Nussbaum on Williams and Toleration

An item from the University of Chicago Law Faculty blog:

Martha Nussbaum is working on a book on religion and the Constitution. A portion of the research on the book led to her January 31, 2006 entry into the Chicago's Best Ideas series, entitled "The Roots of Respect: Roger Williams and Religious Fairness." Martha's talk explores Williams's interesting and prescient (although long and dense) writings on the subject, and explains why Williams has a lot to say to those who believe separation of church and state is an idea created by non-religious people. You can listen to the talk and discussion here.

Those interested in Williams, religious freedom, and conscience might also be interested in this paper, "The Tenuous Case for Conscience," that Steve Smith did in connection with a celebration of Williams's 400th birthday.  He asks, among other things:

When we reverently invoke "conscience," do we have any idea what we are talking about? Or are we just exploiting a venerable theme for rhetorical purposes without any clear sense of what "conscience" is or why it matters?