Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Sceptical

by Timothy J. Keller

The idea that “we should not bring moral or religious convictions to bear on public discussions about justice” is frankly impossible. Sandel writes: “Whether we’re arguing about financial bailouts … surrogate motherhood or same-sex marriage, affirmative action or … CEO pay … questions of justice are bound up with competing notions of honor and virtue, pride and recognition.”14 Alasdair MacIntyre’s book Whose Justice? Which Rationality? has a title that summarizes Sandel’s thesis. There is no simple, single way to reason or to understand justice. Our rationality and understanding of justice depend on our beliefs about right and wrong, the nature of virtue, the relationship of the individual to the group, and many other things.15

See second footnote