Comprehensive Doctrines in the Public Sphere – A Case for Politicization
Abstract
The
problem with religious reasons is not whether they should be present in the
public sphere but how they should be present. Political theorists such as
Jeremy Waldron, Juergen Habermas, and Christina Lafont have favored two
approaches to making religion legitimate in the public sphere. They have either
tried to work out the conditions under which religious reasons can contribute
to public sphere in a fruitful way or they have drawn attention to the moral
content of religious principles. However, I argue that the latter approach
relies too heavily on the propositional content of religious arguments to the
detriment of investigating how they are politicized in the public sphere. It is
my conviction that without looking at how given religious morality is politicized,
a false moral consensus is manufactured, which given the motivational pull of
religion can be dangerous. Furthermore, the article makes a case for a more
realistic idea of a public sphere where other comprehensive doctrines such as
feminism or economism are taken into account as well. Moreover, the evaluation
of religious reasons should include their relationship to a given background
political culture, which will increase a critical edge of a political theory.
Keywords
References
- ARENDT, H. (1998) The Human Condition. The University of Chicago Press.
- BOETTCHER, James W. (2009) ‘Habermas, religion, and the Ethics of Citizenship’, Philosophy Social Criticism 35 (1-2): 215-238
- CHAMBERS, Simone (2007) ‘How religion speaks to the agnostic: Habermas on the persistent value of religion’, Constellations, 14(2): 210-223.
- COOKE, Maeve, (2011) ‘Translating Truth’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 37 (4): 479-491
- EBERLE, Christopher J. (2009), ‘Basic Human Worth and Religious Restraint’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 35 (1-2): 151-181
- HABERMAS, Juergen (2003). The future of human nature. Polity Press.
- HABERMAS, Jurgen, (2006) ‘Religion in the Public Sphere’ , European Journal of Philosophy 14 (1): 1-25
- LAFONT, Christina (2007) ‘Religion in the public sphere: remarks on Habermas's conception of public deliberation in postsecular societies’, Constellations, 14(2), 239-259.
Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Tomasz Jarymowıcz
*
This is me
0000-0003-2148-5812
Norway
Publication Date
September 30, 2019
Submission Date
August 28, 2019
Acceptance Date
April 5, 2019
Published in Issue
Year 2019 Volume: 18 Number: 2