Hostname: page-component-66644f4456-gqvjv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-13T08:05:43.626Z Has data issue: true hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking Religious Reasons in Public Justification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2013

ANDREW F. MARCH
ANDREW F. MARCH*
Affiliation:
Yale University
*
Andrew F. March is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Yale University ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article intervenes in the debate on the place of religious arguments in public reason. I advance the debate not by asking whether something called “religious reasons” ought to be invoked in the justification of coercive laws, but by creating a typology of (a) different kinds and forms of religious arguments and, more importantly, (b) different areas of political and social life which coercive laws regulate or about which human political communities deliberate. Religious arguments are of many different kinds, are offered to others in a variety of ways, and the spheres of life about which communities deliberate pose distinct moral questions. Turning back to the public reason debate, I argue then that political liberals ought to be concerned primarily about the invocation of a certain subset of religious reasons in a certain subset of areas of human activity, but also that inclusivist arguments on behalf of religious contributions to public deliberation fail to justify the use of religious arguments in all areas of public deliberation.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 107 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 523 - 539
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Arendt, Hannah. 1953. “Understanding and Politics.” Partisan Review 20: 377–92.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1961. “The Crisis in Culture: Its Social and Political Significance.” In Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1992. Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, ed. Beiner, Ronald. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Audi, Robert. 2000. Religious Commitment and Secular Reason. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bader, Veit. 2008. “Secularism, Public Reason or Moderately Agonistic Democracy?” In Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship, eds. Levey, Geoffrey Brahm and Modood, Tariq. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 110–135.Google Scholar
Beerbohm, Eric. 2012. In Our Name: The Ethics of Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 1994. “Deliberative Rationality and Models of Democratic Legitimacy.” Constellations 1 (1): 26–52.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2004. The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2011. Dignity in Adversity: Human Rights in Troubled Times. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bohman, James. 2003. “Deliberative Toleration.” Political Theory 31 (6): 757–79.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 2002. “Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 13 (1): 14–44.Google Scholar
Campos, Paul. F. 1994. “Secular Fundamentalism.” Columbia Law Review 94 (6): 1814–27.Google Scholar
Chambers, Clare. 2013. “The Marriage-Free State.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (1).Google Scholar
Chambers, Simone. 2010. “Secularism Minus Exclusion: Developing a Religious-Friendly Idea of Public Reason.” The Good Society 19 (2): 16–21.Google Scholar
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 2001. On Moral Ends, eds. Annas, Julia and Woolf, Raphael, trans. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clanton, J. Caleb, ed. 2009a. The Ethics of Citizenship: Liberal Democracy and Religious Convictions. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.Google Scholar
Clanton, J. Caleb. 2009b. “Democratic Deliberation after Religious Gag Rules.” In The Ethics of Citizenship: Liberal Democracy and Religious Convictions, ed. Clanton, J. Caleb. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua, 1989. “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy.” In The Good Polity, eds. Hamlin, Alan and Petit, Philip. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua, and Sabel, Charles. 2006. “Extra Rempublicam Nulla Justitia?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 34 (2): 147–75.Google Scholar
Coles, Romand. 2005. Beyond Gated Politics: Reflections for the Possibility of Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Conly, Sarah. 2012. Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Connolly, William E. 1999. Why I am Not a Secularist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Cott, Nancy. 2000. Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1993. Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Dyzenhaus, David. 1996. “Liberalism after the Fall: Schmitt, Rawls and the Problem of Justification.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 22 (3): 9–37.Google Scholar
Eberle, Christopher. 2002. Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 2008. Sovereignty: God, State, and Self. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. 1997. “Mission Impossible: Settling the Just Bounds between Church and State.” Columbia Law Review 97 (8): 2255–333.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. 1999. “Mutual Respect as a Device of Exclusion.” In Deliberative Politics: Essays on Democracy and Disagreement, ed. Macedo, Stephen. New York: Oxford University Press, 88–102.Google Scholar
Forst, Rainer. 2012. The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Frohock, Fred M. 1997. “The Boundaries of Public Reason.” American Political Science Review 91 (4): 833–44.Google Scholar
Frohock, Fred M. 1999. Public Reason: Mediated Authority in the Liberal State. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garsten, Bryan. 2006. Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gaus, Gerald F., and Vallier, Kevin. 2009. “The Roles of Religious Conviction in a Publicly Justified Polity: The Implications of Convergence, Asymmetry and Political Institutions.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 35 (1–2): 51–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, Robert P. 1997a. “Law, Democracy, and Moral Disagreement.” Harvard Law Review 110 (7): 1388–406.Google Scholar
George, Robert P. 1997b. “Public Reason and Political Conflict: Abortion and Homosexuality.” Yale Law Journal 106 (8): 2475–504.Google Scholar
Girgis, Sherif, Anderson, Ryan T., and George, Robert P.. 2012. What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense. New York: Encounter Books.Google Scholar
Greenawalt, Kent. 1988. Religious Convictions and Political Choice. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Greenawalt, Kent. 1995. Private Consciences and Public Reasons. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gregory, Brad S. 2012. The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Reformation Secularized Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Thompson, Dennis. 1990. “Moral Conflict and Political Consensus.” Ethics 101 (1): 64–88.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Thompson, Dennis. 1996. Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. “Religion in the Public Sphere.” European Journal of Philosophy 14 (1): 1–25.Google Scholar
Hertzberg, Benjamin. 2011. “Both Citizen and Saint: Religious Integrity and Liberal Democracy.” Ph.D. diss. Duke University.Google Scholar
Honig, Bonnie. 1993. Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Honig, Bonnie. 2009. Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Horton, John. 2003. “Rawls, Public Reason and the Limits of Liberal Justification.” Contemporary Political Theory 2 (1): 5–23.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1991. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Melvin, James Washington. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Lane, Linda L. 1998. “The Parental Rights Movement.” University of Colorado Law Review 69: 825–50.Google Scholar
Larmore, Charles. 1990. “Political Liberalism.” Political Theory 18 (3): 339–60.Google Scholar
Larmore, Charles. 1999. “The Moral Basis of Political Liberalism.” The Journal of Philosophy 96 (12): 599–625.Google Scholar
Larmore, Charles. 2008. The Autonomy of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lawrence v. Texas . 2003. 539 U.S. 558.Google Scholar
Macedo, Stephen. 1997. “In Defense of Liberal Public Reason: Are Slavery and Abortion Hard Cases?” American Journal of Jurisprudence 42: 1–29.Google Scholar
Macedo, Stephen, ed. 1999. Deliberative Politics: Essays on Democracy and Disagreement. New York: Oxford University Press CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
March, Andrew F. 2010. “What Lies Beyond Same-Sex Marriage? Marriage, Reproductive Freedom and Future Persons in Liberal Public Justification.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 27 (1): 39–58.Google Scholar
March, Andrew F. 2011. “Is There a Right to Polygamy? Marriage, Equality and Subsidizing Families in Liberal Public Justification.” Journal of Moral Philosophy 8 (2): 244–70.Google Scholar
McConnell, Michael. 1999. “Five Reasons to Reject the Claim that Religious Arguments Should Be Excluded from Democratic Deliberation.” Utah Law Review 1999: 639–57.Google Scholar
McConnell, Michael. 2007. “Secular Reason and the Misguided Attempt to Exclude Religious Argument from Democratic Deliberation.” Journal of Law, Philosophy and Culture 1 (1): 159–74.Google Scholar
Metz, Tamara. 2010. Untying the Knot: Marriage, the State and the Case for Their Divorce. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Moon, J. Donald. 1993. Constructing Community: Moral Pluralism and Tragic Conflicts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 1999. “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?” Social Research 66 (3): 745–58.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 2005. “The Problem of Global Justice.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 33 (2): 113–47.Google Scholar
National Association of Evangelicals. 2007. “An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture: Protecting Human Rights in an Age of Terror.” National Association of Evangelicals. http://www.nae.net/government-relations/endorsed-documents/409-an-evangelical-declaration-against-torture-protecting-human-rights-in-an-age-of-terror (accessed May 16, 2012).Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1990. The Twilight of the Idols, Hollingdale, R. J., trans. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2006. Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2010. “Veiled Threats.” New York Times Opinionator blog, July 11. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/veiled-threats/ (accessed, May 16, 2012).Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2011. “Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 39 (1): 3–45.Google Scholar
Perry, Michael. 1987. “A Critique of the ‘Liberal’ Political-Philosophical Project.” William and Mary Law Review 28 (2): 205–33.Google Scholar
Perry, Michael. 1996. “Religious Arguments in Public Political Debate,” Loyola of L.A. Law Review 29: 1421–58.Google Scholar
Perry, Michael. 2001. “Why Political Reliance on Religious Grounded Morality is not Illegitimate in a Liberal Democracy.” Wake Forest Law Review 36 (2): 217–49.Google Scholar
Perry, Michael. 2003. Under God? Religious Faith and Liberal Democracy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. 2002. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms. Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Polikoff, Nancy D. 2008. Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Quinn, Philip L. 1995. “Political Liberalisms and Their Exclusions of the Religious.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 69 (2): 35–56.Google Scholar
Quong, Jonathan. 2004. “The Scope of Public Reason.” Political Studies 52: 233–50.Google Scholar
Quong, Jonathan. 2011. Liberalism without Perfection, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1996. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1997. “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited.” The University of Chicago Law Review 64 (3): 765–807.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 2001a. Value, Respect, and Attachment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 2001b. The Practice of Value,” The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Reidy, David A. 2000. “Rawls's Wide View of Public Reason: Not Wide Enough.” Res Publica 6 (1): 49–72.Google Scholar
Rosen, Michael. 2012. Dignity: Its History and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenblum, Nancy L., ed. 2000. Obligations of Citizenship and Demands of Faith: Religious Accommodation in Pluralist Democracies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1994. “Religion as a Conversation-Stopper.” Common Knowledge 3 (1): 1–6.Google Scholar
Schwartzman, Micah. 2004. “The Completeness of Public Reason.” Politics Philosophy & Economics 3 (2): 191–220.Google Scholar
Shiffrin, Steven. 1999. “Religion and Democracy.” Notre Dame Law Review 74 (5): 1631–56.Google Scholar
Shue, Henry. 1978. “Torture.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 7 (2): 124–43.Google Scholar
Solum, Lawrence. 1993. “Constructing an Ideal of Public Reason.” San Diego Law Review 30: 729–62.Google Scholar
Stout, Jeffrey. 2004. Democracy and Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass. 2013. “It's For Your Own Good!” The New York Review of Books 60 (7): 53–54.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass, and Thaler, Richard. 2008. “Privatizing Marriage.” The Monist 91 (3–4): 377–87.Google Scholar
Sussman, David. 2005. “What's Wrong with Torture?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 33 (1): 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallier, Kevin. 2011. “Against Public Reason's Accessibility Requirement.” Journal of Moral Philosophy 8: 366–89.Google Scholar
Vallier, Kevin. 2012. “Liberalism, Religion and Integrity.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (1): 149–65.Google Scholar
Vallier, Kevin, and D'Agostino, Fred. 2012. “Public Justification.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justification-public/.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 1993. “Religious Contributions to Public Deliberation.” San Diego Law Review 30: 817–48.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 2002. God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 2006. “Secularism and the Limits of Community.” In Globalization Challenged: Conviction, Conflict, Community, ed. Rupp, George. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 2012. “Two-Way Translation: The Ethics of Engaging with Religious Contributions in Public Deliberation.” Mercer Law Review 63 (3): 845–68.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1999. “Drawing the Line: Religion and Politics.” Utah Law Review 1999: 619–38.Google Scholar
Warner, Michael. 1999. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Weithman, Paul, ed. 1997. Religion and Contemporary Liberalism. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Weithman, Paul. 2002. Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Andrew. 2000. “The Alleged Incompleteness of Public Reason.” Res Publica 6 (2): 199–211.Google Scholar
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 1997a. “The Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of Political Issues.” In Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate, eds. Audi, Robert and Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 1997b. “Why We Should Reject What Liberalism Tells Us about Speaking and Acting in Public for Religious Reasons.” In Religion and Contemporary Liberalism, ed. Weithman, Paul J.. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Zerilli, Linda M. G. 2012. “Value Pluralism and the Problem of Judgment: Farewell to Public Reason.” Political Theory 40 (1): 6–31.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.