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Religion in the Public Square--How can they try to keep it out?

W4 reader Mike Dagle has set up a new blog called "Being Appeared to Bloggishly." I wish I'd thought of that blog name myself.

His first series of posts (here, here, and here) concerns the use of religious beliefs in politics. Mike is definitely more conversant with the literature on all this than I am, and so I will confine myself to dealing with what I might call a "generic naked public square" (GNPS) view as he helpfully summarizes it, rather than attributing this view to any particular writer. Mike summarizes the GNPS principle (which he opposes) as follows:

Since we ought to respect our fellow citizens we should give them reasons for limiting their autonomy that they can accept from their own perspective. Some sort of public justification is required.

What I would like to do is to throw out some possible interpretations of the GNPS principle and to point out that they are either false or else, in the case of the last one, plausibly true but applicable to rule out religious beliefs in the public square only if we grant an invidious and highly questionable assumption.

So, without further ado, let's give it a whirl:

GNPS interpretation attempt #1: Since we ought to respect our fellow citizens, we cannot use any reason for putting a law in place, where that law will limit our fellow citizens' freedom, that our fellow citizens are likely to reject from their own perspective.

The obvious problem with this principle is that we can easily define "perspective" in such a way that it will be impossible legitimately to pass any freedom-limiting laws with which anyone disagrees. Suppose that my "perspective" includes the belief that recycling is stupid and harms the environment rather than helping it. In that case, I will not accept as a reason for recycling laws the premise, "Recycling is good for the environment." If you just have to take my perspective as a given and go from there, you cannot pass recycling laws, because I won't grant your premises for them from my perspective. And so forth. And this will be true even if the person's perspective is highly unreasonable and contrary to all sorts of public evidence.

GNPS interpretation attempt #2: No a priori truths can be used as premises for freedom-limiting public policy if a questioning citizen would at some point be asked to grasp such a truth in an a priori fashion, because asking this is not giving public argument.

This version of the principle seems obviously false. If the value of pi is relevant to setting engineering standards, for example, then it is certainly legitimate to use that fact in setting public policy, even if some people are unable to understand mathematical truths and ask for some sort of empirical argument for them that cannot be given. A less abstract problem with such a principle is the very real possibility that some (all?) ethical and metaethical truths may be a priori, and that arguments on ethical matters may have to terminate with such propositions which the interlocutor has to grasp for himself. Even a utilitarian has some such principle regarding the ultimate value of (for example) maximizing happiness for the greatest number.

GNPS interpretation attempt #3: (This one is related to #2.) We should show our respect for our fellow citizens by not assuming the absolute wrongness of any particular action. Deontologism is unfair. Only utilitarian reasons count as "public reasons" for public policy.

Do I really need to say that this is baloney? After all, even someone who dislikes religion in the public square may well have his own idea of things that are intrinsically wrong--lynching black people or murdering homosexuals, for example. There is absolutely no principled reason to treat "public reason" as synonymous with "utilitarian reason," yet I have a hunch that it isn't so very uncommon to find people doing so.

GNPS interpretation attempt #4: In order to show respect for our fellow citizens, we should not use any premise as a basis for setting or advocating public policy if the majority of our fellow citizens are not capable of fully understanding and accepting the argument that supports this premise.

This version of the principle would rule out our asking the citizenry to accept the opinion of experts on all manner of issues, from engineering to medicine to economics, so it seems quite unreasonable.

GNPS interpretation attempt #5: To show respect for our fellow citizens, we should not use religious beliefs as premises to support public policy, no matter how well-supported the religion in question might be by evidence.

This version of the principle attempts to rule out the applicability of public reason indirectly through its support of some particular religion. But that seems arbitrary. If the point is just supposed to be that some good argument for the premise in question must be available for those who are capable of following it and interested enough to look into it, then there seems no principled reason to limit the length or direction the argument takes. Why couldn't one say that a proposition is defensible "publically" by way of public reasons for the religion which, in turn, supports the premise in question, which premise in turn supports the public policy in question?

All of this brings us, finally, to the only version of the GNPS which seems to me even remotely plausible:

GNPS interpretation attempt #6: To show respect for our fellow citizens, we should not ask them to accept as reasons for public policy propositions which are irrational to hold.

Now, I can accept this principle. It even seems to have some relevant applications. I think it's irrational for Muslims to believe that dogs are unclean.Therefore I think it would be outrageous for Muslims to press for laws outlawing dogs or limiting the places where people could take their dogs on the basis of this irrational aversion to dogs, which also happens to be religious. (See here for one manifestation of Muslim aversion to dogs in Iran, here for one in Minneapolis.) I think it's irrational for Muslims to think that it's immodest for women to roll their sleeves up to their elbows, and therefore I think it's absolutely outrageous for Muslim female medical students in the UK to be trying to get out of scrubbing to the elbow before performing medical operations. And so forth.

But this version of the principle can be used to exclude religious beliefs generally from the public square only granting the further assumption, which of course I think false, that all distinctively religious beliefs are irrational to hold.

Now, I should say in the name of full disclosure that to some extent this debate seems to me more theoretical than practical. I say this because I happen to think that most of the propositions that people think require "religious premises" to support them actually can be seen by the natural light in one or more of its manifestations--empirical information, a priori knowledge, etc. So, while you can know by revelation that a homosexual orientation is objectively disordered, I don't think that's the only way you can know it, which obviously has relevance for the question of whether I think the non-Christian on the street ought to share my views on civil unions and the like. To see that abortion is murder does not actually require special revelation; neither does seeing that born-child infanticide is murder. And so forth. Things have gotten to such a pass that I recall seeing (I don't have the link now) a story about a new pro-pedophilia political party in Holland that claimed that laws against pedophilia were "imposing outdated religious beliefs" on the pedophiles of Holland. The worst thing is that some people might have been convinced by that.

So I think Christians should probably not be too quick to grant that their social views are defensible only religiously. But many of these views of course are defensible religiously, and sometimes this fact, together with the central role that a Christian upbringing has played in cementing them in people's minds, makes Christians overly diffident in promoting them in the arena of public policy. The most that I can say about that is that Christians should also refuse to grant that their religion is irrational.

Comments (12)

There is much more that is worthy of comment in this post, but the news that Muslims consider dogs unclean kind of brought me up short. I want Paul's jihad sedition law expanded to include Muslims who think this way and preach it publicly. With appropriate jail time, deportation, whatever.

I also think women, weather permitting, should keep their sleeves rolled well beyond the elbow. I'd remark on necklines and hemlines as well, but I don't want my comment edited.

Thanks for the mention Lydia. Glad you like the name - I figure any good epistemologist should.

In general I can certainly agree with this:

"GNPS interpretation attempt #6: To show respect for our fellow citizens, we should not ask them to accept as reasons for public policy propositions which are irrational to hold."

But I just think it gets quite hairy in application. We'll need an agreed upon theory of rationality for all participants of the public square. Christianity doesn't even have one of those within its own borders. For instance you and I, I think, accept different epistemological programs (I don't want want to be too assertive on this point - my epistemological convictions are are certainly subject to change but up to this point in my reading I find a broadly externalist approach to be correct). I don't mean to be too perspectival here - it's not that I don't think there is a common rationality for all people regardless of perspective, of course I do. I'm just pessimistic about the ability of rational discourse to demonstrate truths some conclusive manner from all perspectives (but perhaps demonstration isn't necessary - all we're after is persuasion isn't it?).

"that to some extent this debate seems to me more theoretical than practical. I say this because I happen to think that most of the propositions that people think require "religious premises" to support them actually can be seen by the natural light"

I don't think that the fact that there might be good public arguments for religiously known truths makes this debate theoretical. It seems to me that the vast amount of Christians don't know how to construct good public arguments for their views. Maybe they should know, maybe its good for them to know (the Natural Law tradition or something like it may help here) but I don't think they should feel obligated in any way to do so. Certainly the objector to religious beliefs in the public square has laid no obligation at the feet of the religious believer. Yet the common culture often carries around ideas like "religion and politics don't mix" or "religios beliefs should stay out of politics" and other such nonsense. Christians, on the ground, hear these things and in some cases accepts them - I think that makes the debate pretty practical.

Bill, I didn't know if you knew that, but I knew it would catch your attention, given your love of canines. There have been problems all over the U.S. (and in Europe, too), because Muslims often have the taxi concession practically locked up, and a lot of them turn away blind people with guide dogs. This is pretty serious for traveling blind people, because they may rely rather heavily on taxis to get around. The authorities have tried punishing them with fines at Minneapolis airport, but I'm not sure how much success they've had.


Hey, Mike,

The application of _any_ such principle is rather up in the air anyway. Isn't it just supposed to be a sort of injunction the person is supposed to adopt voluntarily? Maybe I'm giving the Rawlses of the world too much credit (I wouldn't want to do that, though Audi is a really nice guy--I've met him once), but one comment I thought of making is that laws really do require us to _coerce_ other people to follow them, whereas the advocate of any principle of this sort (in any interpretation) could claim that he is merely trying to _persuade_ people by exhortation not to include particular beliefs in their public actions. That possible asymmetry might have some implications for your argument over on the blog.

I had also thought of saying in the post, but edited it out, that if this sort of discussion causes people to worry that their Christian beliefs are irrationally held, they should take heart, because they don't need to be. :-) (Yes, I am an internalist. So should everyone be. :-))


My own inclination to accept #6 is closely related to my inclination to accept as axiomatic a principle that people should not be irrational in the first place. So a fortiori, they shouldn't use irrationally held beliefs to try to set policy that other people must follow. Then again, I think people are _way_ too quick to say that they just hold their Christianity by a "leap of faith" or something and to assume that a) they themselves have no evidence of its truth, whereas actually they often have more evidence than they realize and b) there isn't any better evidence out there to be had.

Finally, since I'm inclined to think of many ethical propositions as knowable a priori, once one plugs in the concepts one gains empirically ("this is what a fetus is"), I'm not sure how much actual argument is required. Certainly it needn't be highly sophisticated.

I don't make a distinction between Rawls and Audi in the post - I just associate them with the generalized public justification thesis that I lay out. That's probably a bit unfair (maybe I'll just edit that out). Audi, as I read him, thinks that religious convictions can perfectly well serve as motivations for political action but adds that they should be accompanied by secular reasons (and maybe you'd agree with some version of this). Thats giving some ground my way. Audi often brings up the theme of coercion in attempting to ground his perspective. He'll appeal to the Golden Rule as stating something like "since I wouldn't want to be coerced by laws that I can't accept from my perspective I should not coerce others by subjecting them to laws they can't accept from their perspective". That's stated broadly - it can get much for specific as to what we mean by accept and perspective as you showed above. But I don't think the Golden rule has to go that way...

"...whereas the advocate of any principle of this sort (in any interpretation) could claim that he is merely trying to _persuade_ people by exhortation not to include particular beliefs in their public actions."

I'm not sure they can go this route. As I understand the objector they think that given the structure of democracy there is something wrong, somehow inappropriate about appealing to religious beliefs in the public square. I could be wrong here but the objector here seems to appeal to some sort of objective standard that is entailed by the structure of a democracy.

I couldn't agree more on the leap of faith stuff. W. L. Craig often makes a distinction between knowing and showing that Christianity is true to attempt to, I think, bridge Plantinga's model with his own evidential work. I don't know what to make of that distinction but in public discourse its the showing that will ultimately count for the purposes of persuasion - so evidentiary arguments will always be valid. But I think the religious believer is not overstepping their bounds one bit by skipping the showing part and just using their beliefs as they see fit in the public square.

Regarding number 6, my main problem with it is in education. For the most part, education is funded by the state, yet, I would argue that education is one of those issues that are both a private and public good. So, you can have a conflict of interests in it. Whether it is homeschooling in California or expanding public funding of religious schools in Ontario (which already funds a Catholic system) a great controversy is brewing.

I wish to reframe the issue of irrationality towards that of a-rationality, especially as it regards education. It seems that much of the conflict comes from philosophic differences, rather, it is about the meaning of education. For the most part, the present education system has abandoned a transcended telos for a materialistic one (to get jobs). Whether this is a positive development or not is not for the state to decide because it is incompetent to do so (echoing the idea of John Courtney Murray's public sphere idea). Basically, I don't think any kind of public consensus can be made on this issue WITHOUT seriously undermining religious liberty.

Solution for me: greater parental choice (which I know, would not come as a shock to the readers of this blog).

"Audi, as I read him, thinks that religious convictions can perfectly well serve as motivations for political action but adds that they should be accompanied by secular reasons (and maybe you'd agree with some version of this)."

I wouldn't agree with it if it's intended in such a way that it would entail interpretation #5. I wonder if Audi has ever said anything on the issue of indirect arguments "through" religion. It would be a bit of a stretch to call any such argument a matter of using just "secular reasons." The use of "secular" and "religious" there seems to me in any event to be a potential source of confusion. I have a feeling that I once read a paper by Evan Fales in which he said something to the effect that indirect arguments of that sort could be okay, but he doesn't think Christianity _can_ be supported rationally by evidence, so it was sort of a moot point. But it may have been an unpublished paper. It was quite a number of years ago.

"Since we ought to respect our fellow citizens we should give them reasons for limiting their autonomy that they can accept from their own perspective. Some sort of public justification is required."

What if limiting someone's autonomy is the best way for me to respect my fellow citizen? Imagine that I believe I have good grounds to believe that suicide is immoral because it violates a person's intrinsic dignity? If the law permits my fellow citizen to engage in suicide, it seems to me that the law allows him to disrespect himself. So, in order for me to show respect to him, I pass a law to limit his autonomy, since I would be grateful for such a law if I were similarly situated. Thus, this law is an application of the Golden Rule as well: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I am thankful when the law makes it easier for me to be virtuous; thus, I want to extend that goodness to others. Of course, my suicidal neighbor cannot accept my view from his perspective. But neither can I fully embrace from my perspective this principle in its full-orbed liberal version: "Since we ought to respect our fellow citizens we should give them reasons for limiting their autonomy that they can accept from their own perspective. Some sort of public justification is required."

"...whereas the advocate of any principle of this sort (in any interpretation) could claim that he is merely trying to _persuade_ people by exhortation not to include particular beliefs in their public actions."

I'm not sure I gave this suggestion justice as to how it might affect my argument. What you're saying is that the objector could say something like "I only think public justification is required when coercive laws are in question" and so he wouldn't be subject to my claim of self contradiction.

That move still doesn't allow the objector to get past the fact that his claim is not demonstrable and since I don't find it persuasive it will need to be (or really close to it). But still that's a good point - I'll have to think on that.

Francis,

I've always thought Audi was on shaky ground with his Golden Rule plea and you've shown why. Unless there are all sorts of moral concepts behind it such as love, dignity, tolerance and so on it can be deployed in a myriad of ways.

So I might say something like "I wouldn't want my religious beliefs divorced from my public action and so I wouldn't want other citizens religious beliefs divorced from their public action". In this case the Golden Rule would lead me to reject GNPS.

Hmm... what about: "To show respect for our fellow citizens, public policy must be oriented toward promoting virtue and discouraging vice in all."

And if we cannot agree on what virtue and vice are, perhaps we have no business being fellow citizens in the same public. Which is of course to imply that public policy really is, at least in the limit, about power being applied in the direction favored by the most powerful. But perhaps thinking of it this brinksmanlike way might force diverse parties to broaden their agreement on what is good.

Mike, I think that's the way I intended it to apply to your argument. The objector's intent is not to set up a coercive law preventing the use of religious reasons in public policy (or so he could claim). So he could claim he doesn't have to meet the standard he sets up.

I agree with both of you that the use of the Golden Rule gets us nowhere here. If I'm doing something that is objectively evil and severely harmful to myself or others, though I don't realize it, then a Golden Rule argument could be made that I would want to be stopped. So the whole question really comes back to how we know that this or that is objectively wrong, when it is serious enough to be stopped by law, etc.

Applying for vendor privileges within the Public Square seems, at this point in modernity's history, is driven by both nostalgia and delusion. As one passes through it's decrepit Gallery of Gods, the first impulse is to take a bulldozer to the decayed and rotted statuary built in honor of Power & Wealth. In navigating it's litter-strewn pathways the hapless visitor must endure a parade of rain-coat clad carney-barkers and garishly attired harlots loudly hawking the various pleasures of Utopia. The whole soul-deadening experience reaches it's depressing denouement at The Altar of The Autonomous Self. Once hailed as a cultural marvel at the time of it's unveiling, nowadays it serves as the preferred toilet for flocks of pigeons. The Public Square has gone to seed and is little more than a place of exchange for grasping materialists and shifty nihilists.

One should trek past it's weed-strewn garden, not as a Pluralist approved peddler of multi-cultural merchandise ("try some new, improved Jesus today"), but as a subversive jester. The goal can no longer be a setting-up a podium under Liberalism's stained canopy. It is about to collapse from the weight of it's own dehumanizing logic. Instead, mock the fallen Idols, disparage the dumb-struck deities and prepare a place for the passerby seeking refuge from the death-works.

The days of negotiating on Liberalism's terms are over. The task at hand it to hasten it's demise by laughing at it, while joyfully building a warm haven outside it's barren borders. The Public Square is no match for a plush, fertile Garden.

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