Religious freedom in a Democratic and Pluralistic Society: a Critical Appraisal of John Rawls Idea of Public Reason

EMPIRISMA ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Vibekehh N. Demaisip Bat-og
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
The State ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines

This paper presents a critical appraisal on John Rawls’ philosophy of public reason which presents some ambiguous and problematic issues that must be recognized and properly dealt with. There are three main objectives set forth in this paper. First, this presents key concepts of John Rawls’ idea of public reason as a means of dealing with different religious comprehensive doctrines that is in a way, beneficial to the interest of the state, second, this paper makes a philosophical and theoretical analysis of John Rawls’ idea of public reason, and third, this shows and illustrates some concrete examples of how John Rawls’ idea of public reason as a solution to conflicting religious comprehensive doctrines can appear rather problematic.Keywords: Religious Freedom, Democratic and Pluralistic Society, John Rawls

Religion in the EU: Using Modified Public Reason to Define European Human Rights

2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1439-1468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian M. Awe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Public ◽  
Common Value ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Dialectical Process ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines ◽  
The Eu

At the current stage of its evolution, the European Union (“Union” or “EU”) has reached a juncture where many leaders and scholars believe that greater integration is both desirable and necessary. Presumably, a primary method by which greater solidarity and integration can be achieved within the EU is through the public inclusion of common value-laden concepts – as defined through a dialectical process – present within comprehensive doctrines such as religion. To date, however, an effective and inclusive means for utilizing religion in this manner has yet to be formulated. In response, this article takes two prominent paradigms – Jurgen Habermas' intersubjective discourse theory and John Rawls' liberalism – to approach the problem and draws from them a new solution that, while tied to their theoretical underpinnings, is nonetheless a novel approach to achieving greater integration within the Union. Under this new framework, the process of legislatively defining human rights allows the morality common to European comprehensive doctrines – including official and unofficial religions – to bolster the Union's solidarity, legitimacy, and democracy both procedurally and substantively.

Part I, 3 Liberal Perspectives

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahdar Rex ◽  
Leigh Ian
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
State Neutrality ◽  
Litmus Test

This chapter discusses liberal political thought and its understanding and treatment of religion. Section II begins by briefly outlining the nature and character of liberalism. The premise is that liberalism is the principal philosophical foundation for law in modern liberal democracy. Our contemporary notions of ‘religious freedom’ are ones that have been indubitably shaped by liberal attitudes to religion, faith communities, and the call of conscience. The chapter then turns to the liberal claim of neutrality between competing conceptions of the good life. Is liberalism as impartial as it purports to be? What does state neutrality towards religion in practice actually require? This chapter also examines the privatization of religious (and other) beliefs in a liberal polity, and considers a leading liberal litmus test for public policy — John Rawls' concept of ‘public reason’. Section III analyses the principal secular liberal justifications for religious freedom. It argues that unless we know why religious liberty is worth protecting, our ability to deal with new and increasingly insistent faith-based claims for legal recognition and protection will be hampered.

Liberalism and Religion

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Sikka
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
John Locke ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
Cultural Racism ◽  
Religious Establishment

There are many versions of liberalism, but it would be uncontroversial to say that they agree in placing a premium on individual liberty. As a political paradigm, liberalism is committed to protecting the freedom of persons to live and think as they choose without interference from the state, provided they do no harm to others. This fundamental commitment underlies the classical liberal arguments for religious liberty and toleration articulated by John Locke and J. S. Mill. It forms the basis for legal provisions guaranteeing freedom of religious belief, worship, and expression in liberal democratic nations, as well as the principle of non-establishment, which prohibits the state from favoring any religion or from favoring religion over nonbelief. The formulation of these two principles, religious freedom and nonestablishment, requires that the spheres of the secular and the sacred be distinguished in order to institute a particular relation between them. Questions have been raised about the validity and universality of this distinction, as well as its implications for the place of religion within political life. In contemporary political theory, the topic of public reason has been especially prominent, the point of contention being whether and how religious discourse may be allowed in political reasoning. Balancing religious freedom against other fundamental liberal rights poses another difficulty in cases where the beliefs and practices of religious individuals and communities come into conflict with general laws or compromise equality, another central liberal value. Sometimes social and political judgments about such cases seem to apply a double standard to the religious practices of certain minorities, moreover, and to reflect an element of cultural racism. This is arguably true of attitudes and decisions in Western countries regarding the hijab and other types of veils worn by Muslim women. Applying liberal principles for regulating religion in a fashion that is genuinely neutral and impartial remains a challenge. Indeed, some argue that there is no way of defining “religion” for the requisite purposes without privileging certain forms of it. If so, liberal efforts to protect religious freedom may end up enforcing varieties of religious establishment.

LIVING STANDARDS AND PROPORTIONS AFFECTING FOR STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE ECONOMY

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (9) ◽  
pp. 42-46
Author(s):  
G. T. PULATOVA ◽  
◽  
T. A. KADYROV ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The State ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Total Production ◽  
Direct Connection ◽  
Fund Industry ◽  
Time Changes

This article considers the direct connection of the state of living of the population with the structures of the economy. In this regard, it is noted that the territorial aspects of the structure of the economy are also factors in shaping the structure of people 's needs, despite the fact that the latter are poorly structured. The study showed that the extent of structural changes in the economy, apart from the needs of the population, is affected by such critical proportions as the ratio of production to consumption, the savings fund to consumption fund, industry and agriculture, growth of production and transport development, growth of cash incomes of the population and their commodity coverage. In total production theoretical analysis has also shown that structural changes in the economy depend on the level of change in the share of each sector of the economy At the same time, changes also affect economic growth and human well-being in different ways.

Exclusive Public Reason

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Moral Duty ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines

This chapter develops the idea of public reason based on the shared reasons account of public justification. It is argued that the moral foundation for political liberalism delimits a narrow scope for the idea of public reason, such that public reasons are required only for matters of constitutional essentials and basic justice. It is also argued that where public reason applies, persons as citizens have a moral duty to never appeal to their comprehensive doctrines when engaging in public reasoning. Hence, an exclusive account of public reason is vindicated. Finally, we respond to various potential objections to our view, such as the claim that the shared reasons view requires identical reasoning and the claim that public reason is interderminate or inconclusive.

Political Parties and the Overlapping Consensus

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Bonotti
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Creative Agency ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
The Common ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines ◽  
Political Liberal

This chapter rejects the ‘extrinsic’ view of public reason examined in Chapter 4, and argues that political parties can play an important role in helping citizens to relate their comprehensive doctrines to political liberal values and institutions. Once we understand the distinctive normative demands of partisanship, this chapter claims, we can see that there is no inherent tension between them and the demands of the Rawlsian overlapping consensus. This is because partisanship (unlike factionalism) involves a commitment to the common good rather than the sole advancement of merely partial interests, and this implies a commitment to public reasoning. The chapter further examines three distinctive empirical features of parties that particularly enable them to contribute to an overlapping consensus. These are their linkage function, their advancement of broad multi-issue political platforms, and their creative agency.

scholarly journals In the Region of Middle Axioms: Judicial Dialogue as Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Mid-level Principles

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Juan Moreso ◽  
Chiara Valentini
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Legal Pluralism ◽  
Wide Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Foreign Law ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrines ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication

AbstractThis article addresses the use of foreign law in constitutional adjudication. We draw on the ideas of wide reflective equilibrium and public reason in order to defend an engagement model of comparative adjudication. According to this model, the judicial use of foreign law is justified if it proceeds by testing and mutually adjusting the principles and rulings of our constitutional doctrines against reasonable alternatives, as represented by the principles and rulings of other reasonable doctrines. By this, a court points to a wide reflective equilibrium, justifying its own interpretations with reasonable arguments, i.e. arguments that are acceptable from the perspectives defined by other constitutional doctrines, as endorsed by other courts. The point of a judicial engagement of this sort is to work out an overlap between different, reasonable, doctrines in the judicial forum, as part of a liberal forum of public reason. Here, the exercise of public reason filters out the premises of comprehensive doctrines so as to leave us in the region of an overlapping consensus: a region of mid-level principles that can be shared, notwithstanding the fact of legal pluralism.

Reconciling state promises and practices: Constitutional promises and discrimination against religious minorities

2021 ◽  
pp. 003776862110123
Author(s):  
Roger Finke ◽  
Dane R Mataic
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Discrimination ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Minority Religions ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
Poor Predictor

Research on religious freedom has found a vast chasm between constitutional promises and state practices, with constitutional promises being a poor predictor of the state’s support of religious freedom. This research changes the focus from religious freedom to religious equality. We propose that constitutional promises of religious equality will be associated with less discrimination against minority religions and we explore the relationships governance and the promises of religious equality hold with religious discrimination. We find that promises of religious equality are associated with less discrimination. When exploring the interactions between promises of equality and our governance measures, we find constitutional promises of religious equality largely erase the differences in religious discrimination between countries with and without free elections and an independent judiciary. Yet, the reduced discrimination against minority religions does not suggest that the state removes restrictions on minority religions, only that they are equal with other religions.

The Neutral State: Optional or Necessary?: A Triangular Analysis of State–Religion Relationships, Democratisation and Human Rights Compliance

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Temperman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Detrimental Effect ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Religious Denomination ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Full Compliance ◽  
State Neutrality

AbstractThis article suggests a signicant correlation between the notions of state neutrality and religious freedom. The absence of a considerable degree of state neutrality has a detrimental effect on human rights compliance. Under states which identify themselves strongly with a single religious denomination as well as under states which identify themselves negatively in relation to religion, there is no scope for human rights compliance. Both extreme types of state–religion identication are characterised by repression of all beliefs and manifestations thereof which do not correspond with the state sanctioned view on belief. This may be either the upholding of a specic religious denomination or of militant ideological secularism. Consequently, discrimination and marginalisation rather than compliance with the norms of freedom of religion and the promotion of non-discrimination comprise policy and practice under these regimes. Intermediate forms of state–religion afliation, i.e. types of identication in which the state is not drenched with the excluding ideals of a single denomination or with anti-religious sentiments, allow for a degree of democratic inclusion of religious difference and of religious tolerance. The most substantial scope for full compliance, however, lies in the combination of democratic inclusion of people from different religions and the indispensable political commitment characterised as state neutrality with respect to all people. State neutrality refers to a regime of state–religion identi cation that can best be understood as 'accommodative non-partisanship'.

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