B          The Dangers of Religion

One explanation as to why this asymmetry is applied to religious reasons is offered by Quinn; “Some people fear that religious argument is apt to be dangerously divisive.”[82] Audi concurs, “[religious reasons] are special in relation to liberal democracy even by contrast with [secular reasons] … that are not accessible to any normal adult.” [83] He gives five “salient points” to support his case, all based on the idea that religious reasons are dangerous to society. [84]

First Audi claims that religious reasons are often “directly or indirectly taken to represent an infallible authority”.[85] The second point is that religious people often “believe that anyone who does not identify with [the ultimate divine source] is forsaken, damned, or in some other way fundamentally deficient.”[86] Third, “religious reasons often dictate practices that are distinctively religious in content (such as prayer) or intent (such as preserving the fetus on the ground that it is a gift from God)”.[87] Fourth, with many religious leaders, especially leaders of cults, there is a risk that they are “cloaking their prejudices with absolute authority.”[88] Finally, Audi contends that religious people tend to be “highly and stubbornly passionate about the importance of everyone’s acting in accordance with religious reasons”.[89]

Again these features are not unique to religion. As McGrew argues, all these features can be equally present in secular people and movements;[90]

It is sadly amusing to read this list and to consider how well its negative aspects apply to secular people and movements. Communism, for example, is as fanatical as any conventional religion and demands group-think on an unrivaled scale. Contemporary feminism aspires to control worldview, language, and behavior. The New Atheists are exceedingly passionate about making people behave in accordance with their own beliefs (making sure children are taught Darwinism as unquestioned fact, for example), and Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers have an inflated sense of self-importance that would make many a Christian megachurch pastor look modest by comparison. Dawkins is infamous for having repeatedly and insistently called a religious upbringing “child abuse,” and while Dawkins has shied away from the obvious legal implications of this accusation, not everyone who thinks as he does is so cautious. Other secularists, self-styled “comprehensive liberals,” have expressly advocated the use of the power of the state to monitor and limit parents’ ability to transmit their religion to their children (see Hitchcock, 2004). As for the vicious condemnation of children who do not fully conform to their parents’ secular ideology, a good example of this phenomenon is the strange story of Rebecca Walker, daughter of feminist icon Alice Walker. And, on the other hand, there are plenty of religious people who do not display such negative characteristics. It simply does not appear to be true that we reduce fanaticism, self-important leadership, attempts at thought control, and the like in society by reducing the role of religion in public life.

McGrew suggests there are secular analogues of even Audi’s third reason, that religious reasons often dictate practices that are distinctively religious in content or intent;[91]

It would certainly be undesirable if people were being coerced to pray to any God, even the true God. But then, secular ideology can and sometimes does demand that we do homage to itself—in the form of changing our language to make it politically correct, for example, or treating two men or two women as “married” in all of our business activities. The problem with forcing people to pray to the true God is that the true God is not truly worshiped in that fashion. The problem with forcing people to pray to false gods and to pledge allegiance to false ideologies is that they are false. You will not avoid the problem of the coercion of conscience by limiting the role of religion in public life. You will only shift that problem so that the unreasonable coercion comes from some quarters rather than others.

Audi’s first point invites a parallel rejoinder. He defines infallible propositions as those that are “impossible that they be both endorsed or accepted by God and false”.[92] On this definition of infallibility every proposition is infallible. God, as Audi understands him, is omniscient. God only believes true propositions. It follows then that any proposition God accepts cannot be false; this is true whether it is a religious proposition or a secular one.

Audi’s main concern is that a person who believes an action is commanded by God believes that an omniscient, infallible being has endorsed that action. Appeals to purported divine commands are therefore problematic. However, some secular ethical theories face precisely the same problem.  One of the most influential secular theories, endorsed by ethicists as diverse as David Hume, Adam Smith, Henry Sidgwick, Richard Hare, Roderick Firth, John Stuart Mill, Tom Regan, Richard Brandt, Immanuel Kant and others, is the ideal observer theory. On this theory an action is wrong, if and only if, it would be proscribed by an ideal observer, by a person who is perfectly impartial and perfectly informed on all the relevant facts. A hypothetical ideal observer is no less infallible than religious believers take God to be. It is hard to see how invoking religious reasons is not acceptable but invoking the secular reasons is.[93]

C         Argument from Religious Wars
A more forcible danger of religion argument invokes the spectre of religious wars. Audi states “if religious considerations are not appropriately balanced with secular ones in matters of coercion, there is a special problem: a clash of Gods vying for social control. Such uncompromising absolutes easily lead to destruction and death”[94] Wolterstorff articulates the concern;[95]

One reason which liberals have offered ever since the emergence of liberalism in the seventeenth century is that it’s just too dangerous to let religious people debate political issues outside of their own confessional circles, and to act politically, on the basis of their religious views. The only way to forestall religious wars is to get people to stop invoking God and to stop invoking canonical scriptures when arguing and determining politics.

The adequacy of this argument can be contested on several grounds. First, Quinn, Greenwald and Wolterstorff note that while it was true of 17^th century England, “social peace did depend on getting citizens to stop invoking God, canonical scriptures, and religious authorities when discussing politics in public”,[96] it is not plausible that such a danger exists in 21^st century Western countries like New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Quinn notes, “current political debate in the United States exhibits failure to comply with Audi’s principles on a massive scale and yet shows no tendency to reignite the Wars of Religion of the early modern era.”[97]

Wolterstorff makes two other related points. He notes that “the slaughter, torture, and generalised brutality of our century has mainly been conducted in the name of one or another secular cause–nationalism of many sorts, communism, fascism, patriotisms of various kinds, economic hegemony.”[98] Second, he notes that “many of the social movements in the modern world that have moved societies in the direction of liberal democracy have been deeply and explicitly religious in their orientation”[99] He cites the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement and movements resisting communism, facism and apartheid as examples. The invocation of religious reasons risks war and civil strife when certain types of religious reasons are invoked in particular socio-political contexts. This is equally true of secular reasons; certain types of secular reasons can be dangerously incendiary in particular socio-political contexts. There seems no basis for an asymmetry between secular and religious reasons on these grounds.

Eberle and Cuneo add that 17^th century “confessional conflict … [was] typically rooted in egregious violations of the right to religious freedom, when, for example, people are jailed, tortured, or otherwise abused because of their religious commitments.”[100] Given that few, if any, who appeal to religious reasons advocate such violations or could plausibly bring them about, such appeals are unlikely to have tumultuous effects.

In terms of protecting freedom of religion from these kinds of abuses it is not obvious that secular reasons fare any better, “secularists have a long history of hostility to the right to religious freedom and, presumably, that hostility isn’t at all grounded in religious considerations”.[101] Moreover when[102]

religious believers have employed coercive power to violate the right to religious freedom, they themselves rarely have done so in a way that violates the DRR … when such rights have been violated, the justifications offered, even by religious believers, appeal to alleged requirements for social order, such as the need for uniformity of belief on basic normative issues. One theological apologist for religious repression, for example, writes this: ‘The king punishes heretics as enemies, as extremely wicked rebels, who endanger the peace of the kingdom, which cannot be maintained without the unity of the faith. That is why they are burnt in Spain’.

Similarly, Aquinas, in a Rawlsian vein, famously justified the suppression of heretics by appealing to the accepted political culture of his day which required that counterfeiters be executed.

Consequently, the religious wars of the 17^th century were caused, not by the appeal to religious reasons per se but rather by the violation of religious freedom; this violation has often been defended on secular grounds. It is unlikely that the DRR provides a bulwark against such abuses.

III        Conclusion

On examining the DRR it appears that there is no good reason for singling out religious reasons for a particular restraint and limiting discourse to secular reasons. The grounds offered for doing so, the golden rule, the epistemic accessibility of religious premises, the dangers of religion and the potential for religious wars all apply with equal force to secular beliefs. Hence, the restriction appears arbitrary. Moreover, as applied, the DRR is often incoherent and if applied consistently would render most substantive coercive laws unjustified. The current practice of equating secularism with neutrality is flawed.

As Carter eloquently puts it,[103]

What is needed is not a requirement that the religiously devout choose a form of dialogue that liberalism accepts, but that liberalism develop a politics that accepts whatever form of dialogue a member of the public offers. Epistemic diversity, like diversity of other kinds, should be cherished, not ignored, and certainly not abolished. What is needed, then, is a willingness to listen, not because the speaker has the right voice but because the speaker has the right to speak. Moreover, the willingness to listen must hold out the possibility that the speaker is saying something worth listening to; to do less is to trivialize the forces that shape the moral convictions of tens of millions of Americans.

This series was written as a supervised research paper in pursuit of my LLB.

[82] Phillip Quinn “Political Liberalisms and Their Exclusions of the Religious” (1995) 69:2 Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 35, 143.
[83] Robert Audi “Liberal Democracy and the Place of Religion in Politics” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 1-66, 31.
[84] Ibid 31-32.
[85] Ibid 31.
[86] Ibid.
[87] Ibid.
[88] Ibid 31-32.
[89] Ibid 32.
[90] Lydia McGrew “The Irrational Faith of the Naked Public Square” (2008) 1 The Christendom Review (at 2 October 2009).
[91] Ibid.
[92] Audi, above n83, 63.
[93] I am grateful to Matthew Flannagan for the development of this point.
[94] Robert Audi Religious Commitment and Secular Reason (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2000) 103.
[95] Nicholas Wolterstorff “Why we should Reject what Liberalism tells us About Speaking and Acting in Public for Religious Reasons” in Paul Weithman (ed) Religion and Contemporary Liberalism (University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame IN, 1997) 167.
[96] Nicholas Wolterstorff “The Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of Political Issues” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 67-120, 79.
[97] Quinn, above n82, 39.
[98] Wolterstorff, above n96, 80.
[99] Christopher J. Eberle and Terence Cuneo “Religion and Political Theory” (2008) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (at 9 August 2009).
[100] Ibid.
[101] Ibid.
[102] Ibid.
[103] Stephen Carter The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialise Religious Devotion (Basic Books, New York, 1993) 230.

RELATED POSTS:
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part I
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part II
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part III
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part IV
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part V

(ii)        Are religious reasons ever subject to open justification?

Gaus might rejoin that commitments to freedom of religion can be defended in terms of open justification. Consider some of the cases that divide society that I listed earlier; at least one side in such debates is mistaken, has made an error in rejecting the purported open justification presented to them. This is entirely possible. It could also be true of Qutb; perhaps he mistakenly rejected a premise that, given other things he believes, he should have embraced.

While this rejoinder would avoid the thinness objection, the problem is that it would no longer be clear or obvious, in the absence of substantive argument, that any viewpoint could be openly justified. Neither side in the above debates is likely to concede its position as the one in error. Cuneo and Eberle note the problem;[66]

Were we to ask Qutb whether he would have reasons to support laws that protect a robust right to religious freedom if he were adequately informed and reasonable, surely he would say: no. Moreover, he would claim that his compatriots would reject the liberal protection of such a right if they were adequately informed about the divine authorship of the Quran and the proper rules of its interpretation. While Qutb’s say-so doesn’t settle the issue of who would believe what in improved conditions, liberal critics maintain that his response indicates just how complicated the issue under consideration is. Among other things, to establish that Qutb is wrong it seems that one would have to deny the truth of various theological claims on which Qutb relies when he determines that he would reject the right to religious freedom were he adequately informed and reasonable. That would require advocates of the standard view to take a stand on contested religious issues. However, liberal critics point out that defenders of the standard view have been wary of explicitly denying the truth of religious claims, especially those found within the major theistic religions.

Gaus’ case for open justification can only succeed if one makes certain assumptions as to the merits of substantive contentions about morality, philosophy of religion, the truth or falsity of various religious doctrines and questions of meta-ethics. However, such contentions are controversial.

An additional problem is that open justification commits one to the DRR only if one assumes that religious reasons can never be openly justified. Recall that Audi’s definition of a religious reason is one that possesses “normative force, that is, its status as a prima facie justificatory element, does not (evidentially) depend on the existence of God.” This suggests that proponents of the DRR must assume that belief in God cannot ever be openly justified. I would dispute this.

Philosophers and theologians have offered arguments for God’s existence entailing that the beliefs most rational people already accept commit them to theism.  Richard Swinburne has written several works arguing that Christianity is more probable than not on the public evidence than any alternative.[67] Robert Adams has argued that the best account of moral obligation is such that they are the commands of a loving God.[68] Alvin Plantinga sketched 26 arguments for God’s existence, which are currently being defended in the literature.[69] Blackwell recently published an encyclopaedia containing 11 current arguments used to defend the existence of God.[70] Edward Feser agrees,[71]

Versions of these arguments were defended by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, and Newton, and their defense had absolutely nothing to do with ignorance of modern science — indeed, some of these thinkers were among the founders of modern science — because the arguments do not ultimately stand or fall with any scientific results in the first place. … Among the contemporary defenders of the arguments are writers like Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, John J. Haldane, James F. Ross, Richard Taylor, William Lane Craig, David S. Oderberg, David Braine, Barry Miller, Robert Koons, Charles Taliaferro and many others — analytic philosophers highly respected within the field and applying the most rigorous methods of analysis and argumentation. … anyone familiar with the classical and contemporary literature on philosophical theology [cannot] deny that the arguments for the theistic worldview mentioned above are every bit as defensible today as any other philosophical argument.

Just as there are numerous secular arguments, each defended by intelligent and capable scholars, held to be sound by their proponents even if rejected by their opponents, so too are there arguments for the existence of God that meet these criteria. In light of this it seems arbitrary to simply assume that religious arguments cannot meet the standard of public justification. Critics can argue the merits of these arguments and claim that only secular arguments can succeed but this will not give proponents of religious reasons a real reason for accepting such claims. Religious believers hold quite different assessments on the cogency of these arguments. Therefore, the demand of open justification does not appear to be a sufficient reason for the restriction of religious reasons but not others.

(iii)       Are secular reasons for coercive laws subject to open justification?
Gaus contends that religious reasons cannot be openly justified and that secular beliefs can. Many thinkers have argued that secular perspectives cannot justify the core commitments of a liberal democracy. Nihilist thinkers have argued that secular naturalistic views of the world entail that all moral claims are false.[72] Stephen Layman[73] and George Mavrodes[74] have argued that a secular view renders belief in morality irrational. Using a Kantian line, John Hare has argued that atheism makes the moral life rationally unstable.[75] Mark De Linville argues that atheism, when combined with evolutionary theory, provides good reason for thinking our moral beliefs are unreliable.[76] Alvin Plantinga has articulated the case for the conclusion that evolution, when combined with atheism, provides a reason for being sceptical about everything we believe (public policy would be no exception).[77] Michael Perry and Wolterstorff claim that human beings possessing inherent rights (a fundamental commitment of liberal democracy) cannot be adequately defended on secular grounds and is only defensible if one assumes religious doctrines.[78]

As with many secular arguments, religious justifications for coercive policies have been advocated by intelligent and capable scholars, held to be sound by their proponents even if they are rejected by their opponents. It would be arbitrary to simply assume that secular arguments meet the criteria of open justification and that religious ones do not.  Cuneo and Eberle note the problem;[79]

Liberal critics maintain that we are simply not in good epistemic position to judge the reasons an agent would have to support laws that protect basic liberal commitments were he better informed and more reasonable. More exactly, liberal critics maintain that we are not in a good epistemic position to determine whether a secular agent who is reasonable and better informed would endorse or reject the type of theistic commitments that philosophers such as Wolterstorff claim justify the ascription of natural human rights. The problem is that we don’t really have any idea how radically a person would change his views were he to occupy these conditions. The main, and still unresolved, question for this version of the standard view, then, is whether there is some coherent and non-arbitrary construal of the relevant counterfactual conditions that is strong enough to prohibit exclusive reliance on religious reasons but weak enough to allow for the justification of basic liberal commitments.

Given the divide between intelligent and capable people over various arguments for and against particular coercive policies it is not prima facie evident that any of these arguments can meet the standard of open justification. Moreover, if an argument could, there appears to be no reason to assume that it could not be a religious one. Now Gaus could examine all currently unsettled policy disputes in society and defend the ones he agrees with and attack the others but the inevitable result will be that many who do not share Gaus’ position will likely be unconvinced. If this is the outcome, there seems no reason why those who do not agree should accept the DRR.

Feser suggests that this arbitrary singling-out of religious reasons for restraint with little or no basis seems to be based more on ignorance and bigotry than reason,[80]

The problem, in the view of many liberals, is that religious considerations are matters of faith, where “faith” connotes in their minds a kind of groundless commitment, a will to believe that for which there is no objective evidence. Opinions on matters of public policy, they would say, can only appropriately be arrived at via methods of argument assessable by all members of the political community, not by reference to the idiosyncratic and subjective feelings of a minority.

If religious arguments were in general really like this, then I would agree with the liberal that they ought to be kept out of the public square. But in fact this liberal depiction of religion is a ludicrous caricature, and manifests just the sort of ignorance and bigotry of which liberals frequently accuse others.

Jeremy Waldron makes a similar point,[81]

Secular theorists often assume that they know what a religious argument is like: they present it as a crude prescription from God, backed up with threat of hellfire, derived from general or particular revelation, and they contrast it with the elegant complexity of a philosophical argument by Rawls (say) or Dworkin. With this image in mind, they think it obvious that religious argument should be excluded from public life, … But those who have bothered to make themselves familiar with existing religious-based arguments in modern political theory know that this is mostly a travesty;

A common theme in the arguments from respect, despite both possessing the features considered relevant, is the asymmetry between religious reasons and secular reasons. On the golden rule argument, Audi privileges secular reasons over religious reasons even though secular reasons were potentially subject to the same charges of being false and burdensome. Similarly with the argument from epistemic inaccessibility, reasonable people are able to reject both secular and religious reasons in a pluralistic society yet Audi and Rawls use this fact to exclude the latter and not the former. Likewise, with open justification, prima facie, there is no reason to accept that religious beliefs cannot be openly justified whilst secular beliefs can. Nor is there a prima facie reason for assuming that liberal commitments can be openly justified on secular grounds. In both cases intelligent and capable scholars have advanced arguments from premises which they believe others are committed to holding. Further in both cases the cogency of these arguments can be reasonably disputed.

In my next post, Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part VI, I will look at the dangers of religion as a justification for its asymmetrical treatment within the DRR and conclude my argument.

[66] Christopher J. Eberle and Terence Cuneo “Religion and Political Theory” (2008) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (at 9 August 2009).
[67] Richard Swinburne The Coherence of Theism (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977); The Existence of God (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979); Faith and Reason (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2005); Responsibility and Atonement (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989); Revelation (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2007); The Christian God (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994); Providence and The Problem of Evil (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998).
[68] Robert Adams Finite and Infinite Goods (Oxford University Press, New York, 1999); “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again” (1979) 7:1 Journal of Religious Ethics 66; “Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief” in Robert Adams (ed) The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology (Oxford University Press, New York, 1987) 144; “Divine Commands and the Social Nature of Obligation” (1987) 4 Faith and Philosophy 262.
[69] Alvin Plantinga “Appendix: Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments” in Deane-Peter Baker (ed) Alvin Plantinga
[70] JP Moreland and William Lane Craig Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Blackwell Publishing, Malden MA, 2009).
[71] Edward Feser “How to Mix Religion and Politics” (20056) TCSDaily (at 6 October 2009).
[72] Prominent examples are: JL Mackie Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1977); Michael Ruse “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics” in Michael Ruse (eds) The Darwinian Paradigm (Routledge, London, 1989) 251-273.
[73] C Stephen Layman “God and the Moral Order” (2002) 19:3 Faith and Philosophy 304; “God and the Moral Order: Replies and Objections” (2006) 32:2 Faith and Philosophy 209.
[74] George Mavrodes “Religion and the Queerness of Morality” in Robert Audi and William Wrainwright (eds) Rationality, Religious Belief and Moral Commitment (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1986) 213-226.
[75] John Hare The Moral Gap (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996); “Naturalism and Morality” in JP Moreland and William Lane Craig (eds) Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal (Routledge, London, 2000) 189-211; “Kant and the Rational Instability of Atheism” in Andrew Dole and Andrew Chignell (eds) The Ethics of Belief (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005).
[76] Mark D Linville “The Moral Argument” in JP Moreland and William Lane Craig (eds) Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Blackwell Publishing, Malden MA, 2009) 391 449.
[77] Alvin Plantinga Warrant and Proper Function (Oxford University, New York, 1993) 216-239; “The Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism” and “Replies to Beilby and his Cohorts” in James K Beilby (ed) Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Cornell University Press, New York, 2002) 1-15 & 204-277; “Naturalism vs Evolution: A Religion Science Conflict” in Paul Draper (ed) God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence (at 3 September 2009).
[78] Nicholas Wolterstorff Justice Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2008); Michael Perry Toward a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006).
[79] Eberle and Cuneo, above n 65.
[80] Feser, above n 71.
[81] Jeremy Waldron God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations of John Locke’s Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002) 20. Gaus appears to agree; in his book review of Eberle’s work on the subject he writes, “At the outset, however, let me stress that Eberle has written a very good book indeed. It is manifest that he has thought much harder and deeper about justificatory liberalism than justificatory liberals have thought about religious justification and belief. His analysis of religious epistemology and mysticism (ch. 8) clearly demonstrates the extent to which many liberals have attacked caricatures of religious justification. After Eberle’s book, secular liberals must be much more careful in their claims about religious beliefs and their justifications.” Gerald Gaus “Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics” (2003) Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (at 13 September 2009) (book review). (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007) 203-229.

RELATED POSTS:
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part I
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part II
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part III
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part IV
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part VI

(d)        Gaus’ attempt to salvage the argument from epistemic inaccessibility

I have argued that the argument from respect is subject to two objections, incoherence and thinness. One should not appeal to religious reasons to justify coercive legislation because people can reasonably reject religious reasons; as religious reasons are not shared by all reasonable people there is a duty to not appeal to them.  However, if this is true then both the DRR in its “public reason” form, as exemplified by Rawls, and in its more secularist form, as exemplified by Audi, should also be rejected. Reasonable people do not agree on secular moral theory nor do they agree on the principles of public reason.

In addition to being incoherent the DRR excludes far too much. It leaves us with content that is insufficiently thin to justify substantive legislative questions. I cited Gaus above who agreed that “little, if anything, is the object of consensus among reasonable people.”

In response to the thinness objection Gaus introduced the idea of “open justification.”[55]

Open justification … takes a person’s current system of beliefs and asks, first, whether given this system that person is committed to accepting some new piece of information, and, second, whether that person is then committed to revising his or her system of beliefs in the light of that new information.

According to Gaus, what respect requires is not that laws be justified to all reasonable people in such a way that those reasonable people can be expected to accept the justification, but rather “a coercive law is justified to an agent only if, were he reasonable and adequately informed, then he would have a sufficient reason from his own perspective to support it.”[56] [Emphasis added]

Peoples explains,[57]

[One] might hold to all kinds of prejudices and false beliefs that would lead him to reject a policy, and yet we might still be justified in advocating that this policy be imposed on him because if he were a bit more reasonable and open to new information, he would have a reason to endorse it. Stated differently, a person can be openly justified in accepting a policy, and yet consciously reject that policy because he doesn’t realise that if he only knew a bit more, understood the situation a little better, or was more open minded, he would have reasons to accept the policy.

Gaus prefers open justification over two other forms he identifies as “closed justification” and “strong externalism.” Gaus describes closed justification as being justified internally from the viewpoints that person currently holds.[58] He defines strong externalism as being justified from a viewpoint where one was adequately informed and had no mistaken beliefs. Gaus suggests that respecting others means that one is able to openly justify the policies one supports to other reasonable people in society. He does not require that persuasion is achieved or that a person’s current comprehensive viewpoint endorses the policy in question. Rather he holds that one must be able show the person that his or her current viewpoint provides grounds or reasons for believing things they currently do not. Further, that if they did accept these other things then they would have reasons for embracing the coercive policy being advocated.

Gaus’ opinion does appear to improve on that of Rawls. He is not alone in suggesting this. Audi has offered a solution to the thinness problem along the lines Gaus suggests.[59]

Two people who disagree on the justice of allowing a Nazi group to present its case may share intuitions about freed speech in general and be divided by, for instance, paranoia about Nazis, which one party has and the other does not. When this happens, there is often a possible route from the shared intuitions about the justice of protecting freedom of expression to agreement on the case in hand. It appears, moreover, that among rational civilized people, establishing agreement on what factual information is relevant and on what the relevant facts are tends to bring intuitions closer together.

Often when two people disagree there will be a set of moral intuitions[60] on which they do agree. The disagreement stems from other facts brought about by certain biases. If people can be shown that they are mistaken on these facts, it is possible that the biases can be corrected and agreement might occur. Audi suggests that something like open justification will decrease the amount of disagreement between rational people on at least some issues of justice.

As Audi’s example is simply that of a dispute between two people I am not sure that it escapes the thinness objection. It is one thing for a person to openly justify his or her position to one other but, according to Gaus, it is wrong to advocate a coercive law unless one can provide open justification to all reasonable people. Further, in the context of a defence of the DRR, and in the face of a charge of unjust asymmetry, Gaus must also contend both that religious reasons can never achieve open justification in this manner and that secular reasons can.

(i)         Open justification and the thinness objection
According to Gaus, the provision of open justification for a policy, to another person who rejects that policy, should proceed in two stages. First, one should assess whether the other person’s viewpoint commits that person to “accepting some new piece of information”. If it does, then one should assess whether the person is then “committed to revising his or her system of beliefs in the light of that new information.” Consequently, a person is only permitted to advocate a position if he or she can show that the position follows from premises that all reasonable people in society currently accept and according to a type of inference that all reasonable people recognise as valid.

An immediate problem arises, namely that few, if any, laws are justified by arguments that meet this standard (probably because few arguments on any substantive topic meet this standard). Marilyn McCord Adams notes, “the defence of any well-formulated philosophical position will eventually involve premises which are fundamentally controversial and so unable to command the assent of all reasonable persons.”[61] Consider the list of controversial issues I gave earlier: welfare, abortion, state funding of social projects, euthanasia, pornography, genetic modification of foods, climate change, capital punishment, Maori seats and so on. Do any of the proponents on either side of these debates offer arguments that ultimately appeal to premises that all rational people accept, without ever appealing to some premise, that is either drawn from or depends for its plausibility on, a comprehensive perspective that only some reasonable people accept? Could anyone advance such a justification? I doubt it.

This doubt stems from the fact that in such ethical debates often the very foundations of the subject are a matter of dispute. Nihilists deny moral claims are defensible at all. Non-nihilists disagree fundamentally over whether moral language is descriptive, prescriptive, both or merely an expression of emotion. There is disagreement over how moral knowledge is gained, what the fundamental criteria for right actions are and so on. Given this, almost any moral premise will be subject to dispute by some reasonable people.[62]

Eberle and Cuneo raise a related point by citing the example of Islamic intellectual, Sayyid Qutb.[63]

While in prison, Qutb wrote an intelligent, informed, and morally serious commentary on the Koran in which he laid the ills of modern society at the feet of Christianity and liberal democracy. The only way to extricate ourselves from the problems spawned by liberal democracy, Qutb argued, is to implement shariah or Islamic legal code, which implies that the state should not protect a robust right to religious freedom. In short, Qutb articulates what is, from his point of view, a compelling theological rationale against any law that authorizes the state to protect a robust right to religious freedom.

People like Qutb are not alone in society. Whatever we might think of the conclusions they draw, Islamic intellectuals appear to be educated, rational and morally serious people. Qutb rejects “a robust right to religious freedom” and liberal democracy itself. A coercive law that protects a robust right to freedom of religion and any of the other substantive commitments of a liberal democracy is only defensible if secularists can provide a valid argument for these commitments, from premises that Qutb accepts, to the conclusion that such commitments are correct. It is doubtful that secularists have done this or even that they would be able to.[64] Cuneo and Eberle note the conclusion.[65]

If respect for persons requires that each coercive law be justified to those reasonable persons subject to that law, and if a person such as Qutb were a citizen of a liberal democracy, then the argument from respect implies that laws that protect the right to religious freedom are morally illegitimate, as they lack moral justification—at least for agents such as Qutb.

In my next post, Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part V, I will examine and critique Gaus’s idea of open justification in more detail.

[55] Gerald Gaus Justificatory Liberalism: An Essay on Epistemology and Political Theory (Oxford University Press, New York, 1996) 32.
[56] Christopher J. Eberle and Terence Cuneo “Religion and Political Theory” (2008) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (at 9 August 2009).
[57] Glenn Peoples “Religion in the Public Square: Is it Justified?” (speech delivered at Thinking Matters, Laidlaw College, 12 May 2009, 14; text obtained via Email from Glenn Peoples to Madeleine Flannagan, 12 October 2009.
[58] Gaus, above n 54, 36.
[59] Robert Audi “Liberal Democracy and the Place of Religion in Politics” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 1-66, 132-133.
[60] Audi is a moral intuitionist. He believes people can discern basic moral truths through moral intuition; hence, for Audi, agreement on intuitions means agreement on basic moral principles.
[61] Marilyn McCord Adams Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY, 1999) 180.
[62] I am grateful to Matthew Flannagan for the development of this point.
[63] Eberle and Cuneo, above n 55.
[64] For a critical discussion on the standard arguments for religious freedom and the controversial premises on which they rest see, Philip Quinn “Religion and Politics” in William E Mann (ed) The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion (Blackwell Publishing, Blackwell Reference Online 2004) (at 7 October 2009).
[65] Eberle and Cuneo, above n 55.

RELATED POSTS:
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part I
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part II
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part III
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part V
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part VI

(b)        Thinness

A closely related problem is that if it is applied consistently the argument from respect excludes too much. If justification is limited to principles that no reasonable person can reasonably be expected to reject then little will be able to be justified. Glenn Peoples notes the problem;[31]

Given this view of justification, you can only endorse a policy if it is such that it can be endorsed in light of the actual beliefs and goals held by the KKK, the Catholic Church and the humanist rationalist society.

Wolterstorff observes that “in our actual societies, anyone who embraced this position would simply refrain from advocating any position whatsoever on any issue of importance to society.”[32] Quinn agrees, “as Wolterstorff notes, he knows of no law or policy that has come up for discussion in the United Sates in recent years that has had the support of a consensus of all the rational adult citizens.”[33]

Gerald Gaus, who is otherwise sympathetic to the DRR, also agrees; he notes that, given Rawls’s requirement for consensus, public reason “loses its character as a liberal doctrine, for little, if anything, is the object of consensus among reasonable people.”[34] Kent Greenawalt argues that public reason is incapable of grounding policy on most contentious political issues.[35] Peter de Marneffe concurs.[36]

Wolterstorff contends that public reason must be supplemented by ideas drawn from comprehensive doctrines or it will not be able to function as an adequate base for justifying many substantive policies. To make his point, Wolterstorff cites the welfare debate. Advocates for the varying perspectives appeal to ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ but mean different things by these terms; they prioritise the relevant rights differently, they disagree as to how such rights should be weighed against social utility. It is unlikely that public reason, common sense and uncontroversial science can justify welfare legislation to a standard that all can reasonably accept. [37]

Wolterstorff makes similar points over the fundamental premise in the abortion debate; equal protection has radically different meanings depending on how one interprets public reason’s answer to the question, ‘is the fetus a person or not?’[38] Eberle,[39] Quinn[40] and Jean Hampton[41] agree that public reason cannot settle the question as to whether a fetus is a person yet Rawls argues that public reason can settle the abortion debate (case in point: reasonable people disagree over the answers public reason can give). [42]

Rawls’ version of the argument from respect is not the only one that faces these problems; similar issues arise with other conceptions of the DRR. Any attempt to ground the DRR in the notion that coercive legislation cannot be justified unless the reasons advanced can be grounded in the reasonably-held principles and beliefs shared by all people will face the same problem. This is evident when one examines other versions of the DRR which do not employ Rawls’ idea of public reason.

Rawls employs public reason to place a restraint on all comprehensive viewpoints, whether religious or secular. Robert Audi’s position is less restrictive. Audi applies the restraint primarily to religious reasons. He proposes a principle of “secular rationale”, a principle of “secular motivation” and something he calls “theo-ethical equilibrium.”[43]

His secular rationale principle claims that “one should not advocate or support any law or public policy that restricts human conduct unless one has, and is willing to offer, adequate secular reason for this advocacy or support.”[44] His principle of secular motivation goes further; “one should not advocate or promote any legal or public policy restrictions on human conduct unless one not only has and is willing to offer, but is also motivated by, adequate secular reason, where this reason (or set of reasons) is motivationally sufficient for the conduct in question.”[45] Theo-ethical equilibrium is “a rational integration between religious deliverances and insights and, on the other hand, secular ethical considerations … a mature, conscientious theist who cannot reach it [theo-ethical equilibrium] should be reluctant or unwilling to support coercive laws or public policies on a religious basis that cannot be placed in that equilibrium.”[46]

Audi argues that “an adequate reason for a law or policy is a proposition whose truth is sufficient to justify it.”[47] He places the restraint on religious reasons;[48]

A secular reason is, roughly, one whose normative force, that is, its status as a prima facie justificatory element, does not (evidentially) depend on the existence of God (for example, through appeals to divine command) or on theological considerations (such as interpretations of a sacred text), or on the pronouncements of a person or institution qua religious authority.

Given that comprehensive secular perspectives are not excluded by this version of the DRR, it appears that Audi’s conception can escape the problem of thinness that Rawls’ public reason faces. Comprehensive secular viewpoints should provide people with a thicker perspective, broad enough to justify many substantive policies.

However, an examination of the reasons Audi advances in favour of his version of the DRR will reveal this contention to be mistaken. By broadening public reason to adequate secular reason Audi’s position is thicker than Rawls’ but its asymmetrical treatment of religious and secular views puts it back in the path of the charges of incoherence and thinness. I will elaborate.

Like Rawls, Audi offers a version of the argument from respect. He states “as advocates for laws and public policies, then, and especially for those that are coercive, virtuous citizens will seek grounds of a kind that any rational adult citizen can endorse as sufficient for the purpose”[49] [Emphasis added] In another article, he argues that[50]

adherence to the principle of secular rationale helps to ensure that, in determining the scope of freedom in a society, the decisive principles and considerations can be shared by people of differing religious views, or even no religious convictions at all.

Audi assumes that secular views are accepted by all whereas not everyone accepts the truth of religious premises. This is a big assumption. In fact some secular views are not accepted by all; religious people can and do reasonably reject secular views. This renders Audi’s position incoherent as adherence to Audi’s position, by Audi’s position, requires us to reject it. Quinn explains, [51]

If the fact that religious reasons cannot be shared by all in a religiously pluralistic society suffices to warrant any exclusion of religious reasons for advocating or supporting restrictive laws or policies, then much else ought in fairness also to be excluded on the same grounds. For example, justification of a restrictive law or policy by an appeal to its maximization of utility should be excluded because many citizens reasonably reject utilitarianism. Indeed, it would seem that the appeal to any comprehensive ethical theory, including all known secular ethical theories, should be disallowed on the grounds that every such theory can be reasonably rejected by some citizens of a pluralistic democracy. And if justification of restrictive laws or policies can be conducted only in terms of moral considerations no citizen of a pluralistic democracy can reasonably reject, then in a pluralistic democracy such as ours very few restrictive laws or policies can be morally justified, a conclusion that would, I suspect, be welcomed only by anarchists.

In addition, Audi’s position imposes a burden on religion that is not imposed on secularism despite secularism possessing the same features used to exclude religion. In the absence of some other factor, specific to religion and not applicable to secularism, the asymmetry is arbitrary. To escape this problem Audi would have to reject not only religious reasons but all reasons that are not “shared by people of differing religious views, or even no religious convictions at all.” However, if he takes this line, his position is rendered too thin and fares no better than Rawls.’

(c)        Audi’s defence

In a defence of his position against this line of critique, Robert Audi questions if the DRR is as thin as critics maintain, [52]

I would think that if we stick to principles of justice, which form only a small part of a comprehensive view, and if we do not take agreement to imply unanimity as opposed to consensus, there is a better chance of agreement than on the whole of such a larger view. Perhaps the chance is still not good, … But is there not a strong consensus, at least among citizens of democratic societies, that justice requires not only equal protection of the laws but also laws that protect liberty, including political and religious liberty and freedom of speech, up to a certain level? There are of course disagreements on matters of detail…

While it is true that most people hold to some conception of justice and equality, and affirm the right to exercise certain liberties, the details of their understanding of these norms are not as minor as Audi suggests. As I alluded to earlier, people can mean quite different things by these terms and can prioritise and weigh their importance quite differently. Closer examination of these “matters of detail” reveals substantive lack of consensus.

Equal protection requires agreement over the question as to whom it applies. In Nazi Germany everyone was owed equal protection by the state; however, certain classes of people were deemed sub-human. Likewise with justifications offered for the new-world slavery as practised in the British Empire and antebellum United States, slaves did not qualify; similarly, with the abortion debate over the status of the fetus. Then there is the extent and nature of the protection to consider. Should the state regulate how many times a week one engages in exercise and eats fruit and vegetables on the grounds of protecting the health of its people or should it simply protect people from aggressors? Is Audi suggesting that simply agreeing that such protection should apply equally to all is sufficient to make his case and what form that should take is mere detail? Unless supplemented by definitions as to its recipients, nature and scope the term “equal protection before the law” is a vague statement lacking substantive content.

The liberties Audi lists are also fraught with difficulty in interpretation as reasonable people do not agree on them.  Are they negative or does the state have a duty to provide or subsidise them? The substantive content and meaning of the terms ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ is disputed depending on whether one is talking to a libertarian or a socialist. Then there are the problems specific to each liberty.

Consider freedom of religion. Steven Smith has argued that, strictly speaking, it is inaccurate to claim there is such a thing as a right to freedom religion. Instead there exists a spectrum of views about religious tolerance. Diverse writers, such as Aquinas, Cromwell, Locke and Mill each agreed that some religious dissent should be tolerated by the state but disagreed both on the limits and on which religions should be tolerated in society. Smith concluded that as no state tolerates all religious sects and very few tolerate none, the idea of a concept of freedom of religion supported by some and opposed by others is illusory. Which account of religious tolerance is correct depends on comprehensive views; adjudication between different understandings of religious tolerance is not possible without appealing to some comprehensive view. Settling these matters from something like public reason or adequate secular reason seems extremely difficult.[53]

Does freedom of speech entail prior restraint or does it stop at the initiation of force? What about content and the manner of expression? How should we define speech? Does it include a right to engage in hate, racist, blasphemous, defamatory or sexist speech? Is it acceptable to wear Nazi emblems or deny the holocaust?

Reasonable people disagree over more than just the details; they disagree over the terms, the nature, the extent and hold to a different range of finite cases. People use and understand the relevant terms in very different ways. Audi misconstrues the situation when he argues there is unanimity in society on fundamental principles of justice. The thinness objection stands.[54]

In my next post, Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part IV, I will look at Gerald Gaus’ attempt to salvage the argument from epistemic inaccessibility and will offer some critical analysis of this.

[31] Glenn Peoples Religion in the Public Square: Liberal Political Philosophy and the Place of Religious Convictions
[32] Nicholas Wolterstorff “The Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of Political Issues” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 67-120, 154.
[33] Philip Quinn “Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate” (2000) 60:2 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 486, 487 (book review), 488.
[34] Gerald Gaus Justificatory Liberalism: An Essay on Epistemology and Political Theory (Oxford University Press, New York, 1996) 293.
[35] Kent Greenawalt Private Consciences and Public Reasons (Oxford University Press, New York, 1995) 141-150.
[36] Peter de Marneffe “Rawls’s Idea of Public Reason” (1994) 75 Pacific Philosophical Quarterly232.
[37] Wolterstorff, above n 32, 103-104.
[38] Ibid 104.
[39] Christopher Eberle Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002) 217-222.
[40] Phillip Quinn “Political Liberalisms and Their Exclusions of the Religious” (1995) 69:2 Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 35, 37-46.
[41] Jean Hampton “The Common Faith of Liberalism” (1994) 75 Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 208.
[42] John Rawls Political Liberalism (Columbia University Press, New York, 1993) 243-244.
[43] Robert Audi “Liberal Democracy and the Place of Religion in Politics” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 1-66, 25-37.
[44] Robert Audi “The Separation of Church and State and the Obligations of Citizenship” (1989) 18 Philosophy and Public Affairs 259, 279.
[45] Ibid 284.
[46] Audi, above n 43, 21.
[47] Audi, above n 44, 284.
[48] Ibid 278.
[49] Audi, above n 43, 17.
[50] Audi, above n 44, 290.
[51] Quinn, above n 40, 39-40.
[52] Audi, above n 43, 131-132.
[53] Steven Smith Foreordained Failure: The Quest for a Constitutional Principle of Religious Freedom (Oxford University Press, New York, 1995). (PhD Thesis, University of Otago, 2007) 118.
[54] Paul Rishworth suggests these examples do not show there is no secular consensus but rather that there is a secular consensus at a high level of abstraction. Supervisor’s feedback from Paul Rishworth to Madeleine Flannagan dated 30 October 2009. This may be the case, however, the thinness objection does not maintain that there is no secular consensus; it maintains that there is no secular consensus thick enough to provide an answer to many substantive public policy questions. For Rishworth’s objection to stand, this higher level of abstraction would have to furnish principles thick enough to answer such questions and the examples above show that it cannot.

RELATED POSTS:
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part I
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part II
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part IV
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part V
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part VI

II         Arguments for the Doctrine of Religious Restraint

Of the reasons advanced in favour of the DRR most fall into one of two categories, an appeal to respect or arguments around the dangers of religion.

A         Arguments from Respect
Two variants of the argument from respect are common in the literature; one appeals to the golden rule, that we should do to others what we would have them do to us, the other is that religious reasons are epistemically inaccessible.

1          The golden rule
Audi advances a version of the golden rule;[12]

Let us apply the do-unto-others rule to that case: one would not like having a different religious group, with which one deeply disagrees, press for its religiously preferred policies solely for religious reasons of its own, even if a good secular reason could be offered. … We are especially likely to disapprove of the dominance of religious motivation if the policy or law in question is backed by severe punishments.

Audi expands a hypothetical example offered by Kent Greenawalt[13] where people advocated voting for candidates on religious grounds because they would protect animals. [14]

Suppose, however, that much money must be spent in enforcement and that many jobs will be lost through the changes in the food sector of the economy, so that human conduct is significantly restricted, even if meat consumption remains legal. Then one might ask the religious voters in question whether they would accept comparable restrictions of their conduct, as well as similar job losses or mandatory shifts, on the basis of coercive legislation protecting the dandelion as a sacred species.

Audi’s example imagines a “religious group, with which one deeply disagrees,” and gives the example of a belief in “the dandelion as a sacred species.” However, it is not just that one is being subjected to coercion on religious grounds, it is that the grounds are ones that we consider to be false. Lydia McGrew explains,[15]

A major reason, perhaps the only reason, why many of us would not want other people to impose their religious standards on us is that we think their religions false, not that there is something special about religion. …. So the Golden Rule argument turns out to have very little to tell us about religion, specifically. [Emphasis added]

Imagine the situation where a false secular belief is being imposed; an environmentalist political party seeks to impose a policy that the aesthetic value of dandelions requires all adults within society to make the same substantial sacrifices Audi refers to. The policy could be reasonably objected to in spite of its grounds being secular. The same is true in reverse. Consider a policy most people strongly agree with being proposed on religious grounds; a Christian party advocates the abolition of female circumcision on the basis that the practice conflicts with its religious belief of the body being sacred. The policy could attract widespread support despite its grounds being religious.

These examples suggest that the merits of the policy itself are what is important and not that the grounds used for its justification are religious or secular.[16] Audi disagrees;[17]

Citizens in [a democracy] are naturally and permissibly resentful about coercion by religious factors…in a way in which they are not permissibly resentful concerning coercion by, for instance, considerations of public health. Even the moral errors of others are, for many, easier to abide as supports of coercion than religious convictions having the same result.

McGrew responds by contrasting two cases; first she argues that, “A slave owner would not be permissibly resentful of the emancipation of his slaves on the grounds that their emancipation had come about as a result of religious arguments.”[18] Conversely she argues, a parent would “be permissibly resentful of the forcible administration to his perfectly healthy child of mind-altering drugs even if such a policy was argued for from secular premises.”[19] So it appears that[20]

How permissible (if one means, as Audi must mean, something like “understandable” or “reasonable”) one’s resentment of some law is depends on how reasonable the law is. It does not depend upon the origin of the considerations that brought about the law but rather upon whether the law is good or bad, merely annoying or outrageous, and so forth.

That we should do to others what we would have them do to us does not just apply to the religious. While it is true that most people would strongly object to having to abide by religiously-grounded policies they reject as false, it is also true that they would strongly object to having to abide by secularly-grounded policies they reject as false. Consider a Muslim woman who believes it is her religious duty to wear a burqa. The passage of a law requiring her to remove her burqa for her driver’s license photo would likely be offensive to her. A parallel golden rule argument would require us to oppose coercive laws drawn from secular grounds.

2          Epistemic inaccessibility
Simplified, the most prominent type of argument offered in support of the DRR is that in a pluralistic society, coercive legislation cannot be justified unless the reasons advanced can be grounded in the reasonably-held principles and beliefs shared by all people. People disagree over which religious views, if any, are correct; therefore, any coercive laws justified on religious grounds cannot be legitimate because not all reasonable people accept religious premises. As such, religious reasons are epistemically inaccessible. Eberle sums this up, “the norm of respect imposes on each citizen an obligation to discipline herself in such a way that she resolutely refrains from supporting any coercive law for which she cannot provide the requisite public justification.”[21]

The paradigmatic and most influential version of this argument is that of John Rawls. Rawls argues that society [22]

is always marked by a diversity of opposing and irreconcilable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines. Some of these are perfectly reasonable, and this diversity among reasonable doctrines political liberalism sees as the inevitable long-run result of the powers of human reason at work within the background of enduring free institutions.

Rawls uses the fact of diversity of comprehensive viewpoints, present in a pluralistic society, to argue for his version of restraint. Any justification drawn from such distinct grounds will always be reasonably rejected by someone.[23] Given this, some form of restraint is necessary.

Unlike most advocates of the standard view, Rawls’ version of the DRR does not only exclude religion but also other comprehensive secular doctrines that reasonable people disagree over. He notes,[24]

Our exercise of political power is proper and hence justifiable only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse in light of principles and ideals acceptable to them as reasonable and rational.

Note that the reason that Rawls excludes comprehensive views is that “[not] all citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse [such views] in light of principles and ideals acceptable to them as reasonable and rational.” Rawls argues that when comprehensive views are removed from consideration there remains sufficient common ground from which coercive laws can be justified to all reasonable people. Rawls refers to this “public reason,” which he explains as follows;[25]

We start by looking to the public culture itself as the shared fund of implicitly recognized basic ideas and principles. We hope to formulate these ideas and principles clearly enough to be combined into a political conception of justice congenial to our most firmly held convictions. We express this by saying that a political conception of justice, to be acceptable, must accord with our considered convictions, at all levels of generality, or in what I have called elsewhere, ‘reflective equilibrium.’

Public reason should comprise[26]

presently accepted general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense, and the methods and conclusions of science when these are not controversial … we are not to appeal to comprehensive religious and philosophical doctrines–to what we as individuals or members of associations see as the whole truth–nor to elaborate economic theories of general equilibrium, say, if these are in dispute.

Whilst the boundaries being drawn this way enables Rawls’ position to escape the charge of asymmetry, his critics and even many of those who also advocate some form of restraint on justificatory reasons claim that his position excludes too much.

(a)        Incoherence
Nicholas Wolterstorff identifies several problems; [27]

No matter what principles of justice a particular political theorist may propose, the reasonable thing for her to expect, given any plausible understanding whatsoever of ‘reasonable and rational,’ is not that all reasonable and rational citizens would accept those principles, but rather that not all of them would do so. It would be utterly unreasonable for her to expect all of them to accept them. It would be unreasonable of her even to expect all her reasonable and rational fellow theorists to accept them; the contested fate of Rawls’ own proposed principles of justice is illustrative. What is reasonable for her to expect is that her proposals will stir up controversy and dissent not only at the point of transition from the academy to general society, but within the academy.

In short, there is no more hope that reasonable and rational citizens will come to agreement, in the way Rawls recommends, on principles of justice, than that they will come to agreement, in the foreseeable future, on some comprehensive philosophical or religious doctrine. It is odd of Rawls to have thought otherwise; [Emphasis original]

The divisions in society over welfare, abortion, state funding of social projects, euthanasia, pornography, genetic modification of foods, climate change, capital punishment, Maori seats and so on seem very broad; in most cases no argument or reasons advanced for these issues are likely to be accepted by all reasonable people. That reasonable people will disagree over what constitutes public reason does, prima facie, seem plausible. If this is the case then Rawls’ position is incoherent.

Rawls argues that we have a moral obligation to reject any view that “[not] all citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse in light of principles and ideals acceptable to them as reasonable and rational.” Public reason will “alone give a reasonable public answer to all, or to nearly all, questions involving the constitutional essentials and basic questions of justice.”[28] However, as Wolterstorff pointed out, even the deliverances of public reason are such “that not all reasonable people will agree.” Wolterstorff’s reference to the lack of consensus on Rawls’ own “principles of justice” supports this claim. In A Theory of Justice Rawls attempted to expound on his idea of public reason to develop principles of justice that a society could be ordered by.[29] The reception to A Theory of Justice was not a consensus in favour; present in the literature are a number of rejections, offered by reasonable people, on anything from the conclusions drawn, through to the methods used, to the principles themselves.

If we have a moral obligation to reject any view that “[not] all citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse in light of principles and ideals acceptable to them as reasonable and rational” and principles drawn from public reason are themselves things that not all citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse then, by Rawls, we have a moral obligation to reject any principles drawn from public reason.

Matthew Flannagan agrees,[30]

Rawls rejects appeals to comprehensive doctrines because people can reasonably reject them and argues that there is a duty to not decide questions of basic justice this way. If this is true then we should reject appeals to public reason as well; in fact, we have a duty to not follow public reason.

In my next post, Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part III, I will look at the objection that the argument from respect is too thin, that applied consistently the argument from respect excludes too much. I will conclude by looking at Audi’s response to this.

[12] Robert Audi “Liberal Democracy and the Place of Religion in Politics” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 1-66, 30.
[13] Kent Greenawalt Private Consciences and Public Reasons (Oxford University Press, New York, 1995) 67.
[14] Audi, above n 12, 28.
[15] Lydia McGrew “The Irrational Faith of the Naked Public Square” (2008) 1 The Christendom Review (at 2 October 2009).
[16] Wolterstorff makes the same point, above n 3, 106.
[17] Audi, above n 12, 32.
[18] McGrew, above n 15.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Christopher Eberle Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002) 12.
[22] Ibid 3-4.
[23] The policy itself might be accepted as it may be able to be justified on grounds the person does accept, though these grounds are not immune from being reasonably rejected by other people. I am grateful to Glenn Peoples for the development of this point.
[24] John Rawls Political Liberalism (Columbia University Press, New York, 1993) 217. Note: Rawls limits his support of a form of the DRR in the policy areas of “constitutional essentials and questions of basic justice.” Rawls’ critics argue that his position commits him to holding to his version of the DRR for all coercive legislation; see for example, Wolterstorff, above n 3, 106; Glenn Peoples Religion in the Public Square: Liberal Political Philosophy and the Place of Religious Convictions (PhD Thesis, University of Otago, 2007) 88; Matthew Flannagan Is Historic Christian Opposition to Feticide Defensible in the 21^st Century? (PhD Thesis, University of Otago, 2006) 200.
[25] Ibid 8.
[26] Ibid 224-225.
[27] Nicholas Wolterstorff “The Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of Political Issues” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 67-120, 99.
[28] Rawls, above n 24, 225.
[29] John Rawls A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1971).
[30] Matthew Flannagan Is Historic Christian Opposition to Feticide Defensible in the 21^st Century? (PhD Thesis, University of Otago, 2006) 195.

RELATED POSTS:
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part I
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part III
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part IV
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part V
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part VI

As far back as the birth of liberal democracy commentators have proposed various forms of epistemological restraint on the nature and extent of the justifications offered for coercive laws. Justification is important because central to the concept of liberal democracy is the notion that all people are free and equal. Broadly speaking, the state must accord equal protection to all who come within its territory. Public policy must allow people equal freedom to live their lives as they see fit. Every adult must have an equal voice in the governance of society through the democratic process. Charles Larmore sums this up,[1]

The familiar constitutional rights of free-expression, property, and political participation, though no doubt serving to promote the goal of democratic self-rule, also have an independent rationale. They draw upon that most fundamental of individual rights, which is the right [of every person] to equal respect.

A diversity of beliefs, views and religions flourishes as people avail themselves of these liberties and come to different understandings about life, the world they live in, the meanings and purposes thereof. The fact of this plurality invites an important corollary to the concept of liberal democracy, typically formulated as the idea that the state must remain neutral with respect to the different religions and comprehensive viewpoints present within society.

This is not to say that the state must hold that all views are equally true, just or good. Likewise, it is not a requirement that the state must adopt the incoherent stance of affirming (as a truth) that there is no such thing as truth. Nor that it should not concern itself with injustice or deleterious conduct. What is meant by this requirement is that, as a body that exists to serve the people, it is not the state’s role to rule on what is or is not the correct philosophy, worldview or religion; each person must be free to determine this. The state being neutral in this way shows equal respect for the freedom of all people.

When state neutrality is conjoined with the concepts of all people being free, equal and worthy of respect, it follows that coercive legislation needs justification. If people are worthy of respect then there exists a prima facie presumption against state coercion. A commitment to state neutrality entails that justification must be drawn from neutral grounds. I will refer to this view of liberal democracy as “the standard view.”

Common to almost all versions of the standard view is some form of restraint on religious reasons being offered as a form of justification. Richard Rorty, alluding to Jefferson’s famous reference to a wall of separation, describes this as [2]

the happy, Jeffersonian compromise that the Enlightenment reached with the religious. This compromise consists in privatizing religion — keeping it out of … “the public square,” making it seem bad taste to bring religion into discussions of public policy.

The doctrine is more than just a restraint on religious reasons; Nicholas Wolterstorff expounds further;^[3]

Definitive of the position is a negation at this point: citizens (and officials) are not to base their decisions and/or debates concerning political issues on their religious convictions. When it comes to such activities, they are to allow their religious convictions to idle. They are to base their political decisions and their political debate in the public space on the principles yielded by some source independent of any and all of the religious perspectives to be found in society. … The source must be such that it is fair to insist that everybody base his or her political decisions, as well as public political debates, on the principles yielded by that source.

Paul Rishworth writes, “some have contended that the nature of religious belief is such that, while it may be integral to individual autonomy and development, it has no proper role in public policy debates and that these ought to be conducted exclusively in secular terms that are equally accessible to all.”[4]

Christopher Eberle and Terence Cuneo refer to this position as the doctrine of religious restraint (DRR) that they define canonically as[5]

The DRR: a citizen of a liberal democracy may support the implementation of a coercive law L just in case he reasonably believes himself to have a plausible secular justification for L, which he is prepared to offer in political discussion. [Emphasis original]

Eberle and Cuneo explain the implications of the DRR, “if a citizen is trying to determine whether or not she should support some coercive law, and if she believes that there is no plausible secular rationale for that law, then she may not support it.”[6]

I           The Doctrine of Religious Restraint

As Wolterstorff identifies in the quotes above, the restraint is negative; justifications for coercive laws must not be religious. The extent and nature of the independent source that acceptable justifications may be drawn from varies depending on which advocate one reads; all agree that a coercive law must be able to be justified by a plausible secular justification if it is to be neutral.

Defenders of the DRR claim that it need not be codified. It is a moral requirement upon people regardless of their role within society; some form of censure rather than legal stricture is what is suggested. Rorty reflects this when he refers to it being “bad taste” to bring religion into the public square. Stephen Carter puts it clearly;[7]

One good way to end a conversation – or start an argument – is to tell a group of well educated professionals that you hold a political position (preferably a controversial one such as being against abortion or pornography) because it is required by your understanding of God’s will. In the unlikely event that anyone hangs around to talk with you about it, chances are that you will be challenged on the ground that you are intent on imposing your religious beliefs on other people. And in contemporary political and legal culture, nothing is worse.

There is an asymmetry present in most versions of the DRR; state coercion can be justified by some secular justifications but it can never be justified by religious justifications. In reviewing a definitive defence of the DRR advanced by Robert Audi, Philip Quinn observes;[8]

These principles impose burdens on religious people that Audi nowhere suggests imposing on nonreligious people. … Audi does not propose that nonreligious people must be sufficiently motivated by adequate religious reason for their advocacy or support of restrictive laws or politicise. The lack of symmetry is striking.

Eberle and Cuneo, in their discussion of the DRR, note the same asymmetry;[9]

There is an important asymmetry between religious and secular reasons in the following respect: some secular reasons can themselves justify state coercion but no religious reason can. This asymmetry between the justificatory potential of religious and secular reasons, it is further claimed, should shape the political practice of religious believers. According to advocates of the standard view, citizens should not support coercive laws for which they believe there is no plausible secular rationale, although they may support coercive laws for which they believe there is only a secular rationale.

Not surprisingly, the DRR is controversial despite its current orthodoxy. Religious believers are required to omit beliefs they understand to be true or hold as important when they grapple with public policy. Stephen Carter captures the sentiment well when he labels this “the separation of church and self.”[10] Yet defenders of the DRR maintain that some form of religious restraint is not only in accord with the notion of liberal democracy but essential to it, as Rorty puts it, “we shall not be able to keep a democratic political community going unless the religious believers remain willing to trade privatization for a guarantee of religious liberty.”[11]

For the DRR to be as pervasively held in the literature, in society generally and within religious-freedom jurisprudence there must exist good reasons as to how the DRR does uphold the concepts of equal protection, freedom, voice and neutrality in spite of the charges critics level against it.

In my next posts in this series, Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part II, I will look at some of the arguments for the doctrine of religious restraint. These are mostly variants of appeals to respect (such as the golden rule, epistemic inaccessibility) or arguments around the dangers of religion.

[1] Charles Larmore quoted in Michael J Perry Under God? Religious Faith and Liberal Democracy (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2003) 36.
[2] Richard Rorty “Religion as a Conversation-Stopper” (1994) 3:1 Common Knowledge 1, 2.
[3] Nicholas Wolterstorff “The Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of Political Issues” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 67-120, 73.
[4] Paul Rishworth “Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion” in Paul Rishworth, Grant Hushcroft, Scott Optican and Richard Mahoney (eds) The New Zealand Bill of Rights (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2003) 277-307, 279.
[5] Christopher J. Eberle and Terence Cuneo “Religion and Political Theory” (2008) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (at 9 August 2009).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Stephen Carter The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialise Religious Devotion (Basic Books, New York, 1993) 23-24.
[8] Philip Quinn “Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate” (2000) 60:2 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 486, 487 (book review).
[9] Eberle and Cuneo, above n 5.
[10] Carter, above n 7, 1.
[11] Rorty, above n 2, 3.

This series was written as a supervised research paper in pursuit of my LLB. I am very grateful to a number of people who personally encouraged me, gave feedback, recommended  resources  or were good enough to supply me with their own – particularly my supervisor, Paul Rishworth; philosophers: Glenn Peoples, Lydia McGrew, Alexander Pruss, Francis J Beckwith, Nicholas Wolterstorff and my husband, Matthew Flannagan.

RELATED POSTS:
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part II
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part III
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part IV
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part V
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part VI

The theme of the conference, as outlined on Notre Dame’s webpage,  is as follows;

Adherents of the Abrahamic religious traditions contend that human beings are made in the image of God and that modeling the character of God in one’s life represents the pinnacle of human flourishing and moral perfection. Defenders of this tradition commonly point to passages in the canonical texts of the Jewish and Christian faiths that portray God as loving, merciful, patient, etc. in support of such a position. Since the seventeenth century, however, numerous critics of these Abrahamic traditions have argued that God, especially in the Hebrew Bible, is often portrayed as anything but a moral role model.

On the one hand, historical narratives in these texts describe God apparently committing, ordering, or commending genocide, slavery, and rape among other moral atrocities. On the other hand, a number of commands purportedly issued by God seem to commend bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia. In recent days, similar criticisms of the Abrahamic traditions have been raised by philosophers (Daniel Dennett), scientists (Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris), social commentators (Christopher Hitchens), and others.

Are these apparent commendations and commands of the Hebrew Bible consistent with the claim that the Abrahamic God is perfectly good and loving? Those defending this tradition have two avenues of response open to them. The first response would be to argue that the aforementioned troubling narratives or commands should simply be rejected. Those taking this approach would have to explain how they think such passages could be rejected without placing in peril the Abrahamic religions, which have traditionally claimed that the Hebrew Bible is, represents, or contains the inspired word of God. The second response would offer explanations aiming to show that the apparently untoward consequences can be avoided without rejecting the narratives or commands. Those taking this approach must explain either why the untoward consequences do not follow, or why they are not, in the end untoward.

However, while defenders of this tradition have both routes available to them, few of these defenders seem to have taken the challenge to heart. Despite these recent, forthright criticisms, only a handful of theologians or philosophers in these traditions have sought to respond to the criticisms.

The present conference aims to remedy this deficiency, taking as its focus the charge that the Abrahamic tradition should be rejected because of its foundation in the Hebrew Bible, which portrays God as immoral and vicious.  The presenters and commentators include philosophers—both theistic and nontheistic—as well as Biblical scholars.

For those who are interested, Michael Rea from Notre Dame has put the entire conference online (including the Q & A).

Enjoy :-)

A secular reason is, roughly, one whose normative force, that is, its status as a prima facie justificatory element, does not (evidentially) depend on the existence of God (for example, through appeals to divine command) or on theological considerations (such as interpretations of a sacred text), or on the pronouncements of a person or institution qua religious authority.[4]

Audi supplants this principle of secular reason with two others, a principle of “secular motivation” and something he calls “theo-ethical equilibrium.”[5] His principle of secular motivation goes further; “one should not advocate or promote any legal or public policy restrictions on human conduct unless one not only has and is willing to offer, but is also motivated by, adequate secular reason, where this reason (or set of reasons) is motivationally sufficient for the conduct in question.”[6] Theo-ethical equilibrium is “a rational integration between religious deliverances and insights and, on the other hand, secular ethical considerations … a mature, conscientious theist who cannot reach it [theo-ethical equilibrium] should be reluctant or unwilling to support coercive laws or public policies on a religious basis that cannot be placed in that equilibrium.”[7]

So construed there is an obvious asymmetry in Audi’s position. In a review of a book which defends Audi’s position, Philip Quinn observes;

These principles impose burdens on religious people that Audi nowhere suggests imposing on nonreligious people. … Audi does not propose that nonreligious people must be sufficiently motivated by adequate religious reason for their advocacy or support of restrictive laws or politicise. The lack of symmetry is striking. [8]

The fact that Audi’s position singles religious reasons out for exclusion from public discourse in a manner which he does not apply to secular reasons, raises the obvious question of why? What’s so special or objectionable about theological reasons being used in public?

Elsewhere in his article Audi offers some reasons for this; he notes, “[religious reasons] are special in relation to liberal democracy even by contrast with [secular reasons] … that are not accessible to any normal adult.”[9] He gives five “salient points” to support his case, all based on the idea that religious reasons are dangerous to society.[10]

In this post we want to focus on the first of these. Audi thinks any appeal to God’s commands in public debate is dangerously divisive because “religious reasons … are directly or indirectly taken to represent an infallible authority.”[11] This line of thought strikes a chord with many, concern about the infallible nature of divine will is often the basis for criticism of appeals to theology in public discourse.

However, as Audi defines the term ‘infallible’ any reason a person offers for their position would be infallible; according to Audi, propositions are infallible if it is “impossible that they be both endorsed or accepted by God and false”.[12] God, as Audi understands him, is omniscient. God only believes true propositions. It follows then that any proposition one can imagine, regardless of its content, will be such that it is impossible for both God to believe it and that the proposition be false. Given this it is hard to see how “religious reasons” are especially objectionable on Audi’s contention.

Perhaps, however, this is a technical point based on a mistaken definition of infallibility. Audi’s main concern is that a person, who believes that an action is commanded by God, believes that an omniscient, infallible being has endorsed that action. Appeals to purported divine commands are therefore problematic because the authority appealed to cannot err.

The obvious rejoinder is that many secular ethical theories face precisely the same problem. One of the most influential secular theories is the ideal observer theory, which is endorsed by ethicists as diverse as David Hume, Adam Smith, Henry Sidgwick, Richard Hare, Roderick Firth, John Stuart Mill, Tom Regan, Richard Brandt, Immanuel Kant and others. On this theory, an action is wrong, if and only if, it would be proscribed by an ideal observer, by a person who is perfectly impartial and perfectly informed on all the relevant facts. A hypothetical ideal observer is no less infallible than religious believers take God to be. It is hard to see how invoking religious reasons is not acceptable but invoking the secular reasons is.

This is probably enough to address Audi’s concerns but there are several other points worth noting.

Firstly, the fact that the law of God is infallible does not entail that there is or cannot be debate over what the law of God in fact is. Claiming that God’s law is infallible is not to claim that any human never errs in his or her discernment of what this law is, his or her interpretation of it or his or her application of it to particular cases. Claiming that there is debate over the interpretation of divine law and debate over how to apply various precepts of divine law to specific cases, is compatible with affirming that divine law is infallible.

In this, the law of God is analogous to deductive reasoning. By definition, a sound argument can never have a false conclusion. It is impossible for the conclusion to be false if the argument is sound, hence sound arguments are infallible. It does not follow from this that people never err in constructing arguments that they mistakenly believe are sound or that there is no debate over which arguments are sound. Reason is authoritative; however, human reasoners are not. It is hard to see why the infallibility of the law of God means that appeals to this law are any more problematic than appeals to logic.

A similar response is available on the immutability of divine law. The fact that God’s law is immutable does not mean that any person’s understanding of this law cannot change. He or she may find his or her particular beliefs about God’s law were mistaken or that he or she had applied it incorrectly.

In this respect, the law of God is analogous to numerous things that it is unobjectionable to appeal to. Consider an appeal to facts and reason; these too are immutable. If it is a fact that the world was round at the time of Columbus then this is something we cannot change. It cannot be true 100 years from now that the world was not round when Columbus sailed. Moreover, whether an argument is sound is also immutable; we cannot repeal the laws of logic. Therefore, both facts and reason are as immutable as God’s law is.

Moreover, consider a precept such as it is wrong to torture children for entertainment. Is this mutable so that society could repeal it tomorrow? Is the claim that rape and genocide of Jews is wrong something that is mutable, that human beings can change and repeal these things? Obviously not. Immutability is a feature of any serious, ethical viewpoint. If you cannot base civil law on immutable things, then you cannot base it on facts, reason or secular values.

[1] Robert Audi “Liberal Democracy and the Place of Religion in Politics” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 1-66.
[2] Robert Audi “The Separation of Church and State and the Obligations of Citizenship” (1989) 18 Philosophy and Public Affairs 259, 279.
[3] Ibid 284.
[4] Ibid 278.
[5] Audi, above n 1, 25-37.
[6] Ibid 284.
[7] Audi, above n 1, 21.
[8] Philip Quinn “Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate” (2000) 60:2 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 486, 487 (book review).
[9] Audi, above n 1, 31.
[10] Ibid 31-32.
[11] Audi, above n 1, 31.
[12] Audi, above n 1, 62.

This post was jointly authored. It is largely a mash of extracts from Madeleine’s  paper “Religious Restraint and Public Policy” and from Matt’s “Is Historic Christian Opposition to Feticide Defensible in the 21st Century.”

In several posts (see the related posts below) I have criticised some of the arguments Armstrong makes in this article. In this post I want to turn to another. The claim that “divine command theory makes morality childish;” Armstrong states,

A second objection is that the divine command theory makes morality childish. Compare a small boy who thinks that what makes it morally wrong for him to hit his little sister is only that his parents  told him not to hit her and will punish him if he hits her. As a result, this little boy thinks that, if his parents leave home or die, then there is nothing wrong with hitting his little sister. Maybe some little boys think this way, but surely we adults do not think that morality is anything like this.[4]

Its worth noting that Armstrong’s sketch is something of a caricature; the picture is of a little boy who thinks hitting is wrong because his parents will punish him if he engages in hitting. This tacitly implies that divine command theorists believe that actions are wrong because God will issue punishments to us if we do them. No divine command theorist to my knowledge holds this view. What we typically hold is that an action is wrong for a person to perform if a perfectly good, omniscient being (identified as God) commands that person to refrain from the action in question. The fear of punishment does not come into it.

This point, however, is largely tangential because the heart of Armstrong’s position appears to be based on three ideas.

[1] That some children see morality as dependent on the commands of their parents.
[2] That it is inappropriate, childish or infantile for adults to view morality as being dependent on the commands of a parent.
[3] That the conception of morality proposed by a divine command theorist is analogous to basing morality on the commands of a parent.

Hence, divine command morality is infantile or childish.

In responding to this line of argument, it is worth noting Armstrong’s argument is not new. In fact, it simply summarises an early argument made by Patrick Nowell-Smith in his widely-anthologised essay Morality: Religious and Secular. In this article all three of Armstrong’s premises are defended in more detail than Armstrong provides in the short paragraph above. I think that by critically examining Smith’s argument one can see the problems with Armstrong’s.

Like Armstrong, Nowell-Smith argued, “religious morality is infantile.”[5] Similarly, like Armstrong, it is clear that Nowell-Smith’s target was a divine command theory.[6] Nowell-Smith’s thesis is that a divine command theorist possesses an ethical consciousness that is frozen or arrested at the pre-critical stage of a child. A mature adult whose cognitive faculties are functioning properly would have outgrown it.

In arguing for this thesis, Nowell-Smith draws upon the theories of moral development proposed by Piaget.[7] According to Piaget, children start out with a view of morality that Nowell-Smith labels deontological, heteronomous and realist. Children view morality as obedience to certain rules (deontology) which hold because an authority figure, usually the parent, has promulgated them (heteronomous) and wrongdoing is perceived as any external action that violates these rules (realism). This view of ethics is appropriate for small children; however, as they mature and become more rational their consciousness changes. They begin to see the point of certain rules and understand the reasons behind them and the function of such rules. This is the stage where ethics become in Nowell-Smith’s words “autonomous.” Instead of just accepting a parent’s word for it the child learns to figure these things out for him/herself.[8]

Nowell-Smith goes on to argue that these same features of heteronomy, realism and deontology are present in “religious morality” or more specifically, divine command theory. Consequently, divine command theory reflects a childish way of viewing ethics, one not worthy of a grown-up, educated adult.[9]

Nowell-Smith’s analogy between divine command theory and childish morality ignores a fundamental disanalogy between the case Piaget describes and that of the divine/human relationship. As Richard Mouw has pointed out, Piaget views the transition from heteronomy to autonomy as corresponding to the time when a child begins to be on an increasingly-equal footing with his or her parents. The infantile stage of morality is appropriate while the child is in infancy because of its limited rationality and knowledge. In this state the child is unable to make decisions as competently as the adult, hence it relies on and defers to the judgement of adults. However, as the child grows equal to the parent in these respects he or she ceases to rely on parental judgement. He or she is now just as competent to answer these questions as his or her parent is and so his or her thinking becomes autonomous.[10]

Consequently, Piaget’s model of development applies to situations where the subordinate is temporarily in a stage of inferiority to the authority but is undergoing a process of growth towards equality. It is when this equality is reached that the authority relationship is no longer appropriate. However, the relationship between adult humans and God is fundamentally different. Adults are not growing into divinity so that when mature they will equal God in rationality and knowledge. Rather, they are permanently in a state where they are inferior to God in these respects. In this context the failure to reach a moral consciousness that is equal to God’s is not a sign of arrested development and the infantile charge loses its sting. It is inappropriate for adults to behave like children but not inappropriate for them to fail to think like God.[11]

Nowell-Smith’s argument, therefore, is unsound. I think the same response can be attributed to Armstrong’s argument. Returning to Armstrong’s three premises,

[1] That some children see morality as dependent on the commands of their parents.
[2] That it is inappropriate, childish or infantile for adults to view morality as being dependent on the commands of a parent.
[3] That the conception of morality proposed by a divine command theorist is analogous to basing morality on the commands of a parent.

There is a subtle equivocation in this argument; turning to premise [2] that it is inappropriate, childish or infantile for adults to view morality as being dependent on the commands of a parent, as we saw, this is because an adult child has grown to a position where he or she is on par in terms of maturity, rationality, insight, knowledge, and so on, to the parent. The problem is once this is clarified [3] is false. The conception of morality proposed by the divine command theorist is not analogous to basing morality on par with the commands of a parent who is an equal as no divine command theorist thinks of adult human beings as being on par with God in terms of maturity, rationality, insight, knowledge, and so on.

Of course there are other respects whereby the conception of morality proposed by divine command theorists is analogous to a conception that sees morality as dependent on the commands of a parent, so in this sense [3] is true. The problem is that these respects do not include the features of the relationship between an adult child and their parent that makes the conception inappropriate and so if correct then [2] would no longer be true. Either way the argument fails.

[1] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 106.
[2] Ibid. 108.
[3] Ibid. 114.
[4] Ibid. 109.
[5] Patrick H. Nowell-Smith “Morality: Religious and Secular,” in Christian Ethics and Contemporary Philosophy ed. Ian T. Ramsey (London: SCM Press, 1966) 95.
[6] Ibid. 96. Nowell-Smith characterises the view he critiques as follows, “They have simply assumed that just as the legal propriety of an action is established by showing it to emanates from an authoritative source, so also the moral propriety of an action must be established in the same way; the legal rightness has the same form as moral rightness, and may therefore be used to shed light on it. … Morality, on this view, is an affair of being commanded to behave in certain ways by some person who has a right to issue such commands; and once this premise is granted, it is said with some reason that only God has such a right.”
[7] Ibid. 100.
[8] Ibid. 100-103.
[9] Ibid. 103-108.
[10] Richard Mouw The God Who Commands: A Study in Divine Command Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990) 12.
[11] Ibid. 12-14.

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Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, William Lane Craig and the Argument from Harm Part I
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Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands: Part I
Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands: Part II

It is possible at this stage to argue that evolutionary theory rules out design by appeal to Ockham’s razor. Suppose one grants that chance is used in a limited sense to refer to the fact that, following Sober, “there is no physical mechanism (either inside organisms or outside of them) that detects which mutations would be beneficial and causes those mutations to occur.”[1] Or following Mayr, it means, “that there is no correlation between the production of new genotypes and the adaptation needs of an organism in a given environment.”[2] Suppose that evolution occurring by chance in this sense is well supported by the evidence. One could go on to interpret this theory in at least two ways; one might argue that evolution was in some sense guided by God or that it occurred by chance in a stronger sense that precludes design. Both arguments would be compatible with the empirical evidence. However, the sceptic could argue that the latter is preferable in virtue of the principle of Ockham’s razor, “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.”

The idea is that that the hypothesis of unguided evolution is simpler, more in accord with Ockham’s razor, than the hypothesis that God guided evolution. The former theory explains everything in terms of natural causes without appeal to a supernatural being such as God; hence, to claim God did it is to add an extra entity and is superfluous. Something like this argument is sometimes given by scientists writing in the field. George Gaylord Simpson writes,

Although many details remain to be worked out, it is already evident that all the objective phenomena of the history of life can be explained by purely naturalistic or, in a proper sense of the sometimes abused word, materialistic factors.[3]

Similarly, Douglas Futuyma states,

By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.[4]

In this post I will respond to this appeal to Ockham’s razor and identify two problems with this line of argument. The first is that Ockham’s razor is only one criteria used to adjudicate rival hypotheses; the fact that one hypothesis is preferable on grounds of simplicity does not entail that it is preferable all things considered. There are at least couple of other considerations to take into account.[5]

One other consideration to bear in mind is which hypothesis is more probable? To answer this question one would need to assess whether the probability that the history of life coming to be by a process of guided evolution is significantly higher than the probability of life coming to be by an evolution of blind chance and it seems to me, on the face of it at least, quite plausible to suggest that the chances of life evolving by chance is significantly lower than its coming about by divine guidance. If this is correct, then while atheistic evolution gives a simpler or more economical explanation of the origin of species it is considerably less probable.

A further consideration is that Ockham’s razor tells us that if two theories can explain the phenomena equally well then the one that postulates the least entities is the preferred one. For naturalistic evolution to be preferable to theistic evolution it would need to be argued that it explains all the data equally as well.[6] The person who proposes the above line of argument, however, does not do this; all he or she does is show that both theories equally explain the history of life on earth. However, the history of life is only one feature of the world that scientists seek to explain. Showing that your theory explains one feature as well as a rival theory is a long way from showing that it explains all features as well.

This is important because one of the arguments theists offer is that God can explain numerous features of the world better, better than theism’s rivals. It has been argued that theism explains the origin of the universe, the continued existence of the contingent universe, the existence of laws of nature, the existence of cosmic fine-tuning, the existence and nature of objective moral duties  and so on. To show that unguided evolution is a better theory then, one would need to show that unguided evolution provides a better explanation of all these phenomena together than theistic evolution does. If it does not then theism explains the history of life equally as well as atheistic naturalism but it also provides a better explanation of various other features of the world, thus it is a better overall theory.

So even if we grant that unguided evolution conforms to Ockham’s razor better than theistic evolution, it is not at all clear or obvious that this means it is a better theory, all things considered. Theistic evolution may be a significantly more probable theory and have significantly greater explanatory scope and comprehensiveness.

A second problem with the appeal to Ockham’s razor is that what constitutes a simpler hypothesis in a given context depends on the background information one has about what exists. Plantinga makes this point,

The theistic noetic structure already, of course, includes the existence of God.  Relative to that noetic structure, therefore, there is no additional Ockhamistic cost in the hypothesis of guided evolution.  As an analogy: suppose we land a space ship on a planet we know is inhabited by intelligent creatures.  We find something that looks exactly like a stone arrowhead, complete with grooves and indentations made in the process of shaping and sharpening it.  Two possibilities suggest themselves: one, that it acquired these characteristics by way of erosion, let’s say, and the other, that it was intentionally designed and fashioned by the inhabitants.  Someone with a couple of courses in philosophy might suggest that the former hypothesis is to be preferred because it posits fewer entities than the latter.  He’d be wrong, of course; since we already know that the planet contains intelligent creatures, there is no Ockhamistic cost involved in thinking those structures designed. The same would go for evolution; theists already accept divine design, and do not incur additional Ockhamistic cost by way of thinking of evolution as guided.[7]

Plantinga’s insight is correct. He goes on to note that if we did not know the planet was inhabited by intelligent beings and the erosion hypothesis was not significantly less probable then an appeal to Ockham’s razor in favour of the erosion hypothesis would have “teeth.”  If this argument works at all, it only works if one begins with an agnostic perspective and then postulates “the existence of a divine designer in order to explain the course of evolution.” If, however, one already knows that God exists and rationally believes God and has created the world on other grounds then we do not violate Ockham’s razor by appealing to the existence of God to explain the evolutionary process.

Evolutionary theory then might mean that an agnostic has reason for accepting atheistic evolution over theistic evolution as an explanation of the origin of species (I say “might” because the problem of relative probabilities and explanatory comprehensiveness still would need addressing). However, it does not show that those who believe in God, are irrational in doing so, nor does it provide a theist with any rational reason to reject his or her belief.

Again then, it seems that evolution by itself does not make belief in God untenable. Before it could the objector would first need to show there were no other grounds for believing in God other than the evolution of life on earth. Then he or she would need to show that one could construct a theory that has as much explanatory power as theism and on which the evolution of life by blind chance was not significantly less probable than its occurrence by divine guidance. Only after both these things were done could evolution be used to defeat theism. It is evident, however, that evolutionary theory by itself establishes none of these claims. Whether they are defensible is a substantive philosophical question over and above anything established in contemporary evolutionary theory.

This post draws from parts of my paper “Does Evolution Make Belief in God Untenable?” given at the recent TANSA conference, Faithful Science? – Just How Well Do Science and Faith Get Along?

[1] Eliot Sober “Evolution Without Metaphysics” (unpublished).
[2] Ernest Mayr Toward a New Philosophy of Biology; Observations of an Evolutionist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998) 98.
[3] George Gaylord Simpson The Meaning of Evolution (Yale University Press, rev ed., 1967) 344-345.
[4] Douglas Futuyma Evolutionary Biology (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates Inc, 1986) 2.
[5] Alvin Plantinga “Science and Religion: Where Does  the Conflict Really Lie?” (unpublished).
[7] Ibid.

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