Religious equality
Juha Sihvola
The outline of this presentation emerged in my mind when I was reflecting on what
Susan Mendus said about John Rawls in the lecture she gave at the Collegium last
summer.1 The main point of her criticism of Rawlsian political liberalism was
something like the following. Political liberalism does not argue but just assumes two
things. First, the Rawlsians assume that an overlapping consensus is easily reached by
all reasonable people concerning what questions are political, distinct from religious
and other so-called comprehensive questions. Second, it is also assumed by the
Rawlsians that all reasonable people should be able and willing to prioritize the
political over the religious in cases of conflict between the two.
Rawls’s view seems to Mendus to exclude all those who do not agree on the division
of political and religious or comprehensive doctrines from those who are regarded as
reasonable partners in political discussion. This conclusion has problematic
consequences for toleration and respect concerning a large number of religious people
who deny a clear distinction between religion and politics, and accordingly, hold that
that many issues that may be regarded as political by others should be decided upon
on a religious basis. Mendus claims that the Rawlsian division “does nothing to avert
religious violence and everything to exacerbate it”. Her view seems to be that political
liberalism in its Rawlsian version does not successfully promote religious equality
and toleration. Far too many religious positions are not only excluded from the sphere
of reasonability, but this is also done without an adequate argument.
Mendus also argued that the Rawls’s view of the basis of toleration is quite different
from the view of John Locke. Locke had offered an argument, and a distinctively
religious one, for the strict separation of politics and religion: God has given no man
authority over another and arranged the world in such a way that the salvation of
Susan Mendus: ”Politics and Pluralism: Religious Terrorism and Political Liberalism”, A paper
presented at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, September 3, 2008.
1
1
one’s soul is solely dependent on one’s own choices and not on any efforts by
anybody else including political authorities. Toleration could in Locke’s view be
reasonably defended, just because he thought it was possible to persuade all the
relevant parties, from the basis of their own religious convictions, to accept the view
that a distinct political sphere of action should be separated from religion.
Mendus seemed to think that Locke’s defense for distinguishing religion and politics
is in a sense better than the one provided by Rawls and the modern liberals, since it is
based on an argument, not just on an assumption of a pre-existing consensus. Of
course she also admitted that we cannot any longer rely on the authority of God in our
justification of tolerance since the relevant parties which our justification is directed
to do no longer share such religious starting-points which could be referred to in the
justification.
I am not now planning to explore this line of criticism against the Rawlsian version of
political liberalism in detail. However, I do not think Mendus is quite successful in
her argument. There is a lot to be said in defense of Rawls. It is not quite the case that
Rawls simply assumed that there was a pre-existing consensus of the scope of the
political and the distinction between politics and religion.
Let me just make one point related to how Rawls’ views concerning abortion
developed after the publication of his monograph Political Liberalism.2 Many people
took him to have at least implicitly assumed in the first edition of PL in 1993 that
there existed a consensus on the acceptability of abortion during the first three months
of pregnancy, and all religious and comprehensive views which failed to support
abortion rights could be held as unreasonable.
In an essay from 1997 added to the expanded edition of PL, Rawls retreated from this
position by saying that abortion was earlier used just as a hypothetical example.3 He
now said he did not have an unconditional position as to whether the issue of abortion
2
John Rawls, Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press 1993.
John Rawls, Political Liberalism. An Expanded Edition, New York: Columbia University Press 2005.
See also John Rawls: Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press 1999.
3
2
was one on which reasonable arguments could be produced both for and against, or
only either for or against.
So the line between politics and religion, or political and comprehensive doctrines,
was not after all regarded by Rawls as clear and obvious. It is always contextual and
to be established as a consequence of careful reflection. Overlapping consensus
between reasonable people concerning to political common ground they share
independently of their religious and other comprehensive doctrines is not something
that is assumed to exist in all liberal democracies; it is rather an ideal goal that may
emerge, when people, having carefully thought about relevant issues, reach a
reflective equilibrium between their considerate judgments and general principles.
This also implies that it is not clear before reflection which comprehensive doctrines
are to be held as reasonable and which are not.4
However, it remains an important question whether Rawlsian political liberalism
draws the limits of reasonability in a too narrow way, i.e., if a doctrine does not, even
after reflection, conform to the overlapping consensus about the limits of the political,
does it mean that it has to be regarded as unreasonable for that very reason?
Let us, however, now leave Rawls and consider an alternative version of political
liberalism; that is, such as presented by Martha Nussbaum and others who pursue
the so-called capabilities approach in political philosophy.5 In this presentation, let us,
tentatively, accept Mendus’s criticism of Rawls, and ask whether the capabilities
approach or neo-Aristotelian versions of political liberalism are more successful in
meeting the kinds of criticism presented by Mendus, and for that matter, many others.
My answer is, in a very Aristotelian way, on the one hand, yes, on the other hand, no.
On this see, e.g., Jeremy Waldron, “The Plight of the Poor in the Midst of Plenty” (Review of Rawls
1999), London Review of Books, July 15, 1999; Martha C. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice. Disability,
Nationality, Species Membership, Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press 2006, 160-164, 298305, 388-392.
5
Nussbaum has discussed issues related to religion and conscience in several of her writings. The most
important ones from our viewpoint are the following: Martha C. Nussbaum, “Religion and Women’s
Human Rights”, in Paul J. Weithman (ed.), Religion and Contemporary Liberalism, Notre Dame IN:
University of Notre Dame Press 1997, 93-137; Women and Human Development, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 2000; “Rawls and Feminism”, in Samuel Freeman (ed.) The Cambridge
Companion to Rawls, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003;“Liberty of Conscience: The
Attack on Equal Respect”, Journal of Human Development 8(2007), 337-357; Liberty of Conscience.
In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality, New York: Basic Books 2008.
4
3
I shall here very briefly present three points. What I say is to a large extent based on a
rather long paper that I have been invited to write for a volume on Nussbaum in the
series Library of Living Philosophers.6
First, let us assume that people with a certain variety of comprehensive views deserve
respect because these views are expressions of the human capability of conscience the
uncompelled use of which is an integral part of human flourishing. Now we seem to
have an argument based on philosophical anthropology, not just an assumption, to
defend religious toleration within certain limits. In this respect capability theories
seem to be closer to Lockean than Rawlsian liberalism. However, just as in the case of
Rawls, this line of argument seems to be overconfident about the prospects of
reaching an overlapping consensus behind the need to protect the uncompelled use of
people’s consciences.
Augustine’s defense of religious intolerance is a clear counterexample.7 Augustine
followed an argument to a large extent similar to that of many defenders of the liberty
of conscience from Locke to Nussbaum. The argument states that there is intrinsic (or
God-given) value in being able to giving one’s assent to religious beliefs without
compulsion, even if it turned out that these assents were mistaken (in the eyes of the
religious authorities protecting the correct form of religion revealed to them by God
and only incompletely understood through the normal procedures of human reason).
This is so because religious beliefs have to be voluntary in order to be valuable and
respected by God. If this argument is taken by itself, it should lead to a program of
mutual respect and toleration of the liberty of conscience.
But it did not do so with Augustine himself. On the contrary, Augustine supplemented
it with another famous argument, according to which it is acceptable to force people
into the correct form of religion (compelle entrare), if we have reason to expect that
people are curable, i.e. capable of learning to recognize their earlier religious errors
Juha Sihvola, “Religion, Respect, and the Liberty of Conscience. Martha Nussbaum on Religious
Freedom and Equality”, forthcoming in Randall E. Auxier (ed.) Philosophy of Martha C. Nussbaum.
The Library of Living Philosophers, Chicago: Open Court.
7
On Augustine’s argument, see, e.g., Perez Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the
West, Princeton: Princeton University Press 2003.
6
4
and after that voluntarily assent in a way that their persuaders know to be the will of
God, and even be grateful for the compulsory means that have forced them to the
religious dogma.
Of course, it will remain open for political liberals to claim that the Augustinean
argument, as well as all defenses of religions and other comprehensive doctrines in
which dogmatic and revelatory elements are central, are unreasonable. But by doing
so they may become especially vulnerable to the kind of criticism presented by
Mendus.
Now let me proceed to my second point. Nussbaum’s has argued that ample space
should be given to people to pursue a wide variety of conscientious commitments,
even if this implies so-called accommodation, i.e., guaranteeing exemptions for them
from laws that apply to all citizens, and that only a compelling state interest will
justify any diminution of this space. The strong emphasis on accommodation seems to
extend the scope of toleration and conscience-based liberties from many other
versions of liberalism.
However, the notion of compelling state interest used in this context is rather
problematic, if understood in the terms of the capabilities approach. If compelling
interest to express one’s conscience is restricted with a reference to the protection of
the capabilities of each and every member of the society, it is questionable whether an
overlapping consensus can support this interpretation of compelling interest. Things
would be rather different, if compelling state interest would be defined in terms of
peaceful and stable political order.
My third point is the following. Nussbaum seems to be more tolerant towards
expressions of religion and other comprehensive doctrines in the public sphere than
some versions of liberalism in her interpretation on what it means that the political
order in liberal societies should be neutral in relation to the various comprehensive
doctrines. Strict secularism is especially upheld by Robert Audi, who has argued that
in political decisions concerning all citizens only secular reasons and motivations
should be allowed to be referred and that religious people should in these discussions
5
exclude their religious convictions and only follow secular rationales and
motivations.8
In recent discussions, there have been various ways of arguing that expressing
religion publicly and basing one’s arguments on one’s comprehensive views are not
necessarily inconsistent with the ideas of political neutralism and non-establishment
of religion by the state. Here the positions of Nussbaum and Rawls are in fact
relatively close of each other. Jürgen Habermas, in his most recent writings, brings
in interesting new additions to this discussion.9
Liberals, at least in the US, have moved away from the stricter versions of secularism
mainly in response to the challenge provided by conservative Calvinist and Roman
Catholic philosophers and theologians such as Nicholas Wolterstorff, who has
referred to three reasons on the basis of which it is neither possible nor desirable to
establish a political system in which arguments from religious viewpoints are
excluded from the public square or in which justification of political views in terms of
common human reasonability is required.10 First, he holds that this is not fair to
religious people who see it as their duty to make their decisions on social and political
justice on the basis of their religious convictions, not independently of them. Secular
interpretation of political neutralism seems to Wolterstorff to treat the religious and
the non-religious people in an unequal way, since only the religious people are
required to exclude their basic convictions when entering the public sphere. Second,
he claims that political principles cannot be established on the basis of public reason
Robert Audi, ”The Separation of Church and State and the Obligations of Citizenship”, Philosophy
and Public Affairs 18(1989), 259-296; including “The State, the Church, and the Citizen”, in Paul J.
Weithman, Religion and Contemporary Liberalism, Notre Dame Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press
1997, 38-75; Religious Commitment and Secular Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2000.
9
Jürgen Habermas, ”Religion in the Public Sphere”, European Journal of Philosophy 14(2006), 1-25.
Cf. also Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger, The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and
Religion, Ft. Collins CO: Ignatius. Habermas’s recent writings have generated an extensive discussion.
See, e.g., Simone Chambers, “How Religion Speaks to the Agnostic: Habermas on the Persistent Value
of Religion, Constellations 14(2007), 210-223; Maeve Cooke, “A Secular State for a Postsecular
Society? Postmetaphysical Political Theory and the Place of Religion”, Constellations 14(2007), 224238; Cristina Lafont, “Religion in the Public Sphere: Remarks on Habermas’s Conception of Public
Deliberation in Postsecular Societies”, Constellations 14(2007), 239-259.
10
Nicholas Wolterstorff, ”Why Should We Reject What Liberalism Tells Us about Speaking and
Acting in Public for Religious Reasons”, in Weithman 1997, 162-181. Robert Audi and Nicholas
Wolterstorff, Religion in the Public Square, Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield 1997. See also Philip
L. Quinn, “Political Liberalism and Their Exclusions of the Religious”, in Weithman 1997, 138-162 for
a view relatively close to Wolterstorff in its criticism of Audi and Rawls.
8
6
alone, since arguments derived from it are too weak to single out correct solutions to
many difficult issues (such as abortion rights). Finally, even though it were in
principle possible limit the political debate to arguments based on common
reasonability, it is not desirable. Wolterstorff argues that growing private and group
egoism will follow, if religion, as an important basis of honoring the other, is
excluded from politics. From this viewpoint, civilized politics is more about making
compromises between people who disagree on their fundamental convictions than
striving for consensually agreed principles based on our shared reasonability.
Therefore, it should not be artificially restricted which sorts of arguments should be
acceptable in the public sphere.
In the neutralist response to Wolterstorff it is usually conceded that religions and
religion-based views may legitimately enter into the public sphere. The public sphere,
however, must remain impartial with respect to all religions, and in addition, in the
discussion on constitutional essentials it should be required that they be translated into
a language acceptable to the religious and non-religious alike. Habermas also argues
that the religious people should not be the only ones who should be burdened with the
requirement of reflecting on the distinction between the religious and the secular and
revise their thinking in order to reach a consensus acceptable to all. The secular
people should also be encouraged to sympathetic curiosity towards and willingness to
learn from the religious ways of understanding of the world. It is only possible to
establish an overlapping consensus on the political principles through a dialogue
based on reciprocity and mutual respect and involving the religious and the nonreligious alike. It remains to be explored whether this is sufficient for those who do
not only contest secularism but also the entire idea of political neutralism.
I was planning to draw some conclusions of the points above and outline some
possible ways to solve the tensions in political liberalism, but perhaps this is enough
to stimulate discussion, so I am happy to leave the floor for my commentator.
7