THE UNIVERSAL IDIOSYNCRASY (via Paul Cella):

How to Mix Religion and Politics (Edward Feser, 3/29/05, Tech Central Station)

We are constantly told by liberals -- or "progressives," or "the reality-based community," or however it is they are marketing themselves this week -- that religion and politics ought never to be mixed. Religion, it is said, should be confined as far as possible to the private sphere. In the public square, it is secular considerations alone that ought to get a hearing. The problem with these claims is that there is absolutely nothing serious to be said in their defense. We can of course readily concede that the Constitution forbids the establishment of any particular denomination as the official religion of the United States; I know of no one who denies this. But the question is not whether membership in some church or synagogue or other ought to be compulsory. The question is whether religious arguments should have the same standing in public life as secular arguments, and the answer is that there is no good reason they should not.

To be sure, liberal criticism of the influence of religion on politics is largely directed at a straw man in any case. In most of the areas where liberals think they see such an influence, religion plays, or need play, no essential role at all. For example, the main arguments presented by opponents of abortion and same-sex marriage do not rest on religious premises. Some pro-life arguments do indeed make controversial claims about the moral and metaphysical status of the fetus -- just as pro-choice arguments do -- but acceptance of those claims does not necessarily entail belief in God. The influential arguments of Princeton University's Robert P. George, for instance, rest only on some very plausible and modest claims about fetal biology and a few secular moral premises. The arguments of Don Marquis, the author of what is probably the most widely anthologized and cited pro-life article in contemporary philosophy (pdf), assume an even less robust and controversial view of the nature of the fetus. Things are no different with same-sex marriage. Philosophers like Roger Scruton and Michael Levin have defended traditional sexual morality in terms of a quasi-Kantian ethics and evolutionary psychology, respectively, rather than by appeal to any religious tradition or authority.

Suppose, however, that someone did defend a view about abortion, same-sex marriage, or some other contentious matter by appealing to religious considerations. Why should this be considered unacceptable? 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.

An excellent essay except that it concedes two interlocking points unwisely: first, that reason is objective; second, that subjective faith is an inadequate basis for political philosophy.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 30, 2005 7:58 AM