The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can't Solve It PDF
Preview The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can't Solve It
The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism And Why Philosophers Can't Solve it Thaddeus J. Kozinski LEXINGTOBNO OKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK Published by Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright 63 2010 by Lexington Books All rights resewed. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kozinski, Thaddeus J., 1973- The political problem of religious pluralism : and why philosophers can't solve it / Thaddeus J. Kozinski. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-4168-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Religion and politics. 2. Religious pluralism-Political aspects. I. Title. BL65.P7K69 2010 201l.72--dc22 2010018093 ern The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSVNISO 239.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America For my father, Theodore Kozinski ( 194 1-2004) And my wife, Tami Foreword ix ... Preface Xlll Acknowledgments Introduction xxi Part 1 John Rawls's Overlapping Consensus 1 Rawls's Postmodern Turn 2 The Failure of the Overlapping Consensus Part 2 Jacques Maritain's Democratic Charter 3 Overlapping Consensus in a New Christendom 4 Maritain's Democratic Faith: A Sign of Contradiction Part 3 Alasdair MacIntyre's Confessional Consensus 5 MacIntyre's Tradition-Constituted Rationality 6 A Critique of MacIntyre: Why Philosophy Isn't Enough Bibliography Index About the Author vii Foreword Political philosophy does not want to know what the philosopher thinks about politics, though that is a perfectly good consideration. Rather it seeks to relate philosophy to politics. It is an effort to explain the importance of philosophy and revelation to the politician not merely as something intelligible but as something "necessary" and "elevating" for the good of the polity itself. It presumes that the politician has prudence, the distinctly intellectual of all the moral virtues. It also knows that the politician is a man too busy for himself to philosophize, though he should know the relative limits of what politics is, which is indeed a philoso- phic problem. Following lessons from Socrates and Christ, political philosophy wants to know whether a contradiction exists between the life of the philosopher or the life of Christ, both men killed through civil trials, and the city itself. Will the good man, the man who seeks the truth, always be killed in existing cities, or if not killed, marginalized, controlled? The politician, as Plato told us, almost al- ways has the power to eliminate or reduce the philosopher to silence. But does that mean his use of such power has no limit? Socrates stood for the principle: "It is never right to do wrong." It is on this principle that our or any civilization is built. If this principle were not valid- Machiavelli's prince sometimes has to do wrong-then the philosopher will stand before the political court to be judged in its own self-established terms. Thus, if a philosopher thinks that his life is more significant than truth, he will live. If he thinks otherwise, he will die. These are the scenes and issues that be- gin all political philosophy. Political theology, related to political philosophy through the very deaths of Socrates and Christ, has to do with the rank and status of the political order in the revelational books. In the Christian tradition, relatively little was said about politics other than that there were indeed things of Caesar and things of God. One can conclude from revelation, no doubt, not that politics is not im- portant, but that it is not the primary concern of what revelation had to teach us about ourselves, about the whole. Politics was not the highest science, as Aristotle told us already. We could pretty much figure out what it was from experience and reason. Revelation did insist on two things for politics. First was that revelation be free to be itself, to state its truth, to live its life that did not, as such, obviate politics. Indeed, the great classical mystery was not what the ethical and political life was about, but
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