“Why Tolerate Religion?”
Jacques Maritain, a prominent philosopher involved in drafting the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, famously observed, "We agree on these rights, providing we are not asked why. With the 'why,' the dispute begins." This doesn't mean that "why" questions are unimportant or unnecessary. Rather, it acknowledges that within a pluralistic context it is prudent to achieve agreement on the "what" and not insist on the "why."
Maritain's pragmatic prudence, however, is not enough to satisfy University of Chicago law Professor Brian Leiter. If the dust jacket of his recent book Why Tolerate Religion? is to be believed, these 133 breezy pages succeed in "demolishing old nostrums and sowing fresh insights," which, if followed through to their logical conclusions, would see the elimination of religion as a special category of human rights.
Leiter makes his case by deploying John Rawls's deontological arguments and John Stuart Mill's utilitarian approach. A philosopher would undoubtedly highlight various nuances but from my public policy practitioner's perspective, this framing reduces to a straightforward, albeit narrow, understanding of the public square. Rawls's perspective amounts to insisting that the only arguments that can be used in public in a liberal democratic society are those that are based on public reasoning. Rawls recognizes that people have personal religious or philosophic views—"comprehensive doctrines" in his parlance—but he insists they have no carriage in (nor should they influence) the public square because they rely on reasoning that is not available to everyone in society. Mill's perspective focuses on the harm principle. There is a strong emphasis on freedom and a bias to maximizing freedom within society, as long as the exercise of that freedom does not result in any harm to anyone else. Using this test, there is no difference between religious or conscience claims in the public square as the test regards the impact of those claims and not their origin.
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Maritain's pragmatic prudence, however, is not enough to satisfy University of Chicago law Professor Brian Leiter. If the dust jacket of his recent book Why Tolerate Religion? is to be believed, these 133 breezy pages succeed in "demolishing old nostrums and sowing fresh insights," which, if followed through to their logical conclusions, would see the elimination of religion as a special category of human rights.
Leiter makes his case by deploying John Rawls's deontological arguments and John Stuart Mill's utilitarian approach. A philosopher would undoubtedly highlight various nuances but from my public policy practitioner's perspective, this framing reduces to a straightforward, albeit narrow, understanding of the public square. Rawls's perspective amounts to insisting that the only arguments that can be used in public in a liberal democratic society are those that are based on public reasoning. Rawls recognizes that people have personal religious or philosophic views—"comprehensive doctrines" in his parlance—but he insists they have no carriage in (nor should they influence) the public square because they rely on reasoning that is not available to everyone in society. Mill's perspective focuses on the harm principle. There is a strong emphasis on freedom and a bias to maximizing freedom within society, as long as the exercise of that freedom does not result in any harm to anyone else. Using this test, there is no difference between religious or conscience claims in the public square as the test regards the impact of those claims and not their origin.
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