What if we listened to John Rawls?

A humane philosophy exposes our unwillingness to make political choices

When I started teaching sociology at Spring Arbor University in 2011, I inherited a course created by my predecessor in the position. Titled, Spirituality, Faith, and Justice, it served as a departmental capstone class for majors and minors in sociology, criminal justice, and global studies. I reviewed the syllabus from the previous year and realized that I would have to reimagine the entire class to fit my own preference and style. The first paragraph in the resulting syllabus read like this:

This course operates on a seminar format with all of us working together to explore answers to one Very Big Question: How can our Christian faith and social science understandings combine to engage the structures of our society in pursuit of just outcomes? Unpacking this Big Question requires setting aside preconceptions, listening to each other, and learning to think strategically. As your professor, I am the first to admit that I have an approach to the Big Question but mine is only one of many possible approaches. Your input and those of your classmates will be a major part of the raw material we use to explore our big question.

The class met for three hours every Thursday evening. I used a variety of books: David Fitch and Geoff Holslaw’s Prodigal Christianity, Christena Cleveland’s Disunity in Christ, Andy Crouch’s Playing God, and Carol Howard Merritt’s’ Healing Spiritual Wounds. But the anchor for the course was Michael Sandel’s Justice.

Each week we used a chapter from Sandel to explore a philosophical approach to justice and combine it with some of the other readings. Students always remembered the chapter on utilitarianism and Sandel’s use of the Ursula LeGuinn story of the kingdom of Omalas.¹ But for me, the chapter that always stood out was the one on John Rawls. Rawls suggested that our approach to justice should be free from our own self-interest. Instead, fair outcomes could be uncovered as long as we didn’t know where we stood in the social order; something he called “the veil of ignorance”.

I had a classroom activity that attempted to illustrate this. I imagined nine different identities ranging from a young woman on a reservation in her early 20s to a male hedge fund manager in his 60s. Students randomly drew an identity from a box and met with others who drew the same identity to discuss their initial interests. Then they started meeting with the other identity groups to explore what were the common interests independent of any particular identity.²

Given my interest in Rawls, it isn’t surprising that, when I saw this new book by London School of Economics economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler, I had to read it. I finished it yesterday.

The first part of the book explores Rawls’ philosophical arguments. The second half uses those arguments to construct public policy options those arguments would imply. To say the book is ambitious is an understatement.

However, it does make clear that these policy solutions are readily available. We just aren’t willing to buy Rawl’s assumptions. So I welcomed Chandler’s attempt to get us to confront the values underlying our public policy.

After a robust critique of neoliberalism, he turns to what Rawls offered us in A Theory of Justice. He says that Rawls

achieved what many had thought to be impossible, or even a contradiction in terms: whereas politics and philosophy had long been divided between a classical liberal tradition that prized individual freedoms above all else, and a socialist tradition that was often willing to sacrifice these freedoms in the name of equality, Rawls articulated a philosophy that was committed to both freedom and equality at the deepest level. (5-6)

Chandler then builds the case for Rawls’ framework. The first principle is called the “basic liberties principle” and argues that we must protect freedom of religion, speech, assembly, suffrage, and the right to property. The second principle is called “fair equality of opportunity” which provides individuals an equal chance to develop and deploy their individual talents. Third, he emphasizes the “difference principle” which allows unequal rewards as long as it maximizes the opportunities of those at the bottom of an inequality structure. Finally, he describes the “just savings principle” which looks to the life experiences of future generations.

Taken together, these four components of John Rawls’ thought suggest a comprehensive approach to the world. Everyone’s rights should be protected, but we may need to go out of our way to address the needs of voices of those holding minority positions. We should use the difference principle to combat intergenerational poverty. We need to affirm our lofty rhetoric of all men are created equal by attending to differential outcomes. And we need to make sure that our policy positions are such that they serve the interests of our children and their children.

Chandler writes:

The aim, in the end, is to use Rawls’s [sic] theory to construct a “realistic utopia”: to describe a set of institutions that are the best we can hop for, given what we know about human nature and the constraints of the natural world. (15)

In the second part of the book, Chandler attempts to apply Rawls’ philosophy to particular challenges. He addresses the problems of electoral disenfranchisement, the role of money in politics, the power of lobbyists, and the dysfunctions of governing structures like Congress. Because all of these dynamics inhibit the basic liberties principle, they require reform.

He places our education systems at the center of equality of opportunity challenges. If we want education to perform its role, we need to focus on early childhood education, lessening school district inequalities³, and address higher education barriers.

His approach to the difference principle is to address inequities in our economic structures. These include the viability of a Universal Basic Income which solidifies the floor, reasonable taxation, and their requisite enforcement mechanisms.⁴

There are a number of features Chandler explores using the just savings principle. Notable among these are carbon taxes and policies to address climate change. But he also addresses the importance of inheritance taxes and rethinking working conditions so that employees have a voice alongside shareholders.

Progressives will find a lot to like in the second half of the book. Conservatives will call it all socialism.⁵

What I really liked about the book was not the specific policy proposals but the attempt to take Rawls seriously.⁶ In doing so, it brings to light the operating assumptions of our current social structures.

To put a finer point on it — people too often want their basic liberties protected without extending those to others. That’s how imagined voter fraud claims are used to attempt to disenfranchise those who don’t vote like they’d like. Or they substitute meritocratic beliefs for an equality of opportunity that takes seriously the lives of those at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Or they transform tremendous levels of economic inequality into property rights that allow those with means to protect those means under the auspices of it being their money.

Rawls’ image of a just society would put my imaginary Native American woman and my New York hedge manager on the same footing in terms of their inherent dignity and right to succeed in modern society. To perpetuate their inequality while claiming that they are both children of God isn’t some luck of the draw. It’s a choice we have made. Rawls helps us identify that we have made such a choice and challenges us to do more.

1. The kingdom was happy and successful. The only price for this was a little girl who was kept in a dank dungeon. Final essays invariably mentioned her.

2. For some reason, it worked better the first few years than it did the last few.

3. He doesn’t address this directly but recent reporting on the amount of tax dollars being siphoned from public to private education is part of the problem.

4. Those imaginary 187,000 jackbooted thugs from the IRS haven’t been coming for everyday Americans but have made a huge difference in inhibiting nonpayment from the wealthy.

5. It isn’t socialism. That’s a propagandistic label employed to keep the conversation off balance. Friday’s newsletter will explore Scott Coley’s “Ministers of Propaganda”, which I will finish today.

6. I confess that I haven’t read Rawls directly but trust the summaries provided by Sandel and Chandler. If I’ve misinterpreted Rawls, I’d gladly correct anything that I got wrong.