Rawlsian Explorations in Religion and Applied Philosophy

5. "All for the Greater Glory of God": Was Saint Ignatius Irrational?

5 ‘‘ALL FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD’’: WAS SAINT IGNATIUS IRRATIONAL? Given the voluminous commentary on Rawls’s classic A Theory of Justice, it is surprising that interesting arguments in that work have been left largely untouched. Section 83, ‘‘Happiness and Dominant Ends,’’ is one that has yet to receive the attention it deserves, though it has not been entirely ignored. In conversations with various scholars, I have learned that in this section Rawls has given many readers the impression that he thinks dominant end views, like those of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, to whom he refers explicitly, are ‘‘irrational’’ or ‘‘mad.’’ Ignatius’s famous version of a dominant end view is that everything we do should be for the greater glory of God (ad majorem Dei gloriam). This saying is not only the motto of the Jesuit order he founded but could also be seen as the motto for all theists in the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), especially given that the great command in theism is to love God with one’s whole heart and mind and strength (e.g., Deut. 6:5, Matt. 22:37, Mark 12:30). Much is thus at stake in the effort to understand Rawls’s meaning and his apparent hyperbole. After all, in our postsecular society, it should be clear that many or most of the citizens whom Rawls would like to bring within the sweep of the was saint ignatius irrational? 91 overlapping consensus characterizing politically liberal societies are religious believers of some sort. In the present chapter I will argue for three claims: (a) I will explicate Rawls’s view and maintain that the charges of irrationality or madness do not apply to Ignatius’s view. Here I will try to make Rawls’s view clearer than Rawls himself makes it. (b) I will nonetheless defend Rawls’s thesis that some other dominant end views are irrational or mad. And (c), I will demonstrate the political importance of the subject, which might initially seem to be quite abstruse and removed from the practical world. inclusive ends versus dominant ends The most common ‘‘inclusive end’’ for a human life in the history of philosophy is happiness. Rawls largely follows Aristotle in seeing happiness as consisting in the successful execution of a roughly rational plan of life that is arrived at under more or less favorable conditions. We tend to be happy when our rational plan of life is being executed to an acceptable extent. Like Aristotle, Rawls believes that happiness is not a totally rational affair, because in addition to rationality it involves luck. Rawls is also an Aristotelian in thinking that, despite the obvious subjective element in happiness, it is to be understood objectively. That is, if a person believes that he or she is on the way to a successful execution of a roughly rational plan of life, but is mistaken or deluded in this belief, we should consider this person unhappy regardless of his or her subjective satisfaction. A person in ‘‘fool’s paradise’’ is not really happy. Here Rawls relies on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (1097a–b) as well as on certain well-known secondary sources (Kenny 1966; Hardie 1965, 1968). Happiness is an inclusive end in part because it is self-contained and is chosen for its own sake, not for the sake of something else. In this regard a person’s happiness is similar to a work of art—a novel, say, or a painting. Even if a particular work of art is flawed in some ways, it has a certain completeness that allows the reader or viewer to see aesthetic value in it that contrasts with the aesthetic value found in other works of art. When a human life approaches ‘‘blessedness’’ (Rawls’s word), it is analogous to a literary masterpiece by Faulkner or a painting by Leonardo. As Rawls puts the point, ‘‘happiness is not one 92 rawlsian explorations aim among others that we aspire to, but the fulfillment of the whole design itself’’ (1999c, 482). The question quite understandably arises: how to choose rationally among possible plans of life? Rawls is famous (or infamous) for his effort to construct a fair decision-making procedure regarding justice in an original position behind a veil of ignorance. He appeals to something similar here, in that a plan of life is one that would be chosen (albeit without the help...