I agree with R. R. Reno (and with Smith and Murray) that political discourse always implicates some metaphysical view or other. Long before Smith, T. K. Seung (and his student David Lay Williams) and Jean Hampton proffered this very critique of Rawls--that his purportedly anti-metaphysical stance is actually quite metaphysical in nature. In fact, Seung sent Rawls a copy of his book with Yale Press--Intuition and Construction--arguing that Rawls position developed from the original articles culminating in Justice as Fairness to the later articles and lectures that culminated in Political Liberalism actually begs the question and is premised on metaphysical assumptions. Rawls wrote a letter to Seung essentially conceding the critique and noting that he had no reply to Seung's argument. So I certainly agree that we must wake from the Rawlsian dream of a political philosophy without metaphysics. The idea was never tenable. Substantial and devastating critiques have been in hand for some time now. However, I believe a word on behalf of Rawls may be in order. Rawls didn't see himself as denigrating world views with metaphysical commitments when he debarred them from political philosophy. Rather, he saw himself as endeavoring to take them seriously. The modern liberal polity, after all, is comprised of citizens who hold different and incommensurable views of the world. Such views cannot simply be translated into terms others will understand without doing violence to the view itself. And, if we simply go with majority rule, given the diversity and incommensurability of world views, some comprehensive views end up sacrificed to the agenda of others. In a modern, democratic polity--one that includes groups with different worldviews--politics verges on doing little more than establishing tenuous compromises between competing groups, little more than an unstable, temporary arrangement in which each party puts up with the other. So Rawls thought that if an overlapping consensus could be developed in which each group subscribed to a shared set of principles--where these principles were endemic to the view of each group already--that the foundations for a durable and civil dialogue might be in place. Now, this view clearly turns on metaphysical assumptions--and metaphysical assumptions about the good at that. But from Rawls' position, his goal was to take religious belief and comprehensive world views seriously rather than to denigrate them--and to do so in a condition that respects freedom of conscience while acknowledging the plurality of beliefs in the modern, liberal polity. He may not have pulled that off. We may need to show why the project is untenable and, indeed, self-referentially incoherent (as I am sure, based on Hampton and Seung, that it is). But we can perhaps give a generous assessment of his motives while doing so. Moreover, I think Rawls might serve as a reminder that we should not be too sanguine about the ease of achieving consensus in modern republics in which citizens subscribe to varied and incommensurable world views--and yet the modern republic requires a degree of consensus on matters of policy if it is to be a republic. The natural law is of great help here, for it suggests that there are some basic moral principles about which all people, way down deep, agree. But even people who agree on basic moral principles frequently disagree on matters of policy. The sort of consensus we need in a polity in order to conduct a civil and even productive dialogue cannot be maximal and even then will not be easy to achieve. In this sense, monarchy or aristocracy would be easier going, as they say. So would a mere modus vivendi, though a mere modus vivendi would, as Rawls suggests, be less stable. So political theory must move beyond Ralws. But we must also not forget what he got right, even if his comprehensive view of things was wrong. Madison says that in a republic, deliberate public opinion OUGHT to prevail over the views of its rulers. The development of deliberate public opinion requires, of course, public dialogue aimed at achieving some degree of consensus. So we need to build a public consensus on matters of policy--inasmuch as we are to have a republic. And this is difficult to do. Rawls, perhaps unwittingly, reminds us of one of the fundamental dilemmas of republican form. That reminder poses a question--Is a modern republic possible?

At the core of these kinds of problems is the vision of the human. What is a human? Rawls, with roots in Hobbes and Kant, imagines humans as autonomous creatures, individual, separate, self-interested. Kant provides the metaphysical justification for this point of view, which is widespread today. In this vision true knowledge of the other cannot be had. Rather we reason to knowledge of the other; there is a permanent, structural membrane between us as individuals and the other, whether animate or inanimate.

One reason the Kantian metaphysics is so popular today is that it more easily underwrites the Darwinian vision of man as machine. To take the pressure off of Darwinism somewhat, let me back that statement into the 18th and earlier centuries. In the 18th we were indoctrinated with the ideas of positivism and science, ideas that eventually became analytic science. At that time the combination meant metaphysics was seen as speculative and unscientific, somehow not real knowledge. This was the triumph of nominalism, a process that had begun 100s of years earlier. It left the scientists with a problem though: how was Aristotelian biology to be overcome? The pesky idea of essence and life, although perceived as imperfections, artifacts of the discredited metaphysical view of life, could not be overcome until Darwin’s explanation. What is significant about this history is that the vision of the individual, without essence, but somehow autonomous, became the norm. No essence means no vision of the Good; no eudaimonia (Mills and the utilitarians notwithstanding, since they went too far in the other direction, completely gutting the idea of the individual.)

So Rawls solved the problem of plurality by appeal to procedure; but a procedure dependent on the Kantian vision of man. Rawls’ metaphysics (about man) is solipsistic.

In contrast, the Aristotelian, and Hegelian, vision of man is as a creature that can directly know the other, and is fulfilled and made complete in the other. I think the background of these kinds of discussions is a resurgence of Aristotelian biology; a profound rebuke to analytic science and philosophy, which has continued to fail in being able to accurately describe life, whether individual or political. This is exciting because neo-Aristotelian meta-biology provides us with a way to identify and discuss life and the Good without reference to God. The Good is of necessity a political thing , since no man is an island. The import of a secular vision of a living creature that can know the other resides in what we see in the mirror every day, 24/7. A world ravaged by religious values imposed on political systems: the Christian theory of just war; the degraded idea of jihad; the idea of the religious state that dominates political discourse here and in the Middle East. Rawls certainly got the discussion going, but his tradition is disabled by his metaphysics. We need fair procedures; but we also have to recognize life, and identify the Good.

Paul’s comments pointing out the Rawlsian idea of searching for what we can agree upon, and the dismissal of what we disagree upon as the desired end point of discussion and action, reminds me of the earlier excursions into ecumenism where the aim was to articulate what we agreed upon and minimize what we did not agree upon. That process has failed, for the reason that the points of disagreement were fundamental and the points of consensus were for the most part inconsequential. The new approach in ecumenism is to articulate more precisely the substance, and reasons, for the different views on the things that count most. At that juncture it becomes easier to discuss intelligently the critical issues and reasons for the differing views. That is where metaphysics counts, in my opinion.

Oh, I concur that Rawls is problematic. My main objection to Rawls has to do with the self-referential coherency problems in his thought. As T. K. Seung points out, the conditions of the original position are themselves "fair" (in the Rawlsian sense) conditions and so of course the theory of justice that emerges is a theory of justice as fairness. As Seung noted, the reason Rawls could pull the rabbit out of the hat was because he had stuffed the rabbit in the hat before the trick began. Moreover, the argument that Rawls' own theory has metaphysical underpinnings that smuggled in is something known to specialists, but that it is right to point out in season and out of season. Much like Hadley Arkes, in his recent book, puts in a good word for positivists (with whom he substantially disagrees), I sought only to put in a word for Rawls. Whether he was right or wrong, Rawls intention was to take seriously the distinctive comprehensive perspectives that we find in a pluralistic, modern, democracy. Now, I think full blown dialogue between different perspectives, conducted civilly, is more important and more interesting. And I don't think political theory or political dialogue can be done without metaphysics. But that Rawls was wrong doesn't mean that he meant to denigrate comprehensive perspectives. What is clear from some previously unknown writing of Rawls, now recently published, is that he himself thought a particular comprehensive perspective (the traditional Christian one) wrong and another (a rather more naturalistic one, all in all) to be correct. He wasn't suggesting in his political theory that his own take on morals or metaphysics didn't matter. He wasn't suggesting that only his own take mattered while those of others did not. He even suggests, in an article or two, that comprehensive perspectives or metaphysical commitments are more important than the political--a sentiment every Christian (even a political theorist like myself), I believe, ought to endorse. And we should consider with interest that towards the end of his life he seems to have been engaged with or interested in the decidedly metaphysical work of Robert Merrihew Adams. All I meant to suggest is that Rawls grapples seriously, though inadequately, with a problem many American Christians would like to ignore. James Madison realized that the reason ancient republics failed and the first state constitutions failed was because they governed small republics--republics that are susceptible to domination by majority faction (where the majority faction in question is a popular majority). A necessary condition to building a republic that could both protect liberty and last for the ages was enlarging the compass of the republic. Enlarging the sphere of the republic was done in order to take in so many factions so that it would be unlikely that any one faction was in the majority or that if one was it would be unlikely to discover itself or if it did unlikely to successfully coordinate its actions. But a large republic--especially one as large as modern representative democracies--means many very different and incommensurable world views. And yet, republican form requires the final say, in matters politic, of public opinion (so says Madison). This requires forging a consensus across people who disagree quite a lot. If that process fails, then sometimes things like civil wars occur. Rawls way of addressing the problem is problematic. I'm in the process of co-editing an anthology that contains an essay that shows just why. But when teaching Rawls theory of an overlapping consensus to undergrads a few years ago, I was struck to the degree by which he had put his finger on a real problem. The failure of anti-metaphysical political philosophy notwithstanding, he deserves at least a little credit for seeing a problem many of the left and right would prefer to paper over with political rhetoric. To be sure, he merits substantive criticism as well. I'm no Rawlsian. And I think disciples of folks like Rawls (and Strauss too!) have missed the boat.

Thank you for the interesting and engaging responses, but please remember to break up your comments into paragraphs. 80 to 130 words is probably an ideal length, visually-speaking. Some of us have eyes that are not as young as they were.

Prof. Reno--Re Paragraph 12: What is "The truth about our humanity and eternal destiny"? This is not a rhetorical question; I will be much in your debt if you respond.

A couple of comments on a couple of key passages:

"the notion of that an end-of-life decision should be private, restricted only by legal safeguards to ensure informed consent, presupposes the man-as-maker-of-meaning view of life."

No, it doesn’t. The notion simply follows from the conviction that deciding what is and isn’t the “correct view of life” isn’t the sort of things we elect politicians to do, and so answers to those kinds of question do provide a valid basis for the exercise of state power. It is quite easy to imagine someone who takes the “man as grateful recipient” view yet believes it is not for state to mandate such things in the hospital over the objections of those who sincerely believe otherwise. In fact, we don’t have to imagine such people, as they readily exist.


"The political life of a nation isn’t the most important concern we face. To a great extent, our contemporary views of public reason reflect a contrary judgment. Rawls, Rorty, and others have been eager to banish metaphysics from politics, because they smuggle in a crucial assumption: that our political life together is so cosmically important that we should sacrifice everything else to ensure its primacy"

Quite the contrary. It’s because things like religion are so important that political liberals want them kept separate from the political. Respecting the freedom of conscience is one of the most important duties of a liberal state--the idea is to create the space for individual to pursue these more important things unmolested by the government. Doesn’t history amply show that the best way to trivialize and degrade these more important things is to politicize them?

I'm interested in the practical application of the re-introduction of metaphysics into public life. Is it even possible now? I think it is, but there are serious objections to be overcome, from the perspective of the average Western thinker nowadays.

Most people see the removal of metaphysical discussion as the precursor to peace. The thought goes "There is no point in discussing these things because we will just disagree, so let's just stop talking about them." What can we do to make this Average Joe accept that by re-introducing metaphysics we will not resort to forcing our beliefs on them?

The meta-meta issue here, in my opinion, is a failure of courage, or fatherhood. It takes a saint to insist, in charity, that God exists and that you better start acting like he does. That's the nut of our soul-centered way of thinking. We will invariably be called opressive and patriarchal, and we will be subject to all kinds of overt and subvert persecution if we do this. But, you are right, it is the only thing we can do.

These issues often make me think of The Lord of the Rings - world in decline, hopes against us, and the difference made by several brave men and women. "Arise, Men of the West" and claim your metaphysical birthright. Time's running out!

This is all quite interesting.

One other dynamic is perhaps at play as well. It is virtually impossible to discuss any issue great issue of "secular discourse" in the U.S. without involving some discussion of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's most spectacular entry into that arena was in Roe v. Wade when it made itself the final arbiter of the most metaphysical of questions -- when does life begin?

The Court has had a lot of help from legal philosophers in its journey, many of whom were intellectual cousins of Rawls. H.L.A. Hart, a British legal philosopher, was the leading modern proponent of "legal positivism" which argued for a vision of law in which moral questions as such could play no part in the resolution of actual cases. His foil (whom he defeated in the sense of enduring influence upon the legal academy) was Lon Fuller, who argued for a modern sort of natural law that would require some minimum moral content in any legal rule.

Then came Ronald Dworkin, who actually used Hart as his foil and argued for a more complicated view of law than Hart's insistence that there need be only an antiseptic "intersection" between law and morals. (Hart's central thesis was that legal rules were recognizable as such only because of what he called a "rule of recognition," i.e., that the rule came from an authoritative source such as the Supreme Court or Congress.) But Dworkin cleverly took Rawls's political theory and converted it into a theory of legal philosophy, thus giving a philosophical cover to those who would allow constitutional adjudication to become the vehicle for importing political choices that could not be gained even in the democratic process.

The result has been that not only has metaphysics been banned from discourse as such (essentially by custom), discussion of it is further disincented by the fact that the polity couldn't do anything about many of these questions even if there were a robust discussion of them.

No need to re-tell standard, abreviated historical accounts at length; especially when they miss the critical points at issue here. Especially, no need to tell us that the Spanish Armarda happened "only because" of English pirates. I know of no professional historian that ever suggests today, that most major events like the 1588 invasion, happened "only because" of a single phenomenon - like especially, pirates. That is a schoolboy vision of history: pirates caused it?

But of course, what do I know about Art, or History? Only one of my graduate degrees was in Art History. Therefore everyone on this blog is eager to lecture me on both subjects, and to assure me, proudly, that they are my superiors in every way. THough Jesus himself advised "humility."

The fact is, History and religion are complicated enough; so that to try to find just one theology, or one single "cause" for things in them, is simplistic.

In the present case being discussed here, there are MANY various important elements in Catholicism and Protestantism, and their art; and their wars. But among dozens of complex factors, I'd hold to the notion that the reason Protestantism succeded in founding a nation as great as America and Democracy, while the Spanish founded only the hugely underproductive Mexico and South America, was based on a number of key virtues in Protestantism itself. Among which was the fact Protestantism was not as based on belief in Magic - sentient statues. Not as much the more ancient religion of Catholicm has been.

Many Catholics today, amazingly, deny that they ever thought their religious statues could hear, and cry and bleed. But the newspapers are full of such reported incidents, from Catholics, even today.

1) The Council of Trent to be sure, seems to many to have spoken above, against venerating religious images and statues, or asking things of them. But in actual practice, most older, conservative Catholics I know, are Cafeteria Catholics. In this case, they don't really obey the Council of Trent; I see them regularly praying to statues. Though some try to deny that, with rationalizations, sophistries.

While Trent, by the way, refers to "miracles" performed by saints.

The fact too, that Trent does not address also a second problem - Greed in relation to icons - if anything, finally speaks poorly of the Council of Trent. And/or successive councils, that should have explicitly addressed this problem.

2) Regarding the religions of nations, as a factor in their success or lack of any given nation? Sometimes the religion, for that matter, is hard to determine. For example, a) France today is a mostly secular country. While b) America is increasingly Catholic. Due to the extremely rapid increase in overwhelmingly Catholic immigrants from south of the border, and their extremely high birth rates. Indeed, the corpulence of Americans began in direct proportion to that growth.

3) Was religion the ONLY cause of conflicts between England and the rest of the world? Hardly. I said it was "in part" the cause. Again, only very very bad historians suggest that major events are caused by a single event.

4) What were the many causes of the conflict between England and France for example? Did France attack Henry VIII? I didn't say it did. In fact, Henry for a while backed France. But he eventually joined an alliance with Charles against France ... in light however, of popular allusions to earlier, historical attacks by France on England, and other reasons.

Conflicts between England and France go back to at least the Norman Conquest in 1066 - when France attacked and took over England. Your own history therefore, which looks only at pirates as the cause of this conflict, is "silly"; because it doesn't take into account the longer-term picture. And the longer-term conflicts between England and France.

By the way, I wouldn't particularly want to defend Henry VIII; preferring the albeit only slightly less problematic assistant, Oliver Cromwell.

5) Indeed, you might be accused of inconsistency, if not hypocrisy, and lack of knowledge about religion: you live in a great country founded by Protestants ... and yet don't consider Protestantism great.

6) And you should know that many Protestants know their Bibles and theology pretty well. And Protestants know that if PARTS of the Bible support Catholic ideas, other parts don't. For example, considfer the desirability of churches. If Solomon built a very fine temple? Then other parts of the Bible. Which suggest that a) Solomon turned against God at times, with his many pagan wives. While for that matter, b) before building the temple, Solomon questioned the need for it. Solomon asking whether a God who lives everywhere, needed a human-build home to live in.

While c) - z) dozens of other parts of the Bible, were also rather negative about temples, "shrines built by men."

Finally though I'm not arguing here and now, that there should not be any physical temples or churches; only that they should be suitably restrained in artistic ornamentation.

7) God himself, the Bible itself often warned about love of rich things; and specifically of statues, icons, images. In partthey warned about them since, I now suggest here, anyone who follows the materialistic/sensual ethic, and richer, more sumptuous idea of Art, are lead to love this earth a little too much; and thus you are loving the wrong idea of God.

Indeed, many have the wrong idea of God; from the sumptuousness/richness/idolatry and magical thinking, associated with Catholic religious art. That error might have been restrained by the allegedly ascetic side of the Catholic laity; but the laity was never quite as ascetic as a Scotch Prebytrian. All the average Catholic knew about self-denial, had atrophied to merely eating fish instead of beef on Friday. While even that silly token, disappeared almost totally. So that today, Catholics are normally been lead, to the wrong idea of God. Due to the Catholic attachment to riches; their common confusion of the idol of richness, with God himself.

8) And for that matter, the attachment to objects, is an outdated idea of Art. The most modern/postmodern idea of Art, no longer relies as much on permanenbt objects of value; but rather on temporary performances, and installations.

Thus confirming that the deeper vision of truth and God, often told us to look beyond just material riches and possessions, here on this physical earth.

9) If we each should be ecumenical, and try to borrow from the good elements of other Christian doctrines, churches, liturgies? Then I suggest that both Catholics and Orthodox Christians, should now consider the huge virtues of Protestantism; including a variation of its mild asceticism.

And they should seriously consider the great virtues of Protestant iconoclasm.

10) And with this, I take up the sword again; for Oliver Cromwell, the House of Orange, Protestantism - and ENGLAND.

11) Even though Protestant England - where the Prime Minister, by law, must be a Protestant - is admittedly not doing so well this week, in soccer's world cup.

Conflicts between England and France go back to at least the Norman Conquest in 1066 - when France attacked and took over England. Your own history therefore, which looks only at pirates as the cause of this conflict, is "silly"; because it doesn't take into account the longer-term picture. And the longer-term conflicts between England and France. In the present case being discussed here, there are MANY various important elements in Catholicism and Protestantism, and their art; and their wars. But among dozens of complex factors, I'd hold to the notion that the reason Protestantism succeded in founding a nation as great as America and Democracy, while the Spanish founded only the hugely underproductive Mexico and South America, was based on a number of key virtues in Protestantism itself. Among which was the fact Protestantism was not as based on belief in Magic - sentient statues. Not as much the more ancient religion of Catholicm has been.

Many Catholics today, amazingly, deny that they ever thought their religious statues could hear, and cry and bleed. But the newspapers are full of such reported incidents, from Catholics, even today. 3) Was religion the ONLY cause of conflicts between England and the rest of the world? Hardly. I said it was "in part" the cause. Again, only very very bad historians suggest that major events are caused by a single event.

The meta-meta issue here, in my opinion, is a failure of courage, or fatherhood. It takes a saint to insist, in charity, that God exists and that you better start acting like he does. That's the nut of our soul-centered way of thinking. We will invariably be called opressive and patriarchal, and we will be subject to all kinds of overt and subvert persecution if we do this. But, you are right, it is the only thing we can do.