Rawls on religion
A friend sent this link on John Rawls and a collection of his writings on religion. Here is a brief excerpt on Rawls and the utilitarian motif that still underlies our polity:
Utilitarianism notoriously implies that we should maximize happiness even when doing so involves making some people suffer, and even when those people will not themselves enjoy any benefit from their suffering. Rawls argues that this is wrong. It applies to all people a standard of rationality appropriate to a single individual, and so “does not take seriously the distinction between persons.” Where there are no distinct persons, there can be no personal relations, and no community.
I haven’t read Rawls, and I found this an interesting look at his political philosophy as well as on religion. ‘Without faith, he was faithful,’ indeed.
WHAT DID HE BELIEVE IN???
-there is a personal god
-there is no god
-there are many gods (that might be inplyed because hes greek)
-science is god
-man is god
did his religon effect his work??
please anwser this to the best of your ability 🙂
All I know about Rawls’ religion was detailed in the link I have in that entry. He was a devout episcopalian until world War II, when his experiences led him to abandon his faith. But the reviewer argues that Rawls’ ideas of what society should be did not change after he stopped believing in God. so in that sense, his religion did seem to affect his work.