Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2009 Reconciled to Liberty: Catholics, Muslims, and the Possibility of Overlapping Consensus Elizabeth A. Barre Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES RECONCILED TO LIBERTY: CATHOLICS, MUSLIMS, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF OVERLAPPING CONSENSUS By ELIZABETH A. BARRE A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2009 Copyright © 2009 Elizabeth A. Barre All Rights Reserved The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Elizabeth A. Barre defended on July 7, 2009. _______________________________________ John Kelsay Professor Directing Dissertation _______________________________________ M. Victoria Costa Outside Committee Member _______________________________________ Sumner B. Twiss Committee Member _______________________________________ Aline Kalbian Committee Member _______________________________________ Adam Gaiser Committee Member Approved: _____________________________________________ John Corrigan, Chair, Department of Religion The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii One of the main aims of moral philosophy is to look for possible bases of agreement where none seem to exist. It must attempt to extend the range of some existing consensus and to frame more discriminating moral conceptions for our consideration. Justifying grounds do not lie ready at hand: they need to be discovered and suitably expressed, sometimes by lucky guesses, sometimes by noting the requirements of theory. —John Rawls, A Theory of Justice iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A central theme of the pages that follow is that our moral arguments and identities are inextricably linked to and shaped by the communities in which we find ourselves. Though it arises within a technical argument about the nature of practical reason, this insight also frames the way I think about my own scholarship and this dissertation more specifically. To the extent that these pages reflect my own moral identity, I have never considered myself their only author. They are instead the work of a community of authors—the numerous colleagues, friends, and family members who have made me into the person and scholar I am today. Without the direct and indirect support of this community over the last twenty-nine years, a very different dissertation would have emerged (if it would have emerged at all). At the most practical level, I am indebted to a number of people and institutions for financial support during the six years I prepared for and completed this project as a full-time graduate student. Florida State University provided generous support in my earliest years in the form of a College Teaching Fellowship, University Fellowships, and teaching assistantships. I also received two years of support as an editorial assistant for the Journal of Religious Ethics and John Kelsay included me in at least two of his grant-supported research projects in 2006. Finally, the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation and Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion (CSLR) provided financial and institutional support for a final year of duty-free writing that would be any graduate student’s dream. Although this final year of writing was often an all-consuming and isolating experience, the community of scholars, students, and staff associated with the CSLR were extremely supportive whenever I decided to come up for air. John Witte deserves special appreciation for enthusiastically welcoming a young scholar finishing up her dissertation, fully recognizing that my energies would be focused on my own project throughout the year. Despite his busy schedule, he went out of his way to include me in center events and to make me feel a part of the wonderful community he has created there. As suitemates, Amy Wheeler and April Bogle kept me company as I wrote and provided much-needed friendship and support through the trials and tribulations of the academic job market. I also benefited from conversations with Christy Green, David VanDrunen, and Markus Totzeck—all of whom were particularly supportive of this project, my career, and my general well-being this year. Of course, the primary reason I imposed myself on the CSLR was to have the opportunity to finish my dissertation down the hall from one of its primary subjects: Abduh An-Na‘im. Like John Witte, Abduh went out of his way to welcome me to Emory, invited me to sit in on his courses, and made himself available for conversation at all points along the way. While the practical demands of finishing the dissertation prevented me from spending as much time with him as I would have liked, the conversations we did have were immensely helpful. As is clear throughout the text that follows, his patient and precise answers to my questions often led me to refine my interpretations of his published work. Although these interpretations should not be read as perfect transcriptions of his position (I have not yet asked him to read or endorse this finished product), they would be far less nuanced without his support this year. At Florida State University, I benefited from the guidance of numerous faculty mentors I now count among my closest friends. As my principal advisor, John Kelsay was equal parts scholar, teacher, colleague, pastor, parent, and friend (while having a perfect sense for when I needed each). Though he always took great pains to preserve and respect my autonomy as a iv scholar, six long years of near daily conversations left a lasting imprint that will be immediately clear to anyone who reads his works alongside mine. Beyond this scholarly camaraderie, John was also an invaluable resource for my professional development. He dedicated countless hours to conversations about our field, encouraged my early participation in academic conferences, and must have lost entire weeks to helping me navigate the academic job market this year. Finally, and most importantly, he was simply a great friend. Graduate school would have been an entirely different experience had I not had the opportunity to share an office suite with him for four out of my six years. No matter how stressed I was, he always knew how to make me laugh. In so doing, he gave me the greatest gift an advisor can give to a graduate student: a sense that one should never take herself too seriously as an academic. I know that I cannot repay him for all that he has given me; I simply hope I can become half the scholar he has always believed I have the potential to be. Though most graduate students would count themselves lucky to have just one advisor as wonderful as John Kelsay, Florida State was truly an embarrassment of riches in this regard. As acting chair, Barney Twiss went out of his way to recruit and welcome me to Florida State in 2003 and his courses reinforced my aesthetic and philosophical love of all comparative ventures. More importantly, I could always count on him to be among the closest readers of my work and to understand what I was trying to do with my arguments long before I was even sure myself. Aline Kalbian was the first to introduce me to the fascinating heritage of Catholic Moral Theology and Social Thought. I am absolutely certain I would have dismissed this literature as unnecessarily tedious had it not been for her captivating presentation of the material. She also deserves special thanks for devoting time to conversations about my teaching—a task that usually goes unrecognized, but was particularly important to me. While Adam Gaiser was a late addition to the department, I am thankful to have had the opportunity to work with him in my final years. His seemingly endless knowledge of Islamic history has helped to keep this highly theoretical project grounded (even if only by one pinky toe), and for that I am grateful. Victoria Costa also had far more influence over this project than most outside readers. It was her graduate course that reminded me of my undergraduate love of moral philosophy and convinced me that this project had to begin and end with Rawls. She also went out of her way to read and comment on drafts, keeping me aware of recently published works in an entirely different field. Without any one of these formal committee members, this dissertation would not be what it is today. Yet, I have also benefited from conversations with other faculty members at Florida State. Martin Kavka has been one of my most valued colleagues and friends while in graduate school, and my decision to re-read Rawls with him in the fall of 2007 was one of the best decisions I have ever made. In fact, our conversations about Political Liberalism have shaped the second and third chapters of this work to such an extent that I lament the absence of his signature on page ii. At the very least, he deserves special recognition here as a sort of “committee member by proxy.” Conversations and courses with John Corrigan and Amanda Porterfield were also vital to my scholarly development. They helped me to think about my work in the context of broader questions about the field and have done a very good job nurturing (and at times awakening) the historian that is lurking somewhere in the back of my mind at all times. Finally, I am grateful to Zeina Schlenoff for helping me fall in love with both the Arabic language and culture. Without her enthusiasm, I am sure I would have given up long ago. I have also been the fortunate recipient of feedback and advice from colleagues at many institutions beyond Florida State.