Approaching Justice
“My religion is of interest only to me, as its various phases and how they followed one another are not unusual or especially instructive.” (Rawls 2010, 261)
The above sentence is how John Rawls begins his rather informal note titled “On My Religion.” I have been thinking about this sentence lately and mostly laughing to myself about it.
On one hand, this is an example of his humility. Afterall, who would care about musings on religion by some obscure philosopher. Rawls had similar sentiments when it came to publishing collections of his essays and his lectures on both moral and political philosophy.
On the other hand, my entire current project rests on the assertion, my assertation, that he is wrong in this sentence. I think that both his early religious writings and his later reflections on religion are very informative and illuminating when it comes to understanding his later works. Not just his works that touch on religion and the public sphere, but also his theory of justice.
Ok, back to that project.
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