A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith

With "On My Religion"

John Rawls

Edited by Thomas Nagel, with commentaries by Joshua Cohen and Thomas Nagel, and by Robert Merrihew Adams

    What a pleasure to read John Rawls's senior thesis at Princeton, which he submitted in 1942, long before his book A Theory of Justice (1971) established him as America's most respected liberal philosopher of law. Rawls's later writings are as pareve (neutral) as could be--they have no hint of the religious passion and wisdom that permeates his senior thesis. Robert Merrihew Adams has a long accompanying essay reviewing what is the most exciting in Rawls's thesis.
       --Tikkun

    No recent secular moralist has been more influential than John Rawls...[A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith] undoubtedly reveals an interesting stage in the development of a highly significant philosopher.
       --Anthony Kenny, Times Literary Supplement

    Allows us to see how a very intelligent believer, who once considered the priesthood, lost his Christian faith as a young man.
       --James Wood, New Yorker

  • Cover: A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith
  • A photo of the author

Author photo: Courtesy of Harvard Photo Services

John Rawls was James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. He was recipient of the 1999 National Humanities Medal.

Thomas Nagel is University Professor, Professor of Law, and Professor of Philosophy at New York University.

Joshua Cohen is Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society at Stanford University and editor of Boston Review.

Thomas Nagel is University Professor, Professor of Law, and Professor of Philosophy at New York University.

Robert Merrihew Adams is Clark Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Yale University.