Religion in liberal political philosophy [Texte imprimé] / edited by Cécile Laborde and Aurélia Bardon

Notes bibliogr.

Until now, there has been no direct and extensive engagement with the category of religion from liberal political philosophy. Over the last thirty years or so, liberals have tended to analyze religion under proximate categories such as 'conceptions of the good' (in debates about neutrality) or 'culture' (in debates about multiculturalism). US constitutional lawyers and French political theorists both tackled the category of religion head-on (under First Amendment jurisprudence and the political tradition of laicite, respectively) but neither of these specialized national discourses found their way into mainstream liberal political philosophy. This is somewhat paradoxical because key liberal notions (state sovereignty, toleration, individual freedom, the rights of conscience, public reason) were elaborated as a response to 17th Century European Wars of Religion, and the fundamental structure of liberalism is rooted in the western experience of politico-religious conflict. So a reappraisal of this tradition - and of its validity in the light of contemporary challenges - is well overdue. This book offers the first extensive engagement with religion from liberal political philosophers. The volume analyzes, from within the liberal philosophical tradition itself, the key notions of conscience, public reason, non-establishment, and neutrality. Insofar as the contemporary religious revival is seen as posing a challenge to liberalism, it seems more crucial than ever to explore the specific resources that the liberal tradition has to answer it

Introduction / Cécile Laborde and Aurélia Bardon -- Part I. The Special Status of Religion in the Law: 1. : Religion, Equality, and Anarchy / Micah Schwartzman ; 2 A Rawlsian Defense of Special Treatment for Religion / Andrew Koppelman ; 3. The Irrelevance of Religion to Law / George Letsas ; 4. Understanding Religion, Governing Religion: A Realist Perspective / Enzo Rossi ; 5. The Consequences of Disaggregation and the Impossibility of a Third Way / Ronan McCrea -- Part II. Sovereignty, Non-Establishment, Neutrality: 6. Sovereignty, the Corporate Religious, and Jurisdictional/Political Pluralism / Jean L. Cohen ; 7. Religious Establishment and Public Justification / Kevin Vallier ; 8. What's the Problem with Symbolic Religious Establishment? The Alienation and Symbolic Equality Accounts / Sune Laegaard ; 9. Is Ethical Independence Enough? / Matthew Clayton ; 10. On the Scope and Object of Neutrality: Policies, Principles, and 'Burdens of Conscience' / Saladin Meckled-Garcia -- Part III. Accommodation and Religious Freedom: 11. Religious Exemption and Distributive Justice / Peter Jones ; 12. Religious Accommodation: Responsibility, Integrity, and Self-Respect / Jonathan Seglow ; 13. Exemptions for Conscience / Simon Căbulea May ; 14. Religious Exemptions and Fairness / Alan Patten ; 15. How the Interests of Children Limit the Religious Freedom of Parents / Daniel M. Weinstock ; 16. Equality and Conscience: Ethics and the Provision of Public Services / Annabelle Lever -- Part IV. Toleration, Conscience, Identity: 17. Religion, Reason, and Toleration: Bayle, Kant-- and Us / Rainer Forst ; 18. Toleration Without Limits: A Reconstruction and Defence of Pierre Bayle's Philosophical Commentary / Chandran Kukathas ; 19. Liberalism and Identity / Akeel Bilgrami ; 20. Conscience in Public Life / Maeve Cooke ; 21. Is Religious Conviction Special? / Kimberley Brownlee ; 22. How Should We Respect Conscience? / Emanuela Ceva