RELIGION IN POLITICS, PART 2

On November 19, Rick Garnett called to our attention a piece on religion/politics by Peter Beinart, in The New Republic.  In the piece, Beinart wrote:

[W]hen you make public arguments, you have to ground them--as much as possible--in reason and evidence, things that are accessible to people of different religions, or no religion at all.  Otherwise, you can't persuade other people, and they can't persuade you.  In a diverse democracy, there must be a common political language, and that language can't be theological.

I don't know exactly what Beinart means by "a common political language", but I do know that if there were such an animal, I don't know why it couldn't be "theological".  Is Lincoln's theological language in the Second Inaugural too sectarian for Beinart's taste?  Or MLK's language in his many speeches?  That a language is too sectarian for someone's taste doesn't mean that it isn't a common language among most citizens of a particular polity.  Beinart talks, in the passage above, about "persuading other people".  Isnt it clear, even to secular liberals like Beinart, that with respect to many issues (e.g., war and peace), a theological language--I said "theological", not "fundamentalist"--may have much greater resonance and persuasive appeal for more Americans than any nontheological language?

Maybe Beinart is simply recycling the now discredited position that public political discourse should be "neutral" in some sense.  If any of you reading this posting has any doubts about whether that position, in all its variations, has been discredited, pick up a copy of this book and read it:  Christiopher J. Eberle, Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002).  (Eberle is a philosopher and, nonetheless, a very nice guy.)  Eberle's book comes as close to achieving closure on the issue as is humanly possible.  For my money, Eberle *has* achieved closure.  (You're skeptical?  Put your finger on a point where, in your judgment, Eberle's argument misfires.)

On November 22 (a day that will always have a special resonance for me; I was a senior in high school when it happened), I reproduced two entries from Eugene Volokh's blog and a response from a blog titled "Ciceronian Review".  I had thought about posting some commentary here on what Volokh and his critic say.  (I am in substantial agreement with Volokh's critic about Volokh's impoverished moral epistemology, and also in agreement with the critic that "[t]he debate should not be about the nature of value theory or about moral epistemology.")  But I've decided that it would be otiose of me to do so.  (It's a shame that neither Volokh nor his critic took the time to bring himself up to speed--that neither took a break, sat down, and assimiliated at least some of the relevant literature--before opining to their readers.)  Why otiose?  Because, again, Eberle's book is there for all who are interested in the religion/politics controversy to read.  So is my book:  Under God:  Religious Faith and Liberal Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Eberle, in his book, ariculates and defends, for citizens of a liberal democracy like ours, an ideal:  "the ideal of conscientious engagement".  Eberle's argument in support of the ideal is directed both to secular liberals (many of whom think that citizens should not participate in politics on the basis of religious reasons at all; or, like Volokh's critic, they think that citizens should not do so in the absence adequate, motivating secular reasons), and to religious believers (many of whom think that they need not bother with secular reasons at all, unless they choose to do so as a matter of political strategy).  Here is Eberle's articulation of the ideal.  I hope that if you're interested in the religion/politics controversy, you'll make an effort to track down Eberle's book and read his elegant and compelling defense of the ideal.

[J]ustificatory liberals are correct that reflection on the norm of respect indicates constraints on the manner in which a citizen may support her favored coercive laws.  In fact, I believe that a citizen who adheres to the norm of respect will abide by at least six constraints on the reasons she employs in political decision making and advocay.

(1) She will pursue a high degree of rational justififation for the claim that a favored coercive policy is morally appropriate.

(2) She will withhold support from a given coercive policy is she can't acquire a sufficiently high degree of rational justification for the claim that that policy is morally appropriate.

(3) She will attempt to communicate to her compatriots her reasons for coercing them.

(4) She will pursue public justification for her favored coercive policies.

(5) She will listen to her compatriots' evaluation of her reasons for her favored coercive policies with the intention of learning from them about the moral (im)propriety of those policies.

(6) She will not support any policy on the basis of a rationale that denies the dignity of her compatriots.

Now, notice that the ideal of conscientious engagement does not forbid--because, as Eberle explains, the underlying norm of "respect" does not forbid--a citizen to rely on a "nonpublic" justification ... even if, after a good faith effort to do so, the citizen has failed to discern any public justification.  See Eberle's chapter 5:  "What Respect Does Not Require".

Got to run.