The Place of Rawls in Political and Ethical Theory

The work of John Rawls is central to contemporary political philosophy. A Theory of Justice provides a model for the justification of substantive principles of justice, and it defends principles that reject utilitarianism. Ultimately, justification is a matter of what the participants in a relationship or an institution can justify to one another. Unlike utilitarianism, which assumes that there is one good that it is the job of morality to maximize, Rawls holds that there are multiple conceptions of the good associated with different individuals. Furthermore, he holds that there are multiple principles of morality associated with different relationships and institutions. His principles of justice are designed for one of these—the basic structure of society. They establish a moral minimum that all members of a society owe to one another, but additional principles are required to govern other special relationships.     

Stout,Rawls, and the Idea of Public Reason

Jeffrey Stout claims that John Rawls's idea of public reason (IPR) has contributed to a Christian backlash against liberalism. This essay argues that those whom Stout calls “antiliberal traditionalists” have misunderstood Rawls in important ways, and goes on to consider Stout's own critiques of the IPR. While Rawls's idea is often interpreted as a blanket prohibition on religious reasoning outside church and home, the essay will show that the very viability of the IPR depends upon a rich culture of deliberation in which all forms of reasoning can be put forth for consideration. This clarification addresses the perception that the IPR imposes an “asymmetrical burden” upon believers. In fact, the essay suggests that there are good reasons why believers, qua believers, might endorse the IPR.     

BEFORE THE ORIGINAL POSITION: The Neo-Orthodox Theology of the Young John Rawls

This paper examines a remarkable document that has escaped critical attention within the vast literature on John Rawls, religion, and liberalism: Rawls's undergraduate thesis, “A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith: An Interpretation Based on the Concept of Community” (1942). The thesis shows the extent to which a once regnant version of Protestant theology has retreated into seminaries and divinity schools where it now also meets resistance. Ironically, the young Rawls rejected social contract liberalism for reasons that anticipate many of the claims later made against him by secular and religious critics. The thesis and Rawls's late unpublished remarks on religion and World War II offer a new dimension to his intellectual biography. They show the significance of his humanist response to the moral impossibility of political theology. Moreover, they also reveal a kind of Rawlsian piety marginalized by contemporary debates over religion and liberalism.     

A Short Letter on Religious Toleration

This paper takes the form of aletter to fledgling democracies such asAlgeria, Turkey, and Iran. It explores thenature of democracy and argues that theequality of citizens requires that differentreligions be treated equally. It presents some``lessons' from United States constitutionalhistory which might be useful to fledglingdemocracies as they seek to achieve aseparation of church and state. Developing atheme first presented in ``A Third Principle ofJustice,' The Journal of Ethics 1 (1997),pp. 355–374, it argues that religious tolerationsometimes may require a heightened sensitivityto the needs of some religious associations. Itconcludes, however, that religious tolerationdoes not require a toleration of intolerantreligious extremists who pose a threat todemocracy.     

Religious Reasons and Public Healthcare Deliberations

This paper critically explores the path of some of the controversiesover public reason and religion through four distinct steps.The first part of this article considers the engagement of JohnFinnis and Robert P. George with John Rawls over the natureof public reason. The second part moves to the question of religionby looking at the engagement of Nicholas Wolterstorff with Rawls,Robert Audi, and others. Here the question turns specificallyto religious reasons, and their permissible use by citizensin public debate and discourse. The third part engages JürgenHabermas's argument that while citizens must be free to makereligious arguments, still, there is an obligation of translation,and a motivational constraint on lawmakers. The final sectionargues that even though Habermas's proposal fails, neverthelesshe recognizes a key difficulty for religious citizens in contemporaryliberal polities. Restoration of a full role for religiouslygrounded justificatory reasons in public debate is one partof an adequate solution to this problem, but a second plankmust be added to the solution: recognition that religious reasonscan enter into public deliberation not just as first-order justificationsof particular policies, but as second-order reasons, to be consideredby any polity that respects its religious citizens and, morebroadly, the good of religion.     

A Just Global Economy: In Defense of Rawls

In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls does not discuss justice and the global economy at great length or in great detail. What he does say has not been well-received. The prevailing view seems to be that what Rawls says in The Law of Peoples regarding global economic justice is both inconsistent with and a betrayal of his own liberal egalitarian commitments, an unexpected and unacceptable defense of the status quo. This view is, I think, mistaken. Rawls’s position on global or international economic justice is richer, more nuanced, and generally more compelling than his critics have been willing to acknowledge. My aim in this essay is to sympathetically set out, and then defend against two common families of objection to, Rawls’s position on global or international economic justice. Objections of the first sort reject Rawls’s position as inadequately attentive to the material and economic interests of individual persons worldwide. Objections of the second sort reject it as inadequately attentive to the material and economic interests of well-ordered peoples. Throughout the paper I develop several arguments implicit in The Law of Peoples but not well-developed there as well as offer some additional arguments of my own consistent with the spirit of The Law of Peoples and Rawls’s work more generally. I conclude with some brief remarks expressing two worries I have about Rawls’s position – one concerning global public goods, the other concerning the formation of a morally adequate and effective political will within the international context under contemporary conditions. I wish to thank Alyssa Bernstein, Allen Buchanan, Samuel Freeman, John Hardwig, John Mandle, Rex Martin, Jim Nickel, Walter Riker, Kok-Chor Tan, and Leif Wenar for helpful comments or instructive conversation regarding earlier drafts of this paper.     

Global basic structure and institutions: The WTO as a practical example

In this article, I discuss the location of the sources of global poverty and injustice. I take it as granted that the members of the globally lowest income group live in unacceptable conditions and suffer from injustice. Yet the source of this injustice is a debatable question. Often the existing global institutions are seen as major causes behind this injustice. By taking the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations as a practical example, I aim to show that blaming the institutions as such can lead to misguided conclusions. The WTO, in fact, is quite just if one merely analyses its institutional structure. I argue that the major source of injustice are rather the prevailing power structures and the conduct of individual governments within this institutional framework, in other words the metaprocedural unfairness in the trade negotiations. I further argue that applications of Rawlsian theory of justice tend to be misleading at the global institutional level, as they focus disproportionately on the institutional structure, and tend to underestimate the relevance of the conduct of governments and the existing power structures, which allow powerful countries to use the institutional framework unjustly in their favour.     

Ethical intuitionism and the linguistic analogy

It is a central tenet of ethical intuitionism as defended by W. D. Ross and others that moral theory should re?ect the convictions of mature moral agents. Hence, intuitionism is plausible to the extent that it corresponds to our well-considered moral judgments. After arguing for this claim, I discuss whether intuitionists o?er an empirically adequate account of our moral obligations. I do this by applying recent empirical research by John Mikhail that is based on the idea of a universal moral grammar to a number of claims implicit in W. D. Ross’s normative theory. I argue that the results at least partly vindicate intuitionism.     

Religious,Ethical and Legal Considerations in End-of-Life Issues: Fundamental Requisites for Medical Decision Making

Religion and spirituality have always played a major and intervening role in a person’s life and health matters. With the influential development of patient autonomy and the right to self-determination, a patient’s religious affiliation constitutes a key component in medical decision making. This is particularly pertinent in issues involving end-of-life decisions such as withdrawing and withholding treatment, medical futility, nutritional feeding and do-not-resuscitate orders. These issues affect not only the patient’s values and beliefs, but also the family unit and members of the medical profession. The law also plays an intervening role in resolving conflicts between the sanctity of life and quality of life that are very much pronounced in this aspect of healthcare. Thus, the medical profession in dealing with the inherent ethical and legal dilemmas needs to be sensitive not only to patients’ varying religious beliefs and cultural values, but also to the developing legal and ethical standards as well. There is a need for the medical profession to be guided on the ethical obligations, legal demands and religious expectations prior to handling difficult end-of-life decisions. The development of comprehensive ethical codes in congruence with developing legal standards may offer clear guidance to the medical profession in making sound medical decisions.     

企业中的道德决策

企业道德决策研究主要关注个体如何进行道德决策,以及哪些因素影响企业中的道德决策这两个基本问题。首先介绍企业道德决策的主要理论模型;然后简要总结实证研究的研究方法和基本结论;最后分析以往研究中存在的问题,并展望我国的企业道德决策研究     

Affect in Ethical Decision Making: Mood Matters

Ethical decision-making research has centered on Rest’s (1986) framework that represents a rational, nonaffective model for ethical decision making. However, research in human cognition suggesting a “dual-processing” framework, composed of both rational and affective components, has been relatively ignored in the ethical decision-making literature. Examining dual-processing literature, it seems affect might be an important factor in decision making when a person’s mood is congruent with the task or situational context frame. Given that ethical decisions are serious and complex tasks, it is proposed here that inducing a negative affective state might produce mood congruence, reinforce the salience of emotion for ethical decision makers, and lead to differences in decision processing. Evidence is presented documenting differences in the decisions made by ethical decision makers in a negative affective state as compared to those in either a positive or neutral affective state.     

Ethical Decision Making and Research Deception in the Behavioral Sciences: An Application of Social Contract Theory

Despite significant ethical advances in recent years, including professional developments in ethical review and codification, research deception continues to be a pervasive practice and contentious focus of debate in the behavioral sciences. Given the disciplines' generally stated ethical standards regarding the use of deceptive procedures, researchers have little practical guidance as to their ethical acceptability in specific research contexts. We use social contract theory to identify the conditions under which deception may or may not be morally permissible and formulate practical recommendations to guide researchers on the ethical employment of deception in behavioral science research.     

Integrating Contextual Issues in Ethical Decision Making

Many issues in ethics arise in relation to the contexts in which psychologists work. However, most ethical decision-making models reproduce the way in which psychologists tend to approach ethics by focusing on ethical dilemmas and proposing a step-by-step response to deal with them. Although these models might be useful, their emphasis on reactive approaches and their lack of contextualization constitute significant limitations on their applicability. In this article, an approach to ethical decision making that highlights the importance of the context in developing proactive strategies to solve ethical issues is proposed. This approach is further explained through its application to medical and rural settings. The implications of these suggestions to the training in ethics are finally discussed.     

Religious Claims in Public: Lutheran Resources

Abstract : A cacophony of religious voices seeking to influence public culture, opinion, and policy pervades the public discourse in the United States today. Some publicly‐oriented religious claims are appropriate while others are not. Sorely needed are criteria for making that distinction. This essay asks: What are criteria for appropriate and valid use of religious claims, language, and symbols in deliberation about public policy? What particular gifts do Lutheran traditions bring to shaping those criteria? The essay then draws upon Lutheran theological resources to propose theologically grounded criteria for appropriate and valid use of religious language, claims, and symbols in public discourse.     

Rawls and Research on Cognitively Impaired Patients: A Reply to Maio

In his paper, “The Relevance of Rawls’ Principle of Justice for Research on Cognitively Impaired Patients” (Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 23 (2002):45–53), Giovanni Maio has developed athought-provoking argument for the permissibility of non-therapeutic research on cognitively impaired patients. Maio argues that his conclusion follows from the acceptance of John Rawls’s principles of justice, specifically, Rawls’s “liberty principle” Maio has misinterpreted Rawls’s “libertyprinciple” – correctly interpreted it does notsupport non-therapeutic research on cognitivelyimpaired patients. Three other ‘Rawlsian’ arguments are suggested by Maio’s discussion –two “self-respect” arguments and a “presumed consent” argument – but none of them are convincing. However, an alternative argument developed from Rawls’s discussion of “justice in health care” in his most recent book, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, may justify certain kinds of non-therapeutic research on some cognitively impaired patients in special circumstances. We should not expect anything more permissive from a liberal theory of justice. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Rawls and Ricoeur: Converging Notions of Empowerment to Justice

Empowerment is a key word in Catherine Audard’s new book on Rawls and a central characteristic of Rawls’ approach to justice. A very different “hermeneutic” approach to justice is presented by Paul Ricoeur, the French philosopher and theologian who, against the background of his own work, examined Rawls’ views in several publications. This essay compares the two views and defends the proposition that empowerment is the common denominator. The author suggests that Rawls would not have objected to including some of Ricoeur’s ideas in the past-principle stage of his Theory.

华人社会中的宗教信仰与公共参与:以台湾地区为例

本文利用台湾社会变迁调查数据对华人社会中宗教信仰与公共参与进行了分析.总体上,宗教信仰有助于人们的捐献行为和志愿行动这两类公共参与形式.虽然不同宗教信仰的信徒在公共参与方面存在着程度的差异,但是这种差异在控制信徒与宗教的组织性整合程度后变得不显著.有研究认为东方宗教的功利性格无助于提升民众公共参与,但我们的分析并不支持这一观点.组织程度高的中国传统教派与基督教在促进信徒公共参与方面水平相仿,但在自认为是佛教徒的被访者中,有明确宗派归属的佛教徒与无宗派归属的信众,在公共参与行为上存在的显著差异.这意味着造成差异的原因不在于其教义来自东方还是西方,而在于宗教的组织化程度.只要能够促进教徒之间的交流与交往、加强教徒与组织之间的联系、并通过必要的集体仪式和活动增加教徒对于宗教的认同,就可能提升信徒的公共参与水平.