Rawls’ Career, Life Celebrated In Sanders

With his favorite Schubert sonata and his wife’s story of their first blind date, family, friends and former students remembered John Rawls, the Conant professor emeritus and one of the most notable political and moral philosophers of the 20th century, at a memorial service in Sanders Theater yesterday.

Rawls, who died at the age of 81 on Nov. 24, 2001, revived the theory of the social contract and profoundly influenced the course of economic, political and philosophical thought with the 1971 publication of his seminal book A Theory of Justice.

Despite her husband’s academic achievements—and his inability to focus on practical matters like shopping and household chores—Margaret Rawls said he was always a “philosopher only second” to being a husband and father.

She recounted her first meeting with Rawls on a blind date in New York, saying that he “danced enthusiastically but badly,” eliciting bemused laughter from the audience.

Rawls was “untouched by the need to impress,” Margaret said, never letting his fame overcome his modesty.

All of the speakers—from former students to friends and family—praised Rawls for his brilliant philosophical work and warmth as a teacher.

Barbara Herman, a professor of philosophy at the University of California at Los Angeles, pointed to the number of successful female students Rawls’ had as another mark of his pioneering liberal thought in the 1960s and ’70s.

Herman said Rawls always had a “confident expectation that he would learn something from his students.”

Joshua Cohen, chair of the political science department at MIT and a former student of Rawls, also remembered being impressed by Rawls’ genuine interest in his students, and cited a time when Rawls called him up specifically to ask how a seminar of his had gone.

Cohen said Rawls’pleasant manner around those who knew him seemed rooted in his belief that moral and political philosophy should have practical value in everyday life.

Other speakers said Rawls’ philosophy served as the foundation for their scholarly work.

“I’ve never written anything without a mountainous debt to Rawls,” said Ronald Dworkin, a New York University professor of law and philosophy.

The central theme of Rawls’ life was not forgotten as the guests discussed his life—and philosophy—over drinks and hors d’oeuvres at the Loeb House reception after the service.

John Cooper, a professor of ancient philosophy at Princeton and Rawls’ former student and colleague at Harvard, said he remembered Rawls as being the sole calm professor when students stormed university buildings during the tumultuous period of protest of the late 1960s.

He described Rawls as “saintly.”