1. I use “theological” rather broadly to include any studied process that leads to an ascription of access to knowledge of God's will, including within the content of that will (not least) prescriptions for conduct in a civil society committed to democratic principles.

2. Audi's full argument is highly nuanced, philosophically subtle, prone to easy misdescription, and beyond the scope of a brief review. For some reactions to his earlier work, see Audi, Robert, The Separation of Church and State and the Obligations of Citizenship, 18 Phil. & Pub. Aff. 259 (1989)Google Scholar; see e.g. Jordan, Jeff, Religious Reasons and Public Reasons, 11 Pub. Aff. Q. 243 (1997)Google Scholar; Weithman, Paul, The Separation of Church and State: Some Questions for Professor Audi, 20 Phil & Pub. Aff. 52 (1991)Google Scholar.

3. For a fuller description of some of the potential problems that a priori grounding presents in the context of how we treat some of the worst off among us, see Blumoff, Theodore Y., Justifying Punishment, 14 Can. J. L & Juris. 161 (07 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a more general discussion, see Nussbaum, Martha, Disabled Lives: Who Cares?, The N.Y. Rev. Bks. 34 (01 11, 2001)Google Scholar (book review).

4. On the question of “value pluralism” see Berlin, Isaiah, The Romantic Revolution, in The Sense of Reality 168 (Hardy, Henry ed., Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1996)Google Scholar (describing uncombinable values as those which evade comparison along a “higher” rationale and thus cannot be reconciled).

5. “[T]he sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection. The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty, in Utilitarianism and Other Writings 135 (Warnock, Mary ed., World Publg. 1962)Google Scholar.

6. It is important to note that Professor Audi rejects governmental value neutrality as excessive, unworkable and unwise. Rather, he wants to tie the public pursuit of civic values to the agreed upon, essential bases of a liberal democracy, which include liberty, basic political equality, “justice-distributive as well as retributive-education, and health care.” (61-62)

7. For a comparison of the early and late work of Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (Columbia U. Press 1996)Google Scholar and Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Harv. U. Press 1971)Google Scholar, see Holmes, Stephen, The Gatekeeper: John Rawls and the Limits of Tolerance, The New Republic 39 (10 11, 1993)Google Scholar.

8. As I have noted, the accessibility issues, while important, may be overstated, at least with respect to those who claim to be unable to cabin religious beliefs and language in public debate. See Blumoff, Theodore Y., The Holocaust in Public Discourse, 11 J. L & Relig. 591, 607–615Google Scholar.

9. Kant, Immanuel, The Philosophy of Law: An Exposition of the Fundamental Principles of Jurisprudence as the Science of Right 45 (Hastie, W. ed. & trans., Augustus M. Kelley 1974)Google Scholar: “Every action is right which in itself, or in the maxim on which it proceeds, is such that it can coexist along with the Freedom of the Will of each and all in action, according to a universal law.” On this understanding of “right,” it “comprehends the whole of the conditions under which voluntary actions of any one Person can be harmonized in reality with the voluntary actions of every other person, according to a universal Law of Freedom.” Id. See Guttmann, Amy & Thompson, Dennis, Democracy and Disagreement 56–57 (Belknap Press 1996)Google Scholar (stating that the demand for reciprocity is violated when one's claim “imposes a requirement on other citizens to adopt one's sectarian way of life as a condition of gaining access to the moral understanding that is essential to judging the validity of one's moral claims”).

10. For example, Aristotle's Ethics, which we would not recognize as resting on any modern version of western theism, see Rawls, John, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy 3 (Herman, Barbara, ed., Harv. U. Press 2000)Google Scholar (describing Greek religion as a “civic religion of public social practice … [and] not a religion of salvation”), regards ignorance and lack of volition as the primary conditions which operate to divest the agent of choice and hence of ethical responsibility. Aristotle, , Nichomachean Ethics 111–125 (Thompson, J.A.K., trans., Penguin 1976)Google Scholar.

11. This could be understood either deontologically or via a utilitarian approach. Compare, e.g. Kant, Immanual, The Moral Law: Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 60 (Paton, H.J. trans., Hutchinson 1969)Google Scholar (describing the will as a thing that “would shine like a jewel for its own sake as something which has its full value in itself regardless of its “usefulness or fruitfullness”) with Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Bk. I, Pt. I, Ch. I, §§I, V at 1 (Oxford U. Press 1948)Google Scholar (“[P]ain and pleasure … govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think … [and] it is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without first understanding what is the interest of the individual.”).

12. An Essay on Liberalism and Public Theology, 14 J. L. & Relig. 229–283Google Scholar.

13. Cohen, Hermann, Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism 86 (Kaplan, Simon, trans., Frederick Ungar Publg. Co. 1972)Google Scholar. It is possible to agree with Cohen's statement but reject his larger conclusion that God is only the love of a moral ideal. See Seeskin, Kenneth, Jewish Philosophy in a SecularAge 101–103 (S.U.N.Y. Press 1990)Google Scholar.

14. Cohen, Abraham, Everyman's Talmud 93 (E.P. Dutton & Co. 1949)Google Scholar.

15. Alternatively, perhaps the vision of the 3-Os is itself flawed. In The Trial of God Elie Wiesel has his main character Berish answer the biblical question “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are the workers of treachery at ease?” (Jer 12:1) (JPSA) The scene occurs following a seventeenth century pogrom in the town of Shamgorod. “I … accuse Him of hostility, cruelty and indifference. Either He dislikes His chosen people or He doesn't care …. Either He knows what's happening to us, or He doesn't wish to know. In both cases He is … He is … guilty!” Wiesel, Elie, The Trial of God 125 (Schocken Books 1979)Google Scholar.

16. Blumoff, 11 J. L. & Relig. supra n 12, at 605-607

17. See Galston, William A., Pluralism and Social Unity, 99 Ethics 711, 713–714 (1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (arguing that liberals will not sublimate their views to advance someone else's conception of the larger democratic goals).

18. Larmore, Charles, The Moral Basis of Political Liberalism, 96 J. Phil. 599, 607 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. “Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” (Lev 19:18) (JPSA); “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22:39) (RSV).

20. The legend behind the story is told in many sources, including Armstrong, KarenA History of God: The 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam 72 (Random House 1993)Google Scholar; Telushkin, Joseph, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About The Jewish Religion, Its People, And Its History, 62–63 (William Morrow & Co. 1991)Google Scholar.

21. See Baeck, Leo, The Essence of Judaism 221 (Schocken Books 1976)Google Scholar; see also Dimont, Max I., Jews, God and History 46 (Penguin Books rev. ed. 1994)Google Scholar (suggesting that a “gulf in thinking” distinguishes the positive and negative wording).

22. Cohen, supra n. 13, at 405.

23. But see Telushkin, supra n. 26, at 121 (suggesting that Hillel's effort to prevent the creation of a permanent underclass by regulating debt collection has a Utopian flavor).

24. Telushkin, supra n. 26, at 122 (quoting Ethics of the Fathers 1:14). Cohen's theology supports this reading. According to Cohen, God created the universe in order to create mankind, and created everyone in His image; thus, each man is also a fellow man, a member of the “plurality of men” in whose heart God planted love. Cohen, supra n. 17, especially ch. VIII.

25. Kant, supra n. 15 at 67; see e.g., id. at 94 (noting that “the principle of every human will as a will giving universal law through its maxims.”).

26. Id. at 97 (emphasis added).

27. Id. at 73.

28. Williams, Bernard, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy 59–60 (Harv. U. Press 1985)Google Scholar.

29. Id. at 64-69.

30. Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 44–45 n.1 (Prometheus Books 1988)Google Scholar (originally published in 1748) (arguing, contra Kant, that reason give[s] form to and is not the “result of our intellectual faculties, which, by considering a priori the nature of things … [somehow] examin[es] the effect, that must follow from their operations”). See Rawls, A Theory of Justice, supra n. 7, at 11.

31 . Mackie, J.L., Morality and the Emotions, 1 Crim. Justice Ethics 3, 7 (1982)Google Scholar.

32. Id.

33. Stout, Jeffrey, Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals and Their Discontents 120 (Beacon Press 1988)Google Scholar (emphasis of everywhere added).

34. See Austin, J.L., A Plea for Excuses, 57 Proc. Aris. Socy 1, 11 (1956)Google Scholar (emphasis of everywhere added).