Liberalism’s Religion

345 Pages·2017·2.428 MB·English

by  Cécile Laborde

liberalism’s religion

Liberalism’s Religion
˜™
Cécile Laborde
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2017
Copyright © 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
First printing
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Laborde, Cécile, author.
Title: Liberalism’s religion / Cécile Laborde.
Description: Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts : Harvard University Press, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017012577 | ISBN 9780674976269 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Religion and state. | Liberalism— Religious aspects.
Classification: LCC BL65.S8 L325 2017 | DDC 322/.1— dc23 LC rec ord available at
https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2017012577
Jacket design: Annamarie McMahon Why
Jacket art: Felsenkamer, 1929 (watercolour over pencil on paper laid down by the artist on
board), Klee, Paul (1879-1940) / Private Collection / Photo © Christie’s Images /
Bridgeman Images © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Contents
Introduction 1
Part I: analogizing religion
1. Liberal Egalitarianism and the Critique of Religion 13
2. Liberal Egalitarianism and the Exemptions Puzzle 42
3. Liberal Egalitarianism and the State Neutrality Puzzle 69
Part II: disaggregating religion
4. Disaggregating Religion in Nonestablishment of Religion:
Defending Minimal Secularism 113
5. State Sovereignty and Freedom of Association 160
6. Disaggregating Religion in Freedom of Religion: Individual
Exemptions and Liberal Justice 197
Conclusion 239
Notes 245
Acknowledgments 323
Index 327

Introduction
Can a liberal state establish a par tic u lar religion in its laws and in-
stitutions? Can state officials appeal to religious convictions in jus-
tifying laws? Can majority religious symbols be displayed in the public
sphere? Can churches have male- only clergy? Can faith- based businesses
deny ser vices to LGBTQ citizens? Should conscientious objectors be ex-
empted from the application of general laws? Should religious minori-
ties be protected against discrimination on the same grounds as racial
minorities?
In this book I aim to provide reasoned solutions to these, and similar,
controversies. But I also take a step back, to reflect on more foundational
issues about the place of religion in liberal po liti cal theory. The notion of
religion is central to the historical elaboration of Western liberalism,
from the Eu ro pean wars of religion onward. Yet, strangely, it has re-
mained under- theorized by liberal po liti cal phi los o phers. Liberalism’s
2 Introduction
Religion aims to fill this gap. I argue that controversies such as those re-
ferred to above are not best explicated and resolved in relation to a
vague concept of “religion.” Rather, each relates to par tic u lar, discrete
dimensions of (what we call) religion. When we think about the moral
dilemmas that such controversies pres ent us with, our focus should not
be on the rights of “religion” as such. Instead, it should be on how lib-
eral laws and institutions relate to the variegated manifestations of reli-
gious life that dif er ent controversies make salient— religion as cognitive
statements of truth, identificatory symbols, comprehensive ways of life,
modes of voluntary association, moral and ethical obligations, vulner-
able collective identities, and so forth. Each facet of religion raises its
own set of normative questions. The chief argument of this book is that
we should disaggregate religion into a plurality of dif er ent interpretive
dimensions.
Let me be clear about the scope of my argument. By suggesting that
the category of religion can be dispensed with in po liti cal theory, I do
not mean to deny that religion is a central, indeed indispensable, cate-
gory of our ethical, spiritual, and social experience. Nor do I deny that
the semantic category of religion is a useful heuristic device in a range of
scholarly endeavors. What I do suggest, however, is that the category of
religion is less than adequate as a politico- legal category. We can explicate
the values implicit in freedom of religion, equality between religions, and
neutrality of the state toward religion—to mention just a few of the
relevant liberal ideals— without direct recourse to the semantic category
of religion at all. What we need, as po liti cal and legal theorists, is not a
semantic or a descriptive notion of religion but, rather, an interpretive
one: We need to articulate the multiple values that par tic u lar dimen-
sions of religion realize. My theory of liberalism’s religion, therefore, is
interpretive—it eschews the term “religion” to focus on the values it re-
alizes. And it is also disaggregative—it suggests that the values (and
disvalues) of religion are plural and multidimensional.
The advantages of such a theory should be evident. It breaks with the
long- standing tradition, in Western po liti cal theory at least, to think
Introduction 3
of religion as a discrete sphere of life deserving uniquely special politico-
legal treatment—in the form of special protection (religious exemptions)
and special containment (religious nonestablishment). My reworking of
liberal theory implies that religion is not uniquely special: what ever treat-
ment it receives from the law, it receives in virtue of features that it shares
with nonreligious beliefs, conceptions, and identities. Disaggregating re-
ligion, then, allows us to treat religious and nonreligious individuals and
groups on the same terms, as expressions of ethical and social pluralism.
Nor is this all. Disaggregating religion also allows us to dispense with
the Western- , Christian- inflected construal of religion that liberal po-
liti cal theory relies on. Instead of assuming that separation between state
and religion is a requirement of liberal legitimacy, for example, I shall
identify the dif er ent dimensions of religion that directly engage the le-
gitimacy of the po liti cal order. The upshot is that, when par tic u lar in-
stances of religion do not exhibit t hose dimensions, then liberalism does
not mandate Western- style strict separation. Liberalism’s Religion, then,
aims to reformulate liberalism to defend it against critics who denounce
its ethnocentric, Christian understanding of what religion is. As a result,
it ofers a novel answer to the question of how universal theories of both
secularism and religion can be; and of how to rethink equality in complex
pluralistic socie ties.
A note on method. I think of po liti cal theory as an immanent and
dialogical exercise. Much of my argument emerges as a product of fairly
extensive and detailed engagement with existing lit er a ture, both in an-
alytical philosophy and in (what I shall call) critical religion. Although
I write in the analytical, normative tradition of po liti cal theory, I share
with Continental- influenced, poststructuralist critics a deep- seated in-
terest in the opacity and ambiguity of language. One of the paradoxes
I explore is that, for all its commitments to clarity and precision, Anglo-
American analytical po liti cal philosophy has relied on a strikingly vague
understanding of religion—an imprecision carried over to the loose
analogue of “conception of the good” pop u lar ized by John Rawls. By
clarify ing some of the presuppositions of liberal phi los o phers’ use of