Rawls and Religious Community: Ethical Decision Making in the Public Square

Abstract

While most people may initially agree that justice is fairness, as an evangelical Protestant I argue that, for many religious comprehensive doctrines, the Rawlsean model does not possess the resources necessary to sustain tolerance in moral decision making. The weakness of Rawls's model centers on the reasonable priority of convictions that arise from private comprehensive doctrines. To attain a free and pluralistic society, people need resources sufficient to provide reasons to tolerate actions that are otherwise intolerable. In addition to arguing for the deficiency of the Rawlsean political model, I sketch out a preliminary model of ambassadorship that offers religious communities, and in particular Protestant evangelicals, the necessary resources to engage the broader society tolerantly while maintaining their religious convictions. As a citizen of the church and a member of another kingdom, Christians serve as ambassadors to those who are not of the heavenly kingdom. I take this model to be more ambitious than that of a sojourner who lives in the land but is isolated as much as possible from society, while more modest than that of reconstructionists who seek to implement their own sacred law on all others.

Keywords:

• John Rawls
• political theory
• toleration

I. INTRODUCTION

Current events have sharpened the questions of tolerance that liberal political theory sought to answer. As John Rawls has pointed out, in a society that is both free and pluralistic, it is inevitable that conflicting and irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines arise (1996, p. xviii). ¹ The problems that this situation presents have preoccupied much of Western political theory. How can I make ethical decisions with integrity, while engaging the conversation of the public square with equal integrity? In other words, how can a society be arranged to sustain pluralism? Some version of tolerance must play a central role in maintaining this balance. Central to Rawls's solution in Political Liberalism is his concept of “justice as fairness” that should enable me to tolerate an act if my objection is defensible only from my private belief system (1996, pp. 9–10). While a host of others have advocated tolerance based on some reasoning or other derived from their own particular comprehensive doctrines, Rawls's concept of neutral political liberalism remains the touchstone of American political philosophy. ²

While most people can initially agree that justice is fairness, as an evangelical Protestant I argue that, for many religious comprehensive doctrines, the model offered by Rawls does not offer the resources necessary to sustain tolerance in moral decision making. The weakness of Rawls's model centers on the reasonable priority of convictions that arise from private comprehensive doctrines. In order to attain a free and pluralistic society, people need resources sufficient to provide reasons to tolerate actions that are otherwise intolerable. In addition to arguing for the deficiency of Rawlsean political model, I intend to sketch out a preliminary model that will offer religious communities, and in particular Protestant evangelicals, the necessary resources to engage the broader society tolerantly while maintaining their religious convictions.

Tolerance, the forbearance of an act deemed wrong, requires a justification that is at least as morally weighty as the judgment that the act is wrong. For many people, commitments that derive from comprehensive doctrines are weightier than their social contract. If the reason that I practice tolerance is a religious reason, unrelated to the concept “justice as fairness,” a coincidental tolerance holds rather than Rawls' political concept of justice. Such a coincidental tolerance may depend on a Hobbesean compromise, a divine command, or some other reason that does not appeal to fairness (Rawls, 1996, pp. xxxix–xli, 147). ³ Accordingly, if the foundation of society is some combination of these reasons, unacceptable as they are to Rawls, his model insufficiently describes our political system. While this critique may go a long way in explaining the reoccurring conflicts and tensions between various communities within our society, how should I and others in my faith community view the tolerance of otherwise unacceptable actions of those outside my community?

II. COMPREHENSIVE DOCTRINES AND TOLERANCE

The reason opposing views are held passionately, and often intransigently, lies in the way they are justified. ⁴ Members of various groups derive their positions from complex systems of belief that include comprehensive doctrines of the good. Furthermore, each comprehensive doctrine structures values and virtues into a cohesive whole that provides a particular view of the world. In a pluralistic society, a variety of comprehensive doctrines coexist, producing a variety of conceptions of what is good. Since Rawls rejects the attitudes of compromise and indifference as proper grounds for tolerance, and I agree, how does society sustain tolerance? ⁵

Two fundamental issues are central to Rawls' theory: 1) developing an appropriate conception of justice, and 2) identifying the grounds that justify tolerance (1996, pp. 3–4). Rawls sees these two issues as fundamental to liberal pluralistic society. Rawls's response to the first issue is “justice as fairness,” consisting of two principles of justice. ⁶ In A Theory of Justice, Rawls answers the second fundamental issue, the question of the grounds for tolerance, with a commitment to the priority of the two principles of justice. The two principles of justice derive their strength to adjudicate between conflicting doctrinal beliefs from the fact that each person understands that the two principles of justice are to override personal principles that arise from private beliefs (1971, p. 220). In A Theory of Justice, a philosophical comprehensive doctrine lends support to the priority of the two principles (2001, p. xvii). In this case, conflicts between irreconcilable beliefs are subject to the two principles of justice.

However, if A Theory of Justice depends on a philosophical comprehensive doctrine, while providing a framework for a “just” society, it is at the cost of pluralism (Rawls, 1996, p. xviii). In other words, Rawls presents a comprehensive doctrine that competes with other doctrines in a pluralistic society. One way to read the early versions of “justice as fairness” is that rather than adjudicating among competing doctrines, “justice as fairness” replaced those doctrines. In this reading of A Theory of Justice, tolerance depends on an appeal to the deepest convictions—the two principles of justice. This dependence is indicative of the way that Rawls's model would fall short of providing for a fully pluralistic society (1996, p. xix).

In Political Liberalism, Rawls attempts to correct this problem by constraining the role of “justice as fairness” to that of a political conception of justice as opposed to its broader role as a comprehensive doctrine (1996, p. xl). In relation to tolerance, two changes in Rawls' model are significant. In Political Liberalism, the two principles of justice represent what Rawls calls the focus of an overlapping consensus. By this, Rawls means that the two principles precipitate from a discussion process that is fair to all participants (pp. 24–25). This process is not intended as a compromise, but rather an agreement to principles acceptable to representatives of all reasonable comprehensive groups. If all people freely choose these principles, they become universal principles for society. Rawls intends justice as fairness to be a module that is compatible with and supported by all reasonable comprehensive doctrines (p. 105; see also 2001, p. 195).

The concept of “public reason” is the second significant change between A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism. Public reason is the concept that constitutional essentials require neutral language and reasoning in order to adjudicate conflict. A commitment to public reason is a commitment to using reasoning that is understandable and potentially acceptable by all reasonable parties. According to Rawls, it is unreasonable to use arguments that appeal to one's own comprehensive doctrine, since that reasoning is unavailable to other comprehensive doctrines. Public reason provides the ground for tolerance in Political Liberalism. ⁷

While Rawls attempts to ground tolerance in public reason and identify it as a public virtue, he leaves the exercise of tolerance obscure. He does not address the relation between the reason to tolerate and the reason not to tolerate. The following section explores the nature of tolerance and illustrates that Rawls's public reason fails to provide sufficient reason to tolerate a morally objectionable practice.

III. THE NATURE OF TOLERANCE: TWO MORAL JUDGMENTS

Possessing the virtue of tolerance implies that one is skilled in making two moral judgments. The first judgment is an objection to a particular practice. For instance, Native American religion disciples, who view the world as part of a universal spirit, object to the management and harvesting of the forest. The second judgment is that, for moral reasons, one should tolerate the objectionable practice. In other words, if Native American religion disciples are going to tolerate logging, they require a sufficient justification. This second judgment must outweigh the first, if one is to practice tolerance. ⁸

Legitimate Objections: The First Moral Judgment

Recent debate has centered on when tolerance is needed. Is distaste for a particular practice sufficient, or is a stronger moral objection necessary to provide occasion for tolerance? Some argue that only in the case of a strong objection is tolerance necessary, while others argue that even a weak objection to a particular practice requires exercise of tolerance (Horton, 1996, p. 29). In any case, most agree that tolerance is appropriate somewhere between simple distaste and universally held wrongs. One ought not to object to issues of personal taste, so tolerance is not an issue. On the other end of the spectrum are wrongs, like murder, that we universally agree ought not to be tolerated. Between these extremes are practices that we do not universally agree to accept or reject. It is here that many see the need for tolerance (Williams, 2000, p. 66). The objection to logging falls in this middle ground. The objection is more than distaste because it involves a moral judgment based on a complex view of the Good. In fact, the objection potentially derives from the deepest level of moral commitment: commitment to an ultimate concern. At the same time, this commitment is not a universally agreed on wrong, since the Native American religion disciples' reasoning does not convince the loggers.

Why Tolerate? The Second Moral Judgment

The justification for tolerating a practice must be at least as significance as the justification for objecting to the practice. For example, pro-life individuals object to abortion based on the sanctity of life. The passion and risk displayed in efforts to object to abortion are demonstrative of the depth of their commitment. For some pro-life individuals, the privacy of the mother, the right of choice, and the question of sanitary conditions are viewed as insufficient to justify tolerating abortion. Only a reason that is grounded equally as deep as their own comprehensive doctrine will provide justification for tolerance. In summary, tolerance involves two moral judgments. The first is an objection to a particular practice because one believes that it is inconsistent with the Good. The second is a justifying reason to tolerate the objectionable practice. ⁹

Rawls assumes that moral conflict gives rise to the need to justify tolerance, and in A Theory of Justice, he does so by a commitment to the principles of justice (1996, p. 4). However, in his later Political Liberalism, Rawls abandons elements of his political theory that characterize it as a comprehensive system. Instead, Rawls seeks to justify his conception of justice and tolerance with reasons that he claims are acceptable to everyone but not necessarily dependent on any one private doctrine (1996, p. 59). In other words, both the environmentalist and the logger would agree to the same principles of justice and both would have the same obligation to tolerate objectionable practices.

Why Rawls's Tolerance Fails

In this next section, I argue that Political Liberalism does not offer sufficient moral reasons to tolerate immoral actions. In Political Liberalism, tolerance depends on the principle of reciprocity that produces what Rawls terms public reason, by which Rawls means reasoning that is neutral in respect to any particular comprehensive doctrine. It is reasonable that in public discussion of constitutional essentials, we should use public reason. ¹⁰ To Rawls, if my policy limits another's freedom, thus violating a constitutional essential, and if it does so for reasons that I do not sincerely believe the other person can accept, then my policy is in violation of the principle of reciprocity (2001, pp. 16–17; 49–50). Furthermore, since people cannot reasonably expect their own doctrine to secure universal commitment, it is only reasonable to tolerate competing comprehensive doctrines (1996, pp. lvi–lvii).

However, when we consider our earlier examples something seems wrong. Would a person who is willing to sacrifice personal interests for an environmental cause be likely to show self-restraint because a consensus of society has given loggers freedom to cut trees? Even though the logger's freedom to cut trees may be legal and sustained by private property laws, environmentalists are unlikely to suppress their convictions about the Good. History is replete with stories about individuals who are willing to go beyond nonviolent civil disobedience, perhaps so far as to give up freedom or life, to pursue a perceived good. ¹¹

An objection here might be that the hypothetical example of the environmentalist does not involve a constitutional essential, so it misses Rawls' argument. ¹² However, some actions depend on constitutional principles, so intolerance of them violates the commitment to justice as fairness. Of course, there may be actions that are legal, but inconsistent with constitutional essentials. For instance, slavery before 1861 was legal but violated the constitutional essential of each person's right to liberty. To resist the legal act of slave owning was to support the higher constitutional essential of liberty for all. Unlike the question of slavery, in my illustration the logger legally owns the trees. His property rights depend directly on constitutional rights of private property. When environmental activists sabotage logging efforts, not only do they violate the law, but they also violate the constitutional essential on which the law is grounded. ¹³ I take this situation to invoke Rawls' concept of public reason. In other words, Rawls's theory demands that the constitutionally based judgment supporting the logger that comes from the Federal Court should override the private commitments arising from the environmentalist's comprehensive doctrine.

Consider another hypothetical situation. Suppose Jane is a member of a Christian community that bases its doctrine on the teachings of the Bible. Assume that because of her comprehensive doctrine, she holds the position that abortion is wrong. Furthermore, assume that the anti-abortion position is deeply significant to Jane. She has made the judgment that a moral wrong is being committed and that she is willing to take significant risk to prevent it. Jane appeals to revelation for her justification. How does “justice as fairness” purpose to resolve this conflict? Rawls will argue that if Jane is reasonable, then her comprehensive doctrine is compatible with “justice as fairness.” In fact, given conditions of fairness and equality in a pluralistic society, Jane can agree to the two principles of justice as a basis for society. Since the consensus of comprehensive doctrines establishes that abortion is a constitutional right, Rawls prescribes that Jane should tolerate abortions.

Furthermore, Jane is a reasonable person. She is aware that her reason for objecting to abortion is not convincing to many people standing outside her comprehensive doctrine. In other words, Jane does not expect her interpretation of the Christian Bible to be convincing to many Buddhists, secular humanists, or atheists. In this situation, Rawls's principle of public reason also prescribes that Jane should tolerate abortion.

Within Jane's religious comprehensive doctrine, scriptural evidence convinces Jane, along with her Christian community, that life begins at conception. From the moment of fertilization, the zygote, soon to be a fetus, is to be held and valued as a child whose life is sacred. In other words, a person becomes “your neighbor” when he or she is conceived, not when delivered. While Jane's religious convictions also value individual privacy and a right to personal choice, the sacred right to life always outweighs these lesser rights. To protect the innocent, it is sometimes justifiable to violate another's right to privacy or choice as it would be in protecting a neighbor from murder. Jane views her commitment to the unborn child as bound up closely with the commandment to love your neighbor—one of the most central tenants of Christian ethics.

Since abortion is a constitutional essential because the courts have protected the right of privacy (the constitutional essential of liberty) and by extension the right to abortion, Jane faces a dilemma. ¹⁴ On the one hand, she is committed to a political social contract that not only protects her freedom and equality, but also that is based on reasonable principles of justice. Within this social contract, Jane is committed to tolerating abortion because it would be unreasonable for her to expect that her biblical argument will convince nonbelievers to cease the practice. On the other hand, she is committed to an eternal covenant with God, which includes protecting the most vulnerable individuals as a matter of justice. If remaining silent on the question of abortion is inconsistent with her commitment to God, it would be unreasonable for her to remain silent. Jane must make a choice.

Because a covenant with God may carry more weight in moral reasoning than a contract with society, Jane may reasonably choose to oppose abortion. Judgments from “justice as fairness” carry less moral weight than judgments based on a comprehensive religious system. Rawls's good is the peaceful coexistence of a pluralistic society. If a comprehensive system can produce goods of greater value than peace, the commitment to society will be superceded by the commitment to the religious system. In other words, Rawls is unreasonable to expect a commitment to the principles of justice to be stronger than commitments to beliefs from a comprehensive doctrine. Defense of her neighbor constitutes the grounds for the first moral judgment discussed above. In order for tolerance to be invoked, Jane would need a second moral judgment of equal weight that would demand that she allow abortion. Since she can find no grounds to form a second moral judgment, she must stand privately and publicly against abortion.

Most of the history of the abortion debate indicates that individuals usually find a reason to refrain from direct force to impose their views. Perhaps engaging in force is too costly, so pro-life advocates settle for a less painful Hobbesean compromise. Others may become disillusioned and end in a state of disinterest. Both these results, while maintaining peace along the lines of that Bernard Williams predicts, fail to achieve the robust society envisioned by “justice as fairness” (2000, pp. 67–68). However, it is also possible that Jane will find a sufficient moral reason arising from her own belief system.

Here it is tempting to say that this latter response is compatible with justice as fairness, and that this is how Rawls understands justice to work in conjunction with comprehensive doctrines. However, tolerance based on something like divine command, passivism, or the sanctity of life is not the same as “justice as fairness.” In other words, Jane is not a participant in Rawls's political structure. If Jane finds a sufficient moral reason to tolerate that is unrelated to “justice as fairness,” then peace overlaps both systems, but it is not the case that fairness does. Jane sees nothing fair in the right to abortion. Tolerance overlaps the two approaches, but it is a peace of coincidence and not consensus.

A response open to Rawls is to claim that radicals who take such extreme positions on the environment or religious issues are unreasonable. ¹⁵ In other words, since “justice as fairness” assumes a society of reasonable people, Rawls need not answer the objections of unreasonable individuals (1996, p. 50). This kind of response begs the question. The abortion conflict and the environmental conflict are precisely the type of irreconcilable beliefs between which Rawls needs to adjudicate.

IV. TOLERANCE TODAY

Jane is not alone in her predicament. Because of the way that a comprehensive doctrine grounds tolerance within its own rational ordering of moral commitments, our current state of society is one that does not allow our plurality of comprehensive doctrines to agree on a common set of principles of justice. It is not simply the case, as Rawls argues, that we have a pluralistic society of conflicting comprehensive doctrines. It is the case that our set of comprehensive doctrines holds differing rationalities that defend a diverse set of deep moral commitments such that there is no one set of principles of justice or public reason that will be acceptable to all reasonable doctrines. ¹⁶ Such an agreement would require constraining the definition of reasonable in such a way as to defeat the very project of pluralistic tolerance or, in other words, limiting plurality to a greater extent. What can we offer to Jane and others in like predicaments?

Two responses are open to us. First, because our society has developed to one with a much broader diversity than that assumed by Locke's social theory, we are faced with a society that has slid from a Lockean, social contract model to one that is closer to a Hobbesean compromise. We can either be content with that compromise or revert to a more modest form of pluralism. Neither is ideal for some less-dominant groups. Second, on a more hopeful front, a model open to Jane and thus to most Christian belief systems is that of an ambassador. This model makes no pretense to serve as a model for American society as a whole, but only as a model for believers to survive in the current American setting.

Ambassadorship draws on both Pauline thought as well as part of St. Augustine's model of two cities, one heavenly and one earthly, and seeing them as separate communities, the first made up of those who love God and the second made up of those who do not. As a citizen of the church and a member of another kingdom, a Christian serves as an ambassador to those who are not of the heavenly kingdom. I take this model to be more ambitious than that of a sojourner who lives in the land but is isolated as much as possible from society, while more modest than that of reconstructionists who seek to implement their own sacred law on all others.

It is this distinction in identity that allows for toleration. Ambassadors do not impose their own morality on the citizens of their host country. While they engage in the life of their host community, their goals and commitments are quite different. An ambassador advocates certain principles and interests but does not write or enforce law. This model generates the space a Christian needs to remain faithful to their religious covenant. Both from the nature of an ambassadorial model and from additional thoughts of Saint Paul, who first proposed the ambassador analogy, they can find reasons to sustain tolerance toward the larger society. In other words, they find sufficiently grounded justification to tolerate the otherwise intolerable acts of their fellow human beings while still publicly advocating truth as they understand it. Of course, a host of issues will now need to be addressed concerning overlapping authorities, dual citizenship, and civil responsibilities. While I think that these issues can be worked out consistently with the ambassadorial model, it is not the project of this paper to do so here but only to point in their general direction.

Notes

1. Rawls further explains, “A modern democratic society is characterized not simply by a pluralism of comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines but by a pluralism of incompatible yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines. No one of these doctrines is affirmed by citizens generally. Nor should one expect that in the foreseeable future one of them, or some other reasonable doctrine, will ever be affirmed by all, or nearly all, citizens. Political liberalism assumes that … a plurality of reasonable yet incompatible comprehensive doctrines is the normal result of the exercise of human reason within the framework of the free institutions of a constitutional democratic regime” (1996, p. xviii).

2. Jay Budziszewski argues for tolerance that is derived from a natural law model, while others present tolerance grounded in a Christian worldview with direct dependence on scripture. See Jay Budziszewski, Written on the Heart (1997). See also Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Why We Should Reject What Liberalism Tells Us about Speaking and Acting in Public for Religious Reasons” (1997, pp. 183–184). Also see Brad Stetson and Joseph G. Conti, The Truth About Tolerance (2005, pp. 80–81).

3. Rawls is explicitly unsatisfied with many reasons that a person may hold for tolerating pluralism. “Thus, to repeat, the problem of political liberalism is to work out a political conception of political justice for a (liberal) constitutional democratic regime that a plurality of reasonable doctrines, both religious and nonreligious, liberal and nonliberal, may endorse for the right reasons” (emphasis mine; Rawls, 1996, p. xli, see also p. 147 for further treatment of this issue).

4. Environmental groups have campaigned tirelessly to prevent logging in the Pacific Northwest. At the same time, loggers have campaigned tirelessly to preserve a lifestyle that includes controlled harvest of timber. The loggers and the environmentalists hold conflicting comprehensive doctrines. On one hand, the group opposing logging may belong to a Native American religion. Members of this group oppose logging because it violates nature. The idea of managing and harvesting nature is as sacrilegious as the idea of managing and harvesting the Universal Spirit. Their objection to logging comes from deeply held beliefs that reflect a systematic and complex understanding of the world.

5. Contrary to Richard Rorty's claims that Rawls's theory is consistent with his concept of contingency and irony, Rawls believes that tolerance is based on an overlapping consensus that embraces the reasonableness of justice as fairness rather than the comprehensive doctrine espousing the skeptical stance of Rorty's irony. See Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope (1999, p. 252) and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989). Rawls is seeking a system in which members from a plurality of comprehensive doctrines can “wholeheartedly” engage in the pluralistic political structure (1996, p. xl). Compromise or modus vivendi which ends in some form of Hobbesean compromise also falls short of Rawls's aim (1996, p. xxxix).

6. The first principle of justice is that each person has an equal right to an adequate scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all. The second principle of justice is that social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity, and (b) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. In Rawls's view, all comprehensive doctrines can accept these principles (1971, p. 202).

7. Rawls's model implies certain constraints on the idea of justice as fairness to maintain its necessary characteristics. Justice as fairness is not indifference, compromise, or utilitarian in nature because these concepts do not amount to moral judgments that are compatible with all comprehensive moral doctrines. If an overlapping consensus is to form, each comprehensive doctrine will find moral reasons grounded in its private belief system that supports the political conception of justice. Since nonmoral models like modus vivendi and indifference cannot be supported by a moral belief system, they cannot form a political conception of justice that will allow the development of an overlapping consensus (2001, pp. 107, 194).

8. It is possible that the spectrum of tolerance itself may be challenged by a reasonable, comprehensive doctrine, which would further undermine Rawls's concept of justice as fairness. For a fuller discussion of the nature of tolerance see John Horton, “Tolerance as a Virtue” (1996, p. 29).

9. In “Tolerance: an Impossible Virtue?” Bernard Williams argues similarly that the virtue of tolerance requires an appeal to substantive opinions about the good. According to Williams, liberal society could support tolerance based on the value of autonomy. This strategy derives its moral weight from opinions about the good of autonomy. Williams recognizes the problem that in a liberal society not everyone values autonomy deeply enough to justify tolerating many objectionable practices. In Williams's view, the virtue of tolerance is limited to the few people who hold a concept of autonomy consistent with political liberalism (1996, pp. 20–21).

10. Rawls at times will argue that “public reason” applies to any political advocacy in the public square and especially when voting (1996, p. 215). Even though religious dialogue may also be permissible in political advocacy, it must be accompanied by sufficient public reason. In other passages, Rawls places a much more restrictive boundary on where he thinks public reason is required (2001, p. 91).

11. http://www.earthfirst.org/; http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/271

12. For Rawls, public reason and the principles of justice apply to constitutional essentials, the voice of judges, politicians seeking public office, and the reason used by citizens when voting (Rawls, 2001, p. 91).

13. At minimum, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are constitutional essentials. In Lockean social theory, on which the U.S. Constitution is grounded, happiness is bound up with property so that he will list basic inalienable rights as life, liberty, and pursuit of property. Locke's social philosophy is centered on these rights. Consequently, the U.S. Constitution can be reasonably understood to take the right to own property as a constitutional essential (Locke, 1988, §§ 26–51, pp. 285–302).

14. That abortion amounts to a constitutional essential is not debated by Rawls, who extensively uses the issue as an illustration of how the principles of justice should function (Rawls, 1996; p. 243; 2001, p. 117).

15. Rawls explicitly mentions the abortion case but fails to give a rigorous enough account of the reasoning open to the pro-life individual. Rawls's example reasons from the fact that no individual is required to have an abortion, while in the example above, Jane's concern is not her own action but the life of the infant and the integrity of her covenant with God (1996, pp. lvi–lvii).

16. Here I have in mind something like MacIntyre's argument in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988).