DOCSLIB.ORG

Catholic Social Thought, Political Liberalism and the Idea of Human Rights

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Catholic Social Thought, Political Liberalism and the Idea of Human Rights Journal of Christian legal Thought fall 2011 Catholic Social Thought, Political Liberalism and the Idea of Human Rights By Zachary R. Calo, Valparaiso University School of Law I. The Morality of Human Rights own assumptions, methods, and anthropology. The Human rights is the dominant moral category plurality that resides within the liberal human rights of modernity. As both a theoretical concept and tradition, particularly that located on the boundary the basis of legal norms, human rights shapes the of secularism and religion, is a necessary backdrop way we think and talk about personhood, social to engaging emerging debates about such significant justice, and political obligation. Yet, it is also the topics as religious pluralism and religious law. It case that there is no one account of human rights, also must shape our reflections on foundational but rather competing traditions of human rights questions about the limits and possibilities of human that strive for primacy. Human rights, in short, is a rights law.1 deeply contested category through which different This paper does not engage these broader moral visions aim to shape institutions and policies. contested issues but rather considers the background In spite of the label, human rights claims are not question of how religious traditions, in this case the universal either methodologically or substantively. social thought of the Catholic church, has engaged Rather, under the umbrella of human rights is the idea of human rights and the liberal tradition located a constant struggle between the universal more generally. In particular, this case study aims and the particular. How this tension unfolds, and to illuminate the process by which Catholicism whether it does so in a constructive or disruptive developed a native human rights tradition and manner, is one of the foundational questions that how, in turn, this tradition is distinguished from must be engaged in coming years. its regnant secular counterpart. By so doing, this In the past, the tension between universality paper aims to texture and ultimately complicate and particularity was considered most commonly our understanding of the idea and history of human in the context of cultural relativism, with particular rights, thereby bringing attention to the plural moral attention given to the ways in which human rights and political traditions that reside under the rubric was a western construct that could not adequately of human rights. This is a story that can and should account for different forms of communal values. be retold from the perspective of other traditions, This issue remains important, though this paper and it is a story that is now unfolding within strands advances the claim that the most significant point of Islamic thought. The story outlined in this paper of tension is not between human rights values is thus one that is largely historical, and concerned and non-human rights values, but rather a tension with intellectual history at that, but equally one within the idea of human rights. More specifically, with profound implications for thinking about how the primary fault line concerns the role of religion religious traditions, in both theory and practice, can and religious traditions as they relate to human relate to the broader human rights movement. Only rights. This tension has long been pregnant within by assessing the theological particularity of religious the modern human rights movement, though traditions can we begin to engage the idea of human it has received greater attention in recent years. rights in its prospective universality. Increased sociological awareness of the continued relevance of religion, a questioning of the secular, II. The Catholic Human Rights Revolution and certainly the engagement between Islam and One of the most significant revolutions of the the West, has generated new interest in the role of twentieth-century was the transformation of the religion within political ideas and movements. This 1 sensitivity, in turn, has opened space for exploring See, for instance, Rowan Williams, “Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective,” Ecclesiastical Law Journal religious accounts of human rights, just as it has 10:3 (2008): 262-282. See, generally, Rex Adhar and Nicholas provoked an awareness of the ways in which there is Aroney, eds., Shari’a in the West (New York: Oxford University a secular tradition of human rights that rests on its Press, 2010). — 1 — Journal of Christian legal Thought fall 2011 Roman Catholic church from entrenched defender after the creation of an authentic Catholic liberalism of the anciène regime into one of the world’s embodied in the adaptation of Catholic moral leading advocates of social and political justice, theology to certain precepts of liberal political democratic governance, and human rights.2 In the theory. The development of a Catholic human period between the French Revolution and the rights movement is therefore intimately related to Second Vatican Council, John Witte observes, the the dissolution of the regnant conservatism that Catholic church was transformed “from a passive long dominated Catholic intellectual life. Only accomplice in authoritarian regimes to a powerful by accepting certain presuppositions of liberal advocate of democratic and human rights reform.”3 theory, and incorporating the language of rights David Hollenbach is even bolder in his assessment: into Catholic social thought, was the church able “During the last half century and a half, the Roman to develop the vision and vocabulary for engaging Catholic church has moved from strong opposition modernity. Only by appropriating the dominant to the rights championed by liberal thinkers of the political paradigm of the age did the church gain eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the position the capacity to participate in the broader human of one of the leading institutional advocates for rights movement and to think constructively about human rights on the world stage today.”4 Once its role in the formation of a just social and political among the most steadfast opponents of political order. liberalism, the Catholic church is now among the While the Catholic church has certainly staunchest and most important participants in the become more accepting of modern political push for global acceptance of democratic liberalism.5 institutions and ideas, this process has not entailed In Eastern Europe and Latin America, Africa and the granting of an unqualified imprimatur to the the Philippines, the Catholic church has emerged whole of liberalism. The development of a Catholic as a vital institutional advocate for progressive liberalism has rather involved the emergence of a social change, promoting a broad vision of political, distinctive understanding of rights theory that has economic, and cultural rights. At the root of the both incorporated the insights of liberalism while church’s emergence as a global political actor is nevertheless remaining at tension with it in several two centuries of thought about the relationship of fundamental respects. The emergence of modern Catholicism and modernity, and in particular, liberal Catholic social thought since the late nineteenth political ideas. century has thus involved the church both opening This paper traces developments in Catholic social itself to the modern world while also remaining thought from the French Revolution, through the one if its most insistent critics. Catholic liberalism Second Vatican Council, into the papacy of John and secular liberalism possess markedly different Paul II. Catholic thought on social questions has, of histories, and while the gap separating their course, been diverse in its methods and conclusions. respective narratives lessened during the course Given the vastness of this history, the account of the twentieth-century, they remain distinct developed herein focuses largely on official church traditions established on distinct foundations. As pronouncements. Addressing Catholic social thought such, the Catholic church, in spite of its successful from a top-down perspective necessarily means that reconciliation with much of modernity, remains a certain complexity is bypassed. At the same time, something of an outsider within the liberal body papal statements have been of paramount import in politic. Ultimately, certain fundamental tensions establishing the parameters of the broader Catholic exist between the Catholic church’s conception discussion. In exploring this history, the argument of the meaning and end of human rights, and developed is that the Catholic church’s emergence that which guides dominant elements of the as a global advocate for human rights occurred only international human rights movement. Because of the distinctive politico-ethical 2 See Thomas Bokenkotter, Church and Revolution: Catholics in the Struggle for Democracy and Social Justice (New York: Image, 1998). visions advanced by Catholic liberalism and secular 3 John Witte, Jr. “Law, Religion and Human Rights,” Columbia liberalism, the church has the opportunity to make a Human Rights Law Review (Fall 1996): 10. unique contribution to human rights. The church’s 4 David Hollenbach, “A communitarian reconstruction of hu- foundational theory of rights, emphasis on the limits man rights: contributions from Catholic tradition,” in Catholi- cism and Liberalism: Contributions to American Public Philosophy, and responsibilities of freedom, and insistence on the ed. R. Bruce Douglass and David Hollenbach
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Liberal Catholicism in France, 1845-1670 Dissertation
    LIBERAL CATHOLICISM IN FRANCE, 1845-1670 DISSERTATION Presented Is fbrtial Ftalfillaent of the Requlreaents for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By JOHN KEITH HUOKABY, A. £., M. A, ****** The Ohio State University 1957 Approved by: CONTENTS Chapter Page I INTRODUCTION......................... 1 The Beginnings of Liberal Catholicism in F r a n c e ....................... 5 The Seoond Liberal Catholic Movement . 9 Issues Involved in the Catholic-Liberal Rapprochement . • ......... > . 17 I. The Challenge of Anticierlealism. • 17 II. Ohuroh-State Relatione........ 22 III.Political Liberalism and Liberal Catholic la n .................. 26 IV. Eeoncttlc Liberalism and Liberal Catholiciam ..... ........... 55 Scope and Nature of S t u d y .......... 46 II THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE UNIVERSITS.... 55 Lamennais vs. the Unlveralte........ 6l Oniv era it a under the July Monarchy. 66 Catholic and Unlversite Extremism .... 75 The Liberal Catholio Campaign ......... 61 III CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS................ 116 Traditional Attitudes ................. 117 The Program of L*Avaiilr........... 122 The Montalembert Formula* Mutual Independence but not Separation .... 129 Freedom of Conscience and Religion . 155 Syllabus of Errors ........... 165 17 GALL ICANISM AND ULTRAMONTANISM........... 177 Ultramontanism: de Maistre and Lamennais 160 The Second Liberal Catholic Movement. 165 The Vatican Council............. 202 V PAPAL SOVEREIGNTY AND ITALIAN UNITY. .... 222 71 POLITICAL OUTLOOK OF LIBERAL CATHOLICS . 249 Democracy and Political Equality .... 257 ii The Revolution of 1848 and Napoleon . 275 Quarantiem and Ant 1-etatlaae.............. 291 VII CONCLUSIONS.............................. 510 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY............................ 525 ill Chapter X INTRODUCTION In the aftermath of the French Revolution the Roman Catholic Church placed itself in opposition to the dynamic historical forces in nineteenth-century France.
    [Show full text]
  • John Milbank and Adrian Pabst, the Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future
    Radical Orthodoxy: Theology, Philosophy, Politics, Vol. 3, Number 2 (June 2017): 42-49. ISSN 2050-392X John Milbank and Adrian Pabst, The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future. London and New York: Rowman and Lititlefield, 2016, 24.95, pp. x & 406. The British campaign to leave the European Union, and the campaign of Donald Trump for the Presidency of the United States, channeled and legitimised vicious elements in contemporary political culture: xenophobia, pride, lying, irrationality, hate, greed, anger, and naked ambition were much to the fore in the campaigns. And they have, sadly, remained to the fore in the public conversations which have followed. Without Boris Johnson, the British ‘Leave’ campaign would likely have lost and it is widely recognised that he joined the campaign not out of anti- EU or anti-migrant conviction but from ambition to replace David Cameron—his rival since school days at Eton—as Prime Minister. Donald Trump began a low key campaign for the Republican candidacy out of wounded pride, having on a number of occasions been told by other Republicans that he was not fit for the office of the Presidency. Written in the two years prior to these campaigns, Milbank and Pabst’s historically and philosophically deep, and yet policy rich, book is prescient in its prediction of the collapse of the liberal status quo in the UK and the USA which is now evident in the populist turn of the globally ‘left behind’ against the perceived liberal cosmopolitan consensus in the Brexit and Trump victories. The core of Milbank and Pabst’s argument is that what they call ‘liberalism’— which they define through an amalgam of Hobbes’ account of the State as Leviathan restraining the war of all against all, Locke’s individualist concept of self-ownership, and Hume and Smith’s claim that economic exchanges governed by little more than the law of price turn individual vices into collective well being—is the origin of the current ‘metacrises’ of capitalism, politics, culture, and Radical Orthodoxy 3, No.
    [Show full text]
  • Habermas, Taylor, and Connolly on Secularism, Pluralism, and the Post-Secular Public Sphere
    Article Habermas, Taylor, and Connolly on Secularism, Pluralism, and the Post-Secular Public Sphere Spyridon Kaltsas Department of Political Science and Public Administration, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 106 78 Athens, Greece; [email protected] Received: 17 June 2019; Accepted: 31 July 2019; Published: 1 August 2019 Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to explore and understand the relationships between secularism, pluralism, and the post-secular public sphere in the thought of Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and William Connolly. The three authors develop a thorough critique of secularism which implies a radical break with the dogmatic idea of removing religion from the public sphere. My main objective is to show that this critique is related to a normative understanding of our post- secular situation and requires a rethinking of the boundaries of the public sphere in relation to the predicament of pluralism. Arguing against the post-metaphysical conception of secularism, Taylor develops a critique of Habermas’s “institutional translation proviso”, and Connolly stresses the agonistic dimension of the post-secular public sphere. I take these criticisms into account, while arguing that Taylor and Connolly are unable to provide a sound basis for the legitimacy of our institutional settings. In contrast to Taylor and Connolly, I propose a reading of Habermas’s theory based on the internal relationship between universal justification and the everyday contexts of pre- political solidarity. I conclude with a focus on the need to take into account the agonistic dimension of the post-secular public sphere. Keywords: post-secular society; secularism; public sphere; pluralism; legitimation; ethics of citizenship; Jürgen Habermas; Charles Taylor; William Connolly 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Renewal of Catholic Americanism David J
    University of Dayton eCommons Marianist Award Lectures U.S. Catholic Special Collection 2005 The iM ssing Piece: The Renewal of Catholic Americanism David J. O'Brien Follow this and additional works at: http://ecommons.udayton.edu/uscc_marianist_award Recommended Citation O'Brien, David J., "The iM ssing Piece: The Renewal of Catholic Americanism" (2005). Marianist Award Lectures. 3. http://ecommons.udayton.edu/uscc_marianist_award/3 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the U.S. Catholic Special Collection at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Marianist Award Lectures by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. US.CATH BX 1406.2 .027 2005 THE MISSING PIECE: THE RENEWAL OF CATHOLIC AMERICANISM by DAVID J. O'BRIEN Marianist Award Lecture 2005 THE UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON It j· • I I 1 1 , ~ . rf '· Copyright© 2008 by The University of Dayton u~.CATM BX ,qo&.~---------------------------------------------­ o'l."T 2b05 David}. O'Brien is Loyola Professor of Roman Catholic Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he has been on the faculty since 1969. He holds a B.A. from the University ofNotre Dame and a doctorate in History from the University of Rochester. Among other honors, he has been awarded several honorary doctorates. His service to U.S. Catholic higher education and to the U.S. Catholic Church includes membership in or work with the American Catholic Historical &so­ dation {of which he served as president, 1998-99); the Atlsociation of Catholic Colleges and Universities; the Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry; Catholic Peace Fellowship; the Diocese ofWorcester; the boards of Cross Currents, Church History, Religion and A~erican Culture and National Catholic Reporter; the Na­ tional Conference of Catholic Bishops; the National Council of Churches; and Pax Christi.
    [Show full text]
  • Nomos </Em> of the European Court of Human Rights
    University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law Faculty Scholarship Francis King Carey School of Law Faculty 2011 Islam in the Secular Nomos of the European Court of Human Rights Peter G. Danchin University of Maryland School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/fac_pubs Part of the Human Rights Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Digital Commons Citation 32 Michigan Journal of International Law 663 (2011). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Francis King Carey School of Law Faculty at DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DANCHIN FTP 1_C.DOC 7/8/2011 9:24:23 AM ISLAM IN THE SECULAR NOMOS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS Peter G. Danchin* Introduction...................................................................................... 664 I. The Concept of the Secular Public Sphere.................... 673 A. The Antinomies of Secularism ........................................... 674 1. The Right to Freedom of Religion and Belief ............ 675 2. Public Reason and Private Faith ................................. 682 3. The Authority of Public Reason.................................. 683 B. Rethinking the Secular ...................................................... 685 C. Between Rationality and Reason....................................... 690 II. Religious Freedom in ECHR Jurisprudence ..................... 692 A. The Rights of Religious Minorities.................................... 692 B. Freedom from Injury to Religious Feelings ....................... 693 C. The Claims of Muslim Communities ................................. 696 III. Islam in Article 9 Jurisprudence....................................... 705 A. The Scope of the Right to Religious Freedom.................... 707 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Islam in the Secular Nomos of the European Court of Human Rights
    Michigan Journal of International Law Volume 32 Issue 4 2011 Islam in the Secular Nomos of the European Court of Human Rights Peter G. Danchin University of Maryland School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Courts Commons, European Law Commons, and the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Peter G. Danchin, Islam in the Secular Nomos of the European Court of Human Rights, 32 MICH. J. INT'L L. 663 (2011). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol32/iss4/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Journal of International Law at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of International Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ISLAM IN THE SECULAR NOMOS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS Peter G. Danchin* INTRODUCTION ..................................................... 664 I. THE CONCEPT OF THE SECULAR PUBLIC SPHERE....................673 A. The Antinomies of Secularism ........................674 1. The Right to Freedom of Religion and Belief ............ 675 2. Public Reason and Private Faith ...... ......... 682 3. The Authority of Public Reason....... ............... 683 B. Rethinking the Secular .................... .... 685 C. Between Rationality and Reason. ........... ..... 690 II. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN ECHR JURISPRUDENCE ........ ..... 692 A. The Rights of Religious Minorities........... ..... 692 B. Freedomfrom Injury to Religious Feelings.... ...... 693 C. The Claims of Muslim Communities ......... ........ 696 III. ISLAM IN ARTICLE 9 JURISPRUDENCE........................705 A. The Scope of the Right to Religious Freedom....................707 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Tocqueville Chapter Craiutu and Holbreich FINAL (February 7, 2015)
    1 To be published in Combining the Spirit of Religion and the Spirit of Liberty: Tocqueville’s Thesis Revisited, ed. Michael Zuckert (University of Chicago Press, 2015) Aurelian Craiutu and Matthew N. Holbreich On Faith and Democracy as a New Form of Religion: A Few Tocquevillian Reflections1 “Faith in common opinion will become a sort of religion whose prophet will be the majority” ~ Tocqueville I. A problem of liberal modernity? Three decades ago, in his influential book After Virtue (1981), Alasdair MacIntyre advanced one of the most trenchant arguments against liberalism that has elicited a wide array of responses and heated debates. The values of economic and political liberalism, he argued, are based on (what he called) an emotivist and relativist culture which uncritically celebrates the total autonomy of the individual will and slowly leads to the gradual but inevitable decomposition of the social fabric. The main culprit, in MacIntyre’s view, is liberal individualism, the dominant doctrine of the last three centuries that shapes our norms and beliefs and has had a strong influence upon our social institutions and values. As society becomes atomized, so the story goes, it eventually turns into a mere “collection of citizens of nowhere,”2 detached from each other and pursuing interests that are often at odds with the common good. “The barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers,” MacIntyre warned his readers, “they have already been governing us for quite some time and it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament.”3 2 MacIntyre’s critique of liberal modernity still resonates today and the debate seems unlikely to be settled anytime soon.
    [Show full text]
  • Roman and Catholic and American: the Transformation of Catholicism
    Roman and Catholic and American: The Transformation of Catholicism in the United States Author(s): José Casanova Reviewed work(s): Source: International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 75-111 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20007073 . Accessed: 10/12/2012 15:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.77 on Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:37:59 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Vol. No. 1992 International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 6, 1, Roman and Catholic and American: The Transformation of Catholicism in the United States1 Jos? Casanova Catholicism in what would become The United States of America has been shaped mainly by four determining facts:2 a 1) Catholicism in the United States has been minority religion in means in terms a predominantly Protestant country. This that, structurally, of its relation vis-a-vis the hegemonic Protestant culture, Catholicism func? tioned as a sect and it was treated as such.
    [Show full text]
  • Faith, Reason, and Liberal Legal Neutrality
    Tulsa Law Review Volume 53 Issue 2 Article 28 Winter 2018 Faith, Reason, and Liberal Legal Neutrality Jason E. Whitehead [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.utulsa.edu/tlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Jason E. Whitehead, Faith, Reason, and Liberal Legal Neutrality, 53 Tulsa L. Rev. 375 (2018). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.utulsa.edu/tlr/vol53/iss2/28 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by TU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Tulsa Law Review by an authorized editor of TU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Whitehead: Faith, Reason, and Liberal Legal Neutrality WHITEHEAD, BOOK REVIEW_FINAL (375) (CORRECTED2) (DO NOT DELETE) 3/8/2018 10:01 AM FAITH, REASON, AND LIBERAL LEGAL NEUTRALITY Jason E. Whitehead* FRANCIS J. BECKWITH, TAKING RITES SERIOUSLY: LAW, POLITICS, AND THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH (CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 2015). PP. 225. HARDCOVER $99.99. RELIGION, SECULARISM, AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY (JEAN L. COHEN & CÉCILE LABORDE EDS.) (COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 2015). PP. 456. HARDCOVER $120.00. INTRODUCTION: THE CONTINUING “WARS OF RELIGION” Nearly 370 years after the Peace of Westphalia, the conflict between religious faith and modern political sovereignty continues to rage. Whether the issue is the right of religious citizens to exempt themselves from generally applicable public laws or the legitimacy of public laws motivated by religious values, Western
    [Show full text]
  • How Big Money Is Dividing American Catholicism a Schism in the Faith Between Liberals and Conservatives Is Being Exacerbated by a Group of Plutocrats
    Katherine Stewart/March 9, 2021 How Big Money Is Dividing American Catholicism A schism in the faith between liberals and conservatives is being exacerbated by a group of plutocrats. “This is what they have done,” Robert Busch writes with weary outrage as he forwards me a photograph of a group of nuns, one of them wearing a “Stop the Steal” button, cheerfully joining President Trump’s January 6 rally in Washington, D.C. Busch, who lives in Redwood City, California, recently formed a study group on economic justice within the Thomas Merton Center, which collaborates with members of the St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Palo Alto. Like most of his fellow study group members, he calls himself a “Francis Catholic,” in deference to Pope Francis. He has more of a natural affinity with the “Nuns on the Bus”—a Catholic group that advocates for a range of social justice issues—than with the “Stop the Steal” sisters. He usually has at the tip of his tongue a citation from any number of writings in the long tradition of Catholic social teachings. He remains personally opposed to abortion but rejects its political use as a wedge issue. Just a few miles up the road, in Napa, a man named Timothy Busch—no relation to Robert— hosts annual conferences for Catholic leaders through an organization he co-founded, the Napa Institute. Timothy Busch’s interpretation of the faith is pretty clearly at odds with Robert’s. As Timothy Busch sees it, Catholicism takes a dim view of labor unions and raising the minimum wage, is in favor of “right to work” laws, and absolutely rejects political leaders who fail to be strictly anti-abortion.
    [Show full text]
  • Dworkin's Freedom of Religion Without
    DWORKIN’S FREEDOM OF RELIGION WITHOUT GOD CÉCILE LABORDE∗ INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1255 I. DWORKIN ON RELIGION AND LIBERAL NEUTRALITY ........................ 1258 A. Freedom of Religion Is a General Right, Not a Special Right .......................................................................................... 1258 B. Neutral Justification as a Way to “Generalize Nonestablishment” .................................................................... 1260 C. Substantive Liberal Policies Are Mandated by Neutral Justification ............................................................................... 1261 II. A CRITIQUE OF DWORKIN ................................................................. 1261 A. Freedom of Religion Can Generate Special Rights on Dworkin’s Own Theory ............................................................. 1262 B. Nonestablishment Cannot Be Easily Generalized ..................... 1264 C. Liberal Neutrality Is Not Sufficiently Conclusive to Justify Substantive Liberal Policies ...................................................... 1269 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................. 1271 INTRODUCTION There is a common view among critics of secular liberalism that liberal neutrality – for all its claims to be neutral towards religion – is itself a religion, albeit one without God. This common view, however, begs the central question: What do we mean by a “religion”
    [Show full text]
  • Coversheet for Thesis in Sussex Research Online
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Sussex Research Online A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details Socialism by Grace: The New Visibility of Postsecular Social Work Doctoral Thesis for the award of Doctor of Social Work (DSW) by Julia Shaw [email protected] The University of Sussex 1 ACKNOWLEDMENTS Many thanks to supervisor Dr Russell Whiting at the University of Sussex and also to Lois Wild, Debbie Croucher, Revd Andrew Yates and the Rt Revd Tim Thorton, Bishop Truro, with reference to the Transformation Cornwall research developed in Chapter Six. 3 ABSTRACT In conceptualising the new visibility of postsecular social work this thesis develops alternative perspectives to former secular, liberal and neoliberal hegemonies within the profession. Firstly secularism is considered as compromising deliberative and participatory democracy by inhibiting religious citizenship within the public sphere and in response the new visibility of postsecular social work incorporates the inclusion of religious perspectives into social welfare considerations with particular reference to faith based social action.
    [Show full text]