John Rawls’s Theory of Justice and the Indoctrination of Religious Faith in Schools

After everything we have discussed so far, an important question arises: Is teaching religion—or, more precisely, instilling religious faith in children at school—a just and proper practice? Is it fair for an educational system to permit this? Or would it be fairer to prohibit it? Should we allow it, or should we forbid it? If only one of these two choices is just, and the decision is ours to make, then we have no choice but to find the answer, because we are responsible for the consequences of that decision.

I know there are many arguments both for and against this practice. People take different sides and offer their own reasons for regarding it as just or unjust.

Let us therefore use a criterion for deciding whether a law or practice is fair. This criterion was proposed by John Rawls in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice. I will present the idea in a simplified form that differs somewhat from Rawls’s own presentation, while preserving its basic principles.

When we try to decide whether a law is just or unjust, our judgment is affected by obvious and hidden biases arising from self-interest and prejudice. For example, when considering whether Islamic inheritance laws are fair, it is difficult to set aside the fact that we ourselves are male or female. When judging whether tax laws applying to booksellers are fair, whether or not we are booksellers ourselves can influence the law we consider just. People born into wealthy families may judge educational and medical support for those born into severe poverty differently from people who were themselves born into such circumstances, with little opportunity for education or adequate medical care. Each group may support a different law.

Very often, our judgment about whether a law is fair depends on the circumstances into which we were born and the position we currently occupy. It may depend on whether we are rich or poor, male or female, educated or illiterate, enslaved or free, privileged or disadvantaged, urban or rural, employer or worker, highly intelligent or less gifted, Muslim or Christian or Hindu or Buddhist or nonreligious, and so on.

Rawls’s proposal for discovering what is genuinely just, while minimizing such biases, is to conduct a thought experiment. In this experiment, we must forget our own social position, sex, financial status, occupation, intelligence, talents, religion, education, and other personal circumstances. Rawls calls this hypothetical condition, in which we do not know our present position in society, the original position. We do, however, retain our general knowledge of science, sociology, psychology, politics, and so forth. We can therefore make reasonable estimates about how a particular law would affect us if we were born into any position other than the one we currently occupy.

Suppose, for example, that I imagine I have not yet been born and do not know whether I will be born male or female. I may be born a woman, or I may be born a man. Would I prefer to be born into a country where the law says that a man receives only one-fifth as much inheritance as a woman? Or would I prefer a country where men and women inherit equally? Everything else about the two countries is identical. I am told that I do not know whether I will be born male or female; I must simply choose which country I would prefer to be born into. I must therefore weigh my position under both legal systems, both as a possible woman and as a possible man. The country I choose reveals which law I regard as more just.

The same criterion can be extended to social traditions. Suppose that in one country, such as India, people are regarded as belonging permanently to the social class into which they are born, and people from higher castes do not allow those born into lower castes to enter their ranks or advance into their positions. In another otherwise identical country, no such caste tradition exists. I do not know into which family or caste I will be born. In which country would I prefer to be born—the one that preserves caste distinctions, or the one that does not? My choice reveals which tradition I regard as more just—or, in this case, perhaps more ethical.

Rawls’s method contains an important insight: it makes us recognize, almost automatically, the fundamental similarity of all persons. It is as though we all possess the same inherent human worth, but happen to be born into different bodies, families, talents, and life circumstances. Many of the hardships or advantages we experience are beyond our control and are not the result of our own choices. At the very least, then, we can reduce one another’s suffering by changing laws and traditions. Laws and traditions that produce less suffering are more just and more ethical.

In this method, we place ourselves in the position of every possible person, with every possible social, sexual, and physical condition, and ask what arrangements we would prefer if we ourselves were born into each of those positions. The choice we make will ultimately reduce the suffering of those who really are born into such circumstances. In other words, we do not treat ourselves as different from others. We refuse for others what we would refuse for ourselves. We therefore choose the more ethical course.

Now let us turn to another tradition and another possible law.

I have not yet been born. Before me are two countries organized as nation-states: Country A and Country B. Each country contains one hundred different religions, denominations, and sects.

In Country A, the tradition is that every family instills its religious beliefs in its children as eternal truths and sacred convictions. Parents send their children to schools where the same religion is taught as sacred truth, and the curriculum is designed and supervised by the clerical establishment of that religion. This practice is supported by the law of the country.

In Country B, the tradition is different. Families do not present their own religious beliefs to their children as unquestionable eternal truths. For example, when children ask why their parents perform certain religious rituals, the parents may reply: “We, and some other people in this country, believe these things. Many other people believe something different, and some do not believe in any religion at all.”

In Country B, the law does not permit any religion to be taught to children as sacred truth. At most, children are introduced to the history and teachings of different religions. Religions are free, but religious indoctrination in childhood and in schools is neither customary nor legally sanctioned.

I am now in the original position. I do not know in which country I will be born, what sex I will have, or into which family, religion, denomination, or sect I will be born. I must now decide which country I would prefer to enter: Country A or Country B.

To make this decision, I must use what I know about psychology, sociology, politics, and related fields.

In my present life, I might happen to be a Shiite Muslim woman, a Hindu man, or a Shinto priest, and I may regard my own religion as true and everyone else as mistaken. But in the original position—behind what Rawls calls the veil of ignorance—I must imagine that I do not yet know into which religious family I will be born. I know that after birth, for reasons largely beyond my control, I may not end up holding the religion or belief system that I currently regard as true.

How might that happen? This is precisely where I must use everything I know and ask what path is likely to lie before me in each of the two countries. In which country do I have a greater chance of reaching a more desirable position? How much of that path will be under my own control, and how much will not?

If I were born in Country A, the probability that I would be born into a family belonging to exactly the same religion, denomination, and sect to which I presently belong would be quite small. Most likely, I would either be born into a different religion, or into my present religion but a different denomination, or into the same religion and denomination but a different sect—one whose beliefs, doctrines, and clergy I currently regard as misguided. From this point onward, let us call that other religion, denomination, or sect “the other faith.”

So, if I were born in Country A, I would most likely be born into a family belonging to this other faith. In accordance with the prevailing tradition of Country A, my family would tell me from early childhood that the God of this other faith created the universe, knows everything, and is aware of everything that happens inside my mind—every thought and intention I have. Like other members of Homo sapiens, equipped with a theory of mind, I would be fully prepared in childhood to believe in the existence of this mind that knows the contents of my own mind and to accept that it has complete access to all my thoughts.

The older systems of my brain would continuously take the presence of this guardian of the mind—the God introduced to me by my family—into account. If my family had told me that the God of this other faith becomes angry with those who doubt his existence or the truth of his religion, and that he punishes them both in this life and in the next, the older systems of my brain would discourage my cerebral cortex from questioning the existence of this guardian of my mind or doubting what I had been told about him.

I would hear from my parents stories of miracles performed by the sacred figures of this other faith. And because, like every other Homo sapiens, I must begin life by trusting and accepting what adults tell me, I would believe these stories. Since, like other human beings, I am influenced by the gestures, expressions, and performances of those around me, seeing my parents and other family members display reverence and humility whenever those sacred figures are mentioned—and seeing from their behavior that they completely believe those miracle stories to be true—would deepen my own belief in what they tell me. At that age, I would not investigate the historical origins of those stories. The nature of my developing mind would incline me simply to believe.

From that point onward, those sacred figures too would come under the full protection and approval of the God—or guardian—implanted in my mind. Whatever I was told in their name, I would tend to accept without question, because the older systems of my brain would not regard it as safe to allow the cerebral cortex to doubt, criticize, or evaluate the sacred figures of that other faith in the presence of the guardian of the mind who is believed to be constantly watching.

My family would then send me to a school where the same other faith was instilled in me. I would hear more of the same stories about its sacred figures, delivered with the same gestures and expressions of faith, conviction, and heartfelt reverence. Almost everyone I knew and trusted would communicate, through both words and behavior, that they completely believed what they were telling me. To me, this would amount to a “consensus of trustworthy people,” and witnessing such broad agreement would create the feeling that reality could hardly be anything other than what they said it was.

This entire network to which I belonged, and whose members I trusted, would itself place trust in a particular clerical establishment, or perhaps in one or two influential clerics, belonging to the other faith. I might sometimes watch these clerics speak. They would speak with complete confidence in support of that religion, and I would observe that their audiences did not challenge them and appeared to accept them fully as learned and knowledgeable authorities.

Their clothing would tell me that they belonged to a recognized body of specialists. That institution would be legally recognized and permitted to operate by the government of my country. At an unconscious level, I might conclude that the government therefore had no objection to what they taught.

This would be the same government that protected me and my family; the government that ensured restaurants and food sellers did not sell us unsafe food; the government whose police and courts protected us from thieves and fraudsters; the government that warned people not to trust fortune-tellers, magicians, fraudulent healers, and similar figures, and encouraged them instead to rely on science, knowledge, and reason; the same government that tried to prevent drug dealers from selling narcotics to children and adolescents—even to children and adolescents who might themselves want to buy those drugs—because the government supposedly cared about their future and understood the dangers involved.

And yet this same caring, protective, and forward-looking government would have authorized the clerical establishment of the other faith into which I had been born to guide me while I was still a child. My childhood conclusion would therefore be that these clerics must also be approved by this knowledgeable and benevolent government and therefore could hardly be telling me things that were false.

During adolescence, I might also be drawn into one particular group within this other faith through the friendly smile of a religious teacher or cleric. My fear of being rejected by that group could then push me even further toward affirming its beliefs.

Gradually, I would begin speaking about my beliefs in various situations, presenting the beliefs my family had instilled in me within the framework of the other faith as my own personal beliefs. From this point onward, like most members of Homo sapiens, I might become vulnerable to choice blindness and increasingly biased in favor of the doctrines and practices of the other faith. I would notice whatever supported them and filter out or ignore whatever contradicted them.

Through the endowment effect, or ownership effect, I would come to see the other faith into which I had been born as superior, better, more valuable, and more rational than the other religions in Country A—and indeed more valuable than all other religions in the world, including the religion I presently regard as my own.

If someone told me that perhaps one of those other religions was true and mine was false, an error in probability estimation might lead me to underestimate the likelihood that I had inherited the wrong religion. I would therefore feel little need to change either my beliefs or my way of life.

If, at some point in my life, my brain happened—as occurs in some proportion of people—to generate unusual experiences such as mystical experiences, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and so forth, I would interpret them as confirmation of the truth of this other faith. I might believe that the God of this religion had specially favored me, and my faith could become enormously stronger.

If, after praying to the God or saints of the other faith, I experienced an improvement in my health, I might mistake a placebo effect for a miracle, further strengthening my belief.

During periods of hardship and helplessness, my brain might attempt to discover patterns in the events around me that reassured me that I had not been abandoned. I would interpret those patterns as evidence of the presence, wisdom, and control of the God of the other faith.

I might hand over part of my wealth and income to the clerical establishment of that religion so that it could help ensure that I would not meet an unhappy fate in the next life.

When encountering people who mocked my beliefs, I would increasingly distance myself from them and become more deeply absorbed in the community of my fellow believers. I would seek more and more reassurance for my beliefs from members of my own group so that my mind would not become unsettled.

In Country A, I might quite easily become highly educated and specialized in any field of science or technology and make full use of my expertise. Yet whenever the knowledge I acquired came into conflict with the beliefs of the other faith, I might still be unable to abandon those beliefs. Even if I became a philosopher, I might suspend my philosophical method when I reached the doctrines of my own religion and instead begin constructing arguments to defend what I already believed.

I might treat every logical or philosophical argument for the existence of a creator or a first cause as rational evidence for the specific God of the other faith and conclude that reason and philosophy themselves confirmed and supported the truth of my religion. In other words, I would be highly unlikely to grant any serious possibility that another religion might be true. I would appropriate both sensory and rational evidence in support of the faith into which I had been raised. If I remained religious throughout my life, I would most likely remain a believer in that same other faith.

Now I, who presently believe that my own current religion is true, must ask: if I were born in Country A and raised in a family belonging to another faith, what chance would I realistically have of breaking away from that religion, discovering the religion I currently regard as true, converting to it, and thereby attaining salvation?

How likely is a member of Homo sapiens to separate himself from the religion in which he was raised and adopt another one? To what extent does the physiology of faith leave this path open to him? How free is his mind to choose?

I, too, am a member of Homo sapiens. In Country A, how much genuine freedom of choice would I actually have to discover, one day, the religion I presently consider my own and prefer it to the other faith into which I had been raised?

If I were born in Country B, however, and no religion were instilled in me as sacred truth throughout my school years, what chance would I have of accepting my present religion when I eventually encountered it?

I currently believe that my own religion is clearly and unmistakably true, and that anyone who encounters its truths without prejudice or bias would readily accept it. If that is so, then if I were born in Country B, perhaps whenever I eventually encountered the religion I presently regard as true, I would be able to accept it quite easily—because my mind would still retain greater freedom of choice and would not yet have become committed to a competing faith.

So in which country would I prefer to be born?

Country A or Country B?

Or, more precisely, according to this criterion, which tradition and legal arrangement should I regard as more ethical and just—the tradition and law of Country A, or those of Country B?