The Liberal Conscience: Politics and Principle in a World of
Religious Pluralism. By Lucas Swaine. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2006. 240p. $35.00.
In this book, Lucas Swaine argues that modern liberalism has failed in
its efforts to provide adequate justification of liberalism's
political legitimacy to religious adherents. This may seem a surprising
contention, given the vast literature that attempts to do precisely this,
reaching easily as far back as John Rawl's Political
Liberalism if not to the constitutive works of Hobbes and Locke. In
particular, according to Swaine, contemporary liberalism has failed
because it does not offer arguments that can appeal to religious
believers, preferring instead a standard of “reasonableness”
that cannot assail the faith commitments of religious believers.