Politics and Religion: the Need for an Overlapping Consensus
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Politics and Religion: The Need for an Overlapping Consensus (an exemplar from the Hindu tradition) A.D.J. Desai Submitted for the degree of PhD. 1 ABSTRACT Politics and Religion: The Need for an Overlapping Consensus (an exemplar from the Hindu Tradition) This Thesis examines the consensus Hinduism in India shares with the ideology of liberal pluralism, and applies these reflections to religious education in the English context. The Rawlsian theory of justice models the political structure of a liberal plural society. Insights from communitarianism, relativism and Alasdair Maclntyre, are critically assessed and used to enlarge this model. Further, Carol Gilligan and Tom Kitwood emphasise that moral citizens in a plural society need, and must provide, a caring and open environment. The overlapping consensus across liberal pluralism and the Hindu tradition is assessed at the (i) theological and (ii) empirical levels. (i) Vedantic concepts are formulated to highlight a potentially strong consensus across Vedantic and liberal viewpoints. The presentation of God as a caring and egalitarian mother is emphasised. (ii) A landscape survey (sample size 550) was conducted to help focus the case-study investigations. Case-studies of four Indian young Hindus studied attitudes towards pluralism through discussions on Ayodhya 1992. The minute sample size of the case- study meant that this data could not, in itself, justify inductive generalisation. Nevertheless, the case-studies did highlight some important and disconcerting voices, and did not contradict the conclusions from the larger landscape survey. The data warns that contemporary sentiment may be incongruent with the potentially strong consensus across liberal pluralism and Vedantic theology. The conditions responsible for this are explored. It is suggested that a combination of secularism and the exclusion of religious education from State education has contributed to ignorance of liberal theological imperatives and reinforced the communal isolation between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Amongst Hindus, this has caused suspicion and illiberal attitudes. The lessons from India are applied to the English plural situation. Juxtaposing Rawlsian theory aside recent pragmatic initiatives, a model for religious education suitable for the perpetuation of a liberal pluralism is proposed. This Interface Approach Towards a Liberal Indigenous Charter (IATaLIC) model respects liberal justice but recognises the classroom educator's limitations in motivating young persons with a strong religious identity towards a liberal disposition. Equally problematically, traditional religious leaders and scholars within the community may not care for justice. Hence the classroom religious educator, sympathetic towards both the liberal and traditional agendas, must work with the community leaders and scholars. Educators must encourage these personnel to excavate liberal principles from their religious texts, and then evangelise these principles throughout their community. Then, justice will be met and communal integrity maintained. Communal tension in India may be due to a liberal State prohibiting such an approach. In England, opportunities do exist for education to establish a consensus across religious and liberal viewpoints. Such opportunities should not be neglected. CONTENTS ABSTRACT 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 TABLE OF FIGURES 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 10 PREAMBLE 12 OUTLINE OF THESIS 17 1 THE POLITICAL CONTEXT 21 § 1 The Original Position 21 1.1 The idea of a social contract 21 1.2 The veil of ignorance 21 § 2 The Citizen as a Political Person 23 2. 1 Justice as fairness 23 2. 2 Social co-operation 23 2. 3 Freedom as a political capacity 24 2.4 The two moral powers 25 § 3 The Basis of the Communitarian Challenge 26 3. 1 Sandel on the ghosts of the 'original position' 26 3. 2 MacIntyre and the importance of cultural narrative 27 § 4 Communitarianism: Friend or Foe of Liberalism? 28 4. 1 Postmodernism 28 4.2 Gellncr, Popper's three worlds, and ethical relativism 29 4.3 Return to Maclntyre: mixed blessings 31 4.3.1 The value of MacIntyre 32 4.3.1.1 No morality beyond culture 32 4.3.1.2 Recognising the threat of the relativist challenge 34 4.3.1.3 Inter-traditional moral enquiry 36 4.3.2 Things of which to be wary 37 4.3.2.1 Complications in defining communal membership 37 4.3.2.2 Limited scope for inter-traditional dialogue 38 4.3.2.3 Whose crisis? 38 4.3.2.4 The hope of an intra-traditional monolith 39 4.3.2.5 Patronising view of mankind 40 4.4 Summary of MacIntyre's position 41 § 5 Rawls after the Communitarian Critique 42 5. 1 The 'original position' as merely a device of representation 42 5.2 Recognition of tradition 42 5.3 Vision, 'weak absolutism' and reasonable pluralism 43 5.3.1 Vision of an open and progressive society 43 5.3.2 Weak absolutism 44 5.3.3 Reasonable pluralism 45 § 6 A Stable Pluralism 46 6.1 Overlapping consensus 46 6.2 Rawls, the realistic communitarian 47 2 THE CITIZEN as a MORAL PERSON 50 § 1 The Meaning of Moral in a Political Context 50 1.1 The political context 50 1.2 Care and connection 51 1.3 The concept of 'moral space' 54 § 2 Liberal Society and Religious Input 56 2.1 Religion and the liberal State 56 2.2 Cults 58 3 2.3 Characteristics of fundamentalism 58 2.3.1 Alienation 59 2.3.2 Fundamentalist moral epistemology 60 2.3.2.1 A rigid theological viewpoint with little room for human reason 60 2.3.2.2 Fundamentalists read their texts in an a-historical context 62 2.3.3 Summary: the four characteristics of fundamentalism 62 2.4 Presenting liberalism as congruent with the word of God 62 3 THE VIEW from BRAHMAN 65 § 1 Liberal Values and the Scope of a Good Life 65 1.1 Recapitulation 65 1.2 Conflict across a rigid theological viewpoint and a liberal human viewpoint 66 § 2 Introduction to Hinduism and the Task 68 2.1 The Great and Ancient Banyan 68 2.2 The task, focus, and choice of Ramanujacarya 69 § 3 The Nature of God 73 3. 1 God in the Pur-ua Siikta: the cosmic giant 73 3. 2 God in the Upanisads: Brahman 73 3.3 God in the .13hagavatigia A Person (purusottamah) 76 § 4 The Human Person 76 4.1 The essential self: the servant within whom resides God 77 4.2 The contingent self 80 § 5 Formulating the Moral, Psychological and Political Consensus 81 5.1 Resolution of conflict across secular and theological viewpoints 82 5. 2. DIzarmu as progression towards correct moral orientation 83 5.2.1 Sva-dharma and sanatana-dharma 83 5.2.2 Equality through God in all 86 5.2.2.1 Ever widening dharma: sva-dharma, sadharapa-dharma and sarratana-dharma 86 5.2.2.2 Characteristics of the sanatana-dharma orientation 88 5.3 Sva-dhartna:sanatana-dharma communitarianism:liberal justice 90 5. 4 The Vedantic idea of freedom as a basis for a saulabhva moral psychology 91 5.4.1 Freedom to realise one's potential 91 5.4.2 The Divine virtues 95 5.4.2.1 Svarapa and svabhava 96 5.4.2.2 Paratva and saulabhva 97 5.4.2.3 Vatsalya, sausilya and paraduhkhaduhkhi 97 5.5 Summary 99 5. 6 Moksa as a teleological regulator of puntsartha 100 § 6 Some Pits into which Believers Fall 104 6.1 A 'fundamentalist' tendency to de-contextualise texts and concepts 104 6. 2 The crusader or 'the ends justify the means' brigade 109 6. 3 Holier than thou 111 6.3.1 Personal sanctimony 111 6.3.2 My Hanuman is bigger than yours 113 6.4 The sexy sage school 113 6. 5 Conclusion 115 4 THE EMPIRICAL RESEARCH 118 § 1 Research Rationale 1 I 8 1.1 Introduction 118 1.2 The sociological ideology of this researcher 118 1.2.1 Principle one: Understand your context but do not romanticise 118 1.2.1.1 Understand your context 118 1.2.1.2 But do not romanticise 121 1.2.1.3 Three dimensions to understanding 123 1.2.2 Principle Two: Recognise the ethical responsibilities of social science 124 4 1.2.2.1 Acknowledge the need to establish the cross-cultural values of justice 124 1.2.2.2 Be prepared to make moral judgements 125 1.3 The desirable working model 127 1.3.1 Positionality and practical reason 127 1.3.2 Towards a better world through conjecture and refutation 128 1.3.3 The relationship between theory and empirical data 130 1.3.4 The working model 130 § 2 The Empirical Investigation on Young Hindus 13 1 2.1 'Hindus' 131 2.2 The two stages of empirical research 132 § 3 The General Landscape (1994) 133 3.1 Methodology 133 3.1.1 Sample composition and sampling routine 133 3.1.2 The landscape survey questionnaire 134 i. The questionnaire 134 ii. The emergent nine categories 135 3.2 The landscape survey data 135 3.2.1 Distribution of belief 135 3.2.2 Encouragement to view multiculturalism as a good thing 136 3.2.3 Good attitudes towards multiculturalism 136 3.2.4 Taught the liberal implications of Vedantic concepts 137 3.2.5 Optimism for the future of multiculturalism 137 §4 From Landscape Survey to Case-Studies 138 4.1 Salient features of landscape survey data 138 4.2 Focus for the case-study investigations 138 §5 The Case-Studies Part One: The Hindu-Muslim Situation 139 5.1 The methodology 139 5.1.1 Lines of enquiry 139 a. Resume of each young Hindu 139 b. Landscape survey of each young Hindu 139 c. Interviews structured around Ayodhyd 139 5.1.2 Introductory comments 140 5.1.2.1 Sample composition and the researcher's relationship to sample members 140 5.1.2.2 An important note on sample size 142 5.2 The case-study data 143 5.2.1 Harshad 143 a.