Rawls and Religion

Tom Bailey, Valentina Gentile

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780231538398
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

John Rawls's influential theory of justice and public reason has often been thought to exclude religion from politics, out of fear of its illiberal and destabilizing potentials. It has therefore been criticized by defenders of religion for marginalizing and alienating the wealth of religious sensibilities, voices, and demands now present in contemporary liberal societies.

In this anthology, established scholars of Rawls and the philosophy of religion reexamine and rearticulate the central tenets of Rawls's theory to show they in fact offer sophisticated resources for accommodating and responding to religions in liberal political life. The chapters reassert the subtlety, openness, and flexibility of his sense of liberal "respect" and "consensus," revealing their inclusive implications for religious citizens. They also explore the means he proposes for accommodating nonliberal religions in liberal politics, developing his conception of "public reason" into a novel account of the possibilities for rational engagement between liberal and religious ideas. And they reevaluate Rawls's liberalism from the "transcendent" perspectives of religions themselves, critically considering its normative and political value, as well as its own "religious" character. Rawls and Religion makes a unique and important contribution to contemporary debates over liberalism and its response to the proliferation of religions in contemporary political life.

PART I

Reinterpreting Rawls on Religion

1

Respect and War

AGAINST THE STANDARD VIEW OF RELIGION IN POLITICS

CHRISTOPHER J. EBERLE

The last several decades have witnessed a vibrant discussion about the proper political role of religion in pluralistic liberal democracies. An important part of that discussion has been a dispute about the role that religious and secular reasons properly play in the justification of state coercion. For various reasons, a veritable pantheon of contemporary political theorists (including John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, Martha Nussbaum, and Thomas Nagel) as well as an accompanying chorus of editorialists (Richard Cohen, E. J. Dionne, and Andrew Sullivan, for instance) and even politicians (most prominently, Barack Obama) have endorsed a restrictive understanding of the justificatory role available to religious reasons. As I understand it, the “standard view” advocated by the members of that pantheon, and by many others as well, includes two claims, namely, that religious reasons cannot play a decisive role in justifying state coercion (what I will call the “Principle of Religious Insufficiency”) and that citizens and public officials in a liberal polity should not endorse state coercion that requires decisive religious support (what I will call the “Doctrine of Religious Restraint”).

I doubt that there is any compelling reason to accept general restrictions of this sort. Of course, I do not deny that various other constraints delimit the justificatory role of religious reasons, such that certain religious reasons cannot decisively justify state coercion or such that citizens and public officials should not employ certain sorts of reasons as a basis for endorsing state coercion. Rather, I am skeptical about the standard view’s restrictions on religious reasons as a class, restrictions that apply to any and all religious considerations, to religious reasons as such. My main aim in this chapter is to motivate this skepticism regarding the standard view. I will try to achieve this aim by reflecting on what I take to be the paradigmatic case of state coercion, namely, the use of military violence in war. This somewhat unusual focus provides an opportunity to bring to bear on the topic a vast body of literature on what makes for justified military violence, and also enables us to avoid the fixation on contentious domestic issues like abortion and homosexuality that has often obfuscated the main issues of principle at stake.

THE STANDARD VIEW OF THE RELATION BETWEEN RELIGION AND COERCION

I will begin by articulating what I take to be the core commitments of the standard view. In order to do that, let me identify an assumption held in common by both its advocates and its critics, namely, the claim that there is a general presumption against coercion. This is a very plausible and widely affirmed claim. It seems particularly compelling with respect to the most brutal kind of coercion, the use of military violence in war. Given that waging war obliterates soldiers, terrorizes civilians, dehouses populations, orphans children, and so on, each and every community has powerful reason to refrain from waging war. Consequently, many have argued that we should understand the dominant Western conception of justified war—the so-called Just War Tradition (JWT)—to include the claim that each and every war is presumptively wrong.¹ But, of course, this presumption applies more broadly. For example, when the state incarcerates citizens who refuse to comply with a duly enacted law, it deprives them of the goods of friendship and familial belonging that are an important component of human fulfillment. There is always reason to refrain from depriving human beings of such morally important goods, and so the state always has presumptive reason to refrain from threatening citizens with incarceration. Similarly for other coercive measures: the execution of criminals, the banishment of traitors, even the imposition of fines. All of these are presumptively wrong.

The presumption against coercion is not an absolute prohibition. It will not uncommonly be the case that weighty normative considerations count in favor of coercion in particular circumstances. In some cases the use of military violence is just, and in some cases the state must incarcerate criminals. So, while there is a general presumption against coercion, coercion is sometimes permissible, and thus the presumption against coercion is sometimes overcome.

But what makes it the case that the presumption against coercion has been overcome? Here we have a crosscutting and disharmonious blizzard of options. In order to keep this discussion manageable, consider the manner in which advocates of the JWT answer that question. According to that tradition, the presumption against war can be overcome only if a number of substantive conditions are satisfied: a political community must have just cause to wage war, legitimate authorities in that community must authorize war, those legitimate authorities must do so with the intention of securing a just peace, waging war must achieve an acceptable balance of relevant moral goods and moral evils, and so on. At least some of these requirements specify the kinds of consideration that can overcome the presumption against war. So, for example, the just cause requirement seems best understood as a condition that specifies the kinds of reason that can and cannot overcome the presumption against war: certain kinds of moral wrongs, such as unprovoked military attacks or massive violations of human rights, provide a community with sufficient reason to respond with military violence, but other kinds of wrong, such as insults to communal honor or delinquency on debts, do not. So the JWT includes a specific set of restrictions on the kinds of reason that can justify a particular kind of coercion.²

Advocates of the standard view of religion in politics take a similar approach: they assume that state coercion is presumptively wrong and propose a very broad set of constraints on the kinds of consideration that can overcome that presumption. But the constraints they favor tend to be far more capacious than those incorporated into the JWT—the restrictions they favor apply to all instances of state coercion and to a very broad range of justifying reasons. One such restriction is particularly relevant, namely, that religious considerations cannot play a decisive role in overcoming the presumption against coercion.³ To put it a little more precisely, when the coercing agent is the government in a liberal polity, religious considerations cannot decisively justify coercion. Although religious reasons can corroborate (certain kinds of) secular reasons that are by themselves sufficient to overcome the presumption against coercion, state coercion that would not be justified “but for” some religious reason is morally impermissible.⁴ This restriction applies irrespective of the content of a given religious reason. Let us call the claim that religious reasons cannot decisively justify state coercion in a liberal polity the “Principle of Religious Insufficiency.”

Distinct from, but closely related to, the Principle of Religious Insufficiency is a familiar claim about the duties of citizens and public officials in a liberal polity. Presumably, citizens and public officials ought to do their level best to refrain from endorsing morally impermissible state coercion. But, if the Principle of Religious Insufficiency is correct, religious reasons cannot suffice to overcome the presumption against coercion, and so state coercion that requires a religious rationale is morally impermissible. Consequently, citizens and public officials have a moral duty to restrain themselves from endorsing state coercion that requires a religious rationale. This is what I call the “Doctrine of Religious Restraint.”

The Principle of Religious Insufficiency and the Doctrine of Religious Restraint capture an important component of the standard view: that religion should be subject to some important political restrictions in a liberal democracy. More precisely, they capture the assumption, crucial to the standard view but often unstated, that religious reasons are subject to restrictions that do not apply to all secular reasons. These claims are related in the following way. Advocates of the standard view are liberals, not anarchists, that is, they are committed to the claim that the presumption against state coercion is sometimes overridden. Because religious reasons cannot decisively do so, it is presumably the case that at least some secular reasons can, and do, suffice to overcome that presumption. Nearly every advocate of the standard view accords to at least some secular reasons a justificatory potential that they deny to any and all religious reasons, namely, the capacity decisively to justify state coercion. This kind of asymmetry between religious and secular reasons is deeply embedded in a great deal of contemporary political theory.⁵

But why accept this kind of discriminatory treatment? Given the coruscating diversity of religious considerations, given the varying properties possessed by distinct religious reasons, given the widely divergent intellectual virtues (and vices) possessed by different religious adherents, given that secular reasons exhibit an equally bewildering diversity of sociological, substantive, and epistemic properties, how could it be the case that no religious reasons can even in principle decisively justify coercion, but that some secular reasons can?

THE ARGUMENT FROM RESPECT

Advocates of the standard view regularly answer this question by appealing to some variation of the “argument from respect.” Fundamental to that argument is the claim that human beings possess a distinctive moral status—equal dignity, worth, or sacredness. The worth of a human being is a function of the fact that she is a moral agent who has her own distinctive aims and aspirations. Due respect for the worth of our fellow human beings forbids us to treat them as mere playthings, objects to be manipulated at will, mere means to our ends. Now, very plausibly, if respect for the worth of human beings implies that human beings ought not be treated merely as manipulated objects, then proper respect grounds a presumption against coercion. To subject a human being to coercive measures for which there exists no compelling rationale is to disrespect that human being. So far, advocates and critics of the standard view need not disagree.

But advocates of the standard view argue that due respect for the worth of human beings implies a further constraint on justified coercion. They claim not only that the presumption against coercion must be overcome by some objectively sound rationale, that each coercive measure must be justified, but also that each coercive measure must be justified or justifiable to those who are coerced. For a coercive measure to be justified to the coerced, the coerced must see for themselves that the measure to which they are subjected is legitimate. Presumably, this condition is satisfied only if the coerced have access to what they regard, or would regard on due reflection, as a decisive rationale for the relevant coercive measure. So, due respect requires that each coerced human being have, or at least have access to, some rationale that each would on reflection regard as providing a sufficient justification for the coercive measures to which they are subject.

Thus far, the argument from respect specifies a broad constraint on what makes for justified coercion, and so for justified state coercion. It says nothing explicitly about the justificatory role of religious reasons. But the implications of the argument from respect are easy to draw out when we make explicit the relevant social and political context. A well-functioning liberal democracy just is a kind of political structure that effectively protects a number of rights that allow citizens to decide for themselves what to believe about religious matters. That is, any liberal democracy worthy of the name effectively protects the right to religious freedom and thereby the right of each citizen to decide for him- or herself which religious tradition, if any, to embrace. But, as John Rawls and Rodney Stark have both argued, when human beings have the freedom to determine for themselves what to believe about religious matters, they will inevitably reach different and often conflicting conclusions. As a consequence, then, of its constituent normative commitments, one of the defining features of a liberal democracy will inevitably be a pervasive pluralism of religious belief and practice.

In that pluralistic context, only certain kinds of reason can satisfy the required constraints on justified coercion. As Charles Larmore has argued, reasonable and respectful citizens resolve their differences by retreating to common ground—shared premises that provide some deeper basis for resolving the disagreement at hand.⁶ So the only kind of rationale that can justify coercion in a pluralistic liberal polity are reasons that are shared by, can be shared by, or are accessible to a diversely committed population.⁷ Michael Blake articulates this position with admirable clarity.

Liberalism is motivated, at heart, by some idea of moral dignity and worth of persons. What makes liberalism distinctive—as well as attractive—is this notion that individual moral agents deserve to be treated with equal concern and respect. … Reciprocity offers a means by which we respect these notions of moral equality. … Reciprocity, as I use it here, means simply the methodology of justifying political power with reference to principles acceptable to all those affected. … The methodology begins with what we already share—with the reasons we are already presumed to find motivating—and use...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents 
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I. Reinterpreting Rawls On Religion
• Part II. Accommodating Religions With Rawls
• Part III. Transcending Rawls
• Bibliography
• List of Contributors
• Index