The Spiritual Exercises of John Rawls

• Author: Alexandre Lefebvre
• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Date: 01 June 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917211041768
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917211041768

Political Theory

2022, Vol. 50(3) 405 –427

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917211041768

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Article

The Spiritual Exercises

of John Rawls

Alexandre Lefebvre1

Abstract

In this article I interpret John Rawls’s concept of the original position as

a spiritual exercise. In addition to the standard interpretation of the

original position as an expository device to select principles of justice for

the fundamental institutions of society, I argue that Rawls also envisages

it as a “spiritual exercise”: a voluntary personal practice intended to bring

about a transformation of the self. To make this argument, I draw on the

work of Pierre Hadot, a philosopher and classicist, who introduced the

idea of spiritual exercises as central to ancient and modern conceptions of

philosophy. By reading Rawls alongside Hadot, this article portrays Rawls as

a thinker deeply concerned with the question of how subjects can lead more

just and fulfilling lives. It also proposes that the original position as a spiritual

exercise can help defend liberalism as a social and political doctrine.

Keywords

original position, moral psychology, liberalism, Pierre Hadot, selfhood,

philosophy as a way of life

John Rawls (1921–2002) gave very few interviews over the course of his

career. To mark the occasion of his retirement in 1991, however, he accepted

an invitation from his students (Rawls 1991). Together they covered a wide

range of topics on his life, work, reception, and teaching. But in Rawls’s own

1The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Alexandre Lefebvre, The University of Sydney, SOPHI, Quad, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

Email: alex.lefebvre@sydney.edu.au

1041768PTXXXX10.1177/00905917211041768Political TheoryLefebvre

research-article2021

406 Political Theory 50(3)

draft copy of the interview, included with his personal papers and open for

view at Harvard University, he adds a fascinating section that does not appear

in the published version. Upon answering all the questions the students asked,

he notes down a few “Questions They Didn’t Ask Me” and plays the role of

both interviewer and interviewee:

Questions They Didn’t Ask Me

There were lots of questions they didn’t ask me in [The Harvard Review

of Philosophy] interview. Some of those they could have asked I’ll

answer here:

HRP (as imagined): You never talk about religion in your classes, although

sometimes the discussion borders on it. Why is that? Do you think reli-

gion of no importance? Or that it has no role in our life?

JR: On the role of religion, put it this way. Let’s ask the question: Does

life need to be redeemed? And if so, why; and what can redeem it? I

would say yes: life does need to be redeemed. By life I mean the ordi-

nary round of being born, growing up, falling in love and marrying

and having children; seeing that they grow up, go to school, and have

children themselves; of supporting ourselves and carrying on day

after day; of growing older and having grandchildren and eventually

dying. All that and much else needs to be redeemed.

HRP: Fine, but what’s this business about being redeemed? It doesn’t say

anything to me.

JR: Well, what I mean is that what I called the ordinary round of life—

growing up, falling in love, having children and the rest—can seem not

enough by itself. That ordinary round must be graced by something to

be worthwhile. That’s what I mean by redeemed. The question is what

is needed to redeem it? (Rawls 2003)

It may be surprising to hear Rawls speak like this. The main question asso-

ciated with his work is the following: how is it possible for an institutional

order to be just? The theoretical framework and concepts he developed to

address it have since passed into the vernacular of political philosophy

(Forrester 2019). But throughout his career Rawls wrestled with an equally

fundamental question: how is it possible for a human life to be worthwhile

(see Weithman 2010, 2016; Neiman 2002, 2019; Gališanka 2019; Macedo

1990; Cline 2012; Bok 2017; Reidy 2014)? Sometimes the context for this

question is dark and tragic, as when he wonders in the introduction to

Political Liberalism (1993) whether, in light of the evils of human history,

“one might ask with Kant whether it is worthwhile for human beings to

live on the earth?” (Rawls 1993, lx). Yet most of the time, the unspoken

setting is rather more mundane, as is the case in the addendum to the