worked in the justice system. She needs no defense and I neither do I.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 29 May 2007 03:09:49 +0000

Seth quoted his mother’s opinion on Rawls to support his attack on Rawls in another recent thread. I was simply making fun of that. In Seth’s defense (I suppose) he was drunk.

By: vivian

vivian — Tue, 29 May 2007 02:06:57 +0000

Um, sorry to admit ignorance, but I don’t get the reference, and Google didn’t help either. Is Seth’s mother some famous Rawls critic? Anyone want to share the joke with the folks in the cheap seats? (If it’s just a random insult or otherwise tasteless, please just say that.)

By: aaron_m

aaron_m — Mon, 28 May 2007 07:52:41 +0000

“We know that you and your mom don’t like Rawls, Seth. I’ve not seen any evidence of understanding him from you, though, so maybe you should let off.”

Finally somebody said it.

By: Laurie Shrage

Laurie Shrage — Sun, 27 May 2007 19:42:40 +0000

Jon, Thanks for this interesting commentary on Gregory’s article. David Hollinger’s and Bruce Kuklick’s work on the history of American philosophy discuss the Protestant cultural and religious influences that shaped academic Philosophy through the early 20th C. In response to the these influences (and after American universities began to follow the model of the German research universities), professional philosophers have attempted to re-invent Philosophy as a field concerned with science rather than religion. Rawls entered the profession when the “naturalization” of almost every field of philosophy had been attempted (with much success). Rawls’s concerns about naturalism in ethics and politics is relevant today, as evolutionary psychology gains ground in moral psychology and meta-ethics.

I find it odd that some posts above question the interests of scholars in the student work of important philosophical figures. Consideration of such work (or other biographical information) contributes to our understanding of the historical, cultural, and institutional context in which intellectual work takes place.

By: bethincary

bethincary — Sat, 26 May 2007 21:00:11 +0000

I have never read Randle-only Augustine, Kant and some Buddist teachings (and the Bible).
I, like others here, wonder about the usefullness of a college paper. I don’t think the maturity of philosophical wisdom can be apparent without learning the necessary lessons of life. A person should also be able to change thier mind as events influence thier lives daily. Lincolns’ speech on God’s will for abolishing slavery sounds rather like a Bushism. Playing the “God-card” for effect of justification for war and killing. After all, that’s about the only time you may hear it justified in the Bible or elsewhere-so it’s that Christian “carte-blanche war card” you could say.
Maybe Randle knew this-and knew God’s own words were being twisted. Or maybe like me, he believed that God-while not always being a good God-should not be a scapegoat for mans’ mistakes.

By: For Fans of John Rawls « Philosophy On The Mesa

For Fans of John Rawls « Philosophy On The Mesa — Sat, 26 May 2007 19:16:09 +0000

[...] Fans of John Rawls May 26, 2007 Posted by Dwight Furrow in Philosophy. trackback Here is a fascinating discussion of Rawls’ senior undergraduate thesis and his early views on [...]

By: djw

djw — Sat, 26 May 2007 18:50:44 +0000

I think the notion that the Rawls industry is entirely uncritical of their guru can’t be squared with much of the reception to Law of Peoples. Granted, much of the criticism is quite Rawlsian, in an old Rawls vs. new Rawls way, but such an approach takes old Rawls in a place Rawls himself said it has no business going.

By: aeon j. skoble

aeon j. skoble — Sat, 26 May 2007 14:38:30 +0000

Hey Jon- Yes, interesting stuff, but IMO more in terms of the intrinsic appeal of seeing the development of a person’s thought. But the material from one’s early years aren’t likely to be stand-alone great stuff. (In my case, they’d probably not even be interesting, let alone great.) I’m trying to think of analogies to music, say, recordings of Hamburg-era Beatles. A serious Beatles fan will want to hear them, and those interested in the development of rock will want to hear them, but they aren’t likely to be “great stuff” on the same level as Revolver or Sgt. Pepper. Hope that analogy works…

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 26 May 2007 10:18:41 +0000

Thanks for the quote, Mike. I was taking his remark from something he’d said at Penn when he was giving some talks here. I might have recalled what he said slightly incorrectly or he might have said something slightly different but I’ll take your quote as Cohen’s actual position.

By: Mike Otsuka

Mike Otsuka — Sat, 26 May 2007 08:43:48 +0000

G.A. Cohen has said that Rawls was the greatest political philosopher since Plato. What Cohen said, rather, is: "I believe that there are at most two books in the history of Western political philosophy that are greater than A Theory of Justice, and they [would be] Plato’s Republic and Hobbes’s Leviathan." (This is from the introduction to his forthcoming Rescuing Justice and Equality.)

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sat, 26 May 2007 07:53:01 +0000

I am not sure that the way the 20th century created philosophers is conducive to genius, but if I had to nominate anyone for the canon from the 20th century, I would nominate Rawls.

By: sara

sara — Sat, 26 May 2007 03:00:58 +0000

Many graduate programs encourage students to publish too early, while they are still getting their legs or under the influence of whatever author they’re reading a lot of. I don’t study philosophy, but I assume that a student writing in the style of Wittgenstein or Heidegger would need to grow out of it.