of Eberle: "Consensus, Convergence, and Religiously Justified Coercion."

Eberle, Christopher J.. 2011. "Consensus, Convergence, and Religiously Justified Coercion." Public Affairs Quarterly. 25(4): 281-303

2. The Core Components of the Standard, Restrictive View

2.1 Basic Human Worth

•  “each human being has a basic worth”(282): equality, inherent dignity etc.
•  this is a function of 3 normative facts: has great (1-more excellent than others)) / equal (2) / intrinsic(3- cannot be lacked/reduced etc.) worth>human well-being

2.2 Justifying Coercion

•  basic worth>presumption against coercion
•  moral agent with aims>respect (not as a manipulated object)>reasons fr coercion
• liberals aren’t anarchists/hippies: “state coercion is sometimes justified” (283)
•  “What is necessary is not that coercion is supported by some objectively sound argument, not that coercion be justified, but that coercion must be justified to those who are coerced
• Principle of Justified Coercion (PJC): “A’s performing coercive act C against any other agent B is morally permissible only if B has, or would have on due reflection, compelling reason for A to perform C.” (284)

3. Consensus Conception of the Standard View

• Due respect for human worth>PJC
• Pluralistic liberal society with religious freedom>diversely committed population> then state coercion only justified (to public) by shared secular premises
• Secular: universal, natural, common; Religious: particular, sectarian, idiosyncratic (285)
• Principle of Religious Insufficiency (PRI): “religious reasons cannot decisively justify state coercion in a liberal polity”
• Doctrine of Religious Restraint (DRR): “citizens and public officials have a moral duty to restraint themselves from endorsing state coercion that requires a religious rationale”

4. Two Objections to the Consensus Conception

• A good formulation of the consensus conception in 8 points mentioned so far(285):

(1)  Every human being has basic worth. 


(2)  Because every human being has basic worth, state coercion is presumptively wrong. 


(3: PJC) The presumption against state coercion can be overcome only if it can be justified to each coerced human being.

            (4)  State coercion can be justified to each coerced human being in a liberal polity only by shared, shareable, or accessible reasons. 


(5)  In a liberal polity, no religious reason is shared, shareable, or accessible. 


(6: PRI) Hence, state coercion cannot be decisively justified by religious reasons.


(7) Citizens and public officials ought not support state coercion that they know to be unjustified.

(8: DRR) Hence, citizens and public officials should restrain themselves from supporting state coercion that they know requires decisive religious support.

**EBERLE: 3,4,5 are prob. while 1,2,7 are okay then 6 and 8 :(

4.1 Justifying Coercion by Shared Reasons  (4 is less than compelling)

•  286-287 example of invasion of Afghanistan: supported with non-shared, diverse spread of “sectarian” (not ecumenical) reasons and no problem of respect > (4)

4.2 Are Religious Reasons Shared, Shareable, or Accesible? (hard to believe 5 is true)

• Consensus ConceptionÞPRI (no decisive capacity of religious reason)
• EBERLE: Example of military violence in war (most brutal state coercion): generally we have a proportionality justification= P: goods>evils
• EBERLE: “(P) differs in no relevant epistemic, sociological, or moral respects from at least some religious claims, and so the differential treatment of religious and secular reasons pre-supposed by the standard view lacks a principled basis” (288)
• then why proportionality judgments> religious ones???  Even it is so complicated and requires knowing all relevant facts indeed almost impossible: then its epistemic statusL: not consistent to accept P with such a low epistemic status while L relig. *there can be an other principle irrelevantly of (P) sort of justification

5. Gaus’s Convergence Conception (against 4,5)

• a form of standard view
• as different from consensus c., despite the commonality of against coercion presumption, he has “no presumption against non-coercive state action, even when it significantly diminishes the well-being of its citizens” (289)
• each citizen should have reasons but not necessarily a shared one (convergence)
• but rejection of only one subject of L is enough to render it illegitimate (290)
•  bec of this (high) his version is stringent and far more demanding than consensus since ppl can reject L wt both shared and unshared reasons and L passes moral muster :((!
• He has no problem wt religious reasons as unshared reasons when rejecting
• Then a religious reason can play a decisive role through objection (291) but in the imposition of a law only wt a religious rationale, bec secular citizens’ have no sec reasons for L disrespectful to them
• So, “a constrained version of (PRI): although religious reasons can play a decisive role in defeating otherwise justified state coercion, religious reasons cannot play a decisive role in justifying coercion.”

6. The Convergence Conception and Religious Conviction

• Gaus: mine is a mediating position, located btw 2 extremes

6.1 Why Religious Believers Need Not Find Gaus’s Convergence Conception Repellant 

•  “implicit commitment to the equal justificatory status of religious and secular reasons” (in defeating state coercion) (292)

6.2 Positive Religious Reason to Affirm Gaus’s Convergence Conception

• “many religious believers have a deep distrust of govt” (293)
• “many believers are politically active…to protect a way of life that take to be under assault by an ever more intrusive state”

6.3 Consensus, Education, and Evolution (293-6)

• education as a form of state coercion: ie evolution X moral well-being of child
• since the taught of both creationism/evolution is coercion, there will be parents against both of these, acc to Gaus> “Removal of the topic from school curricula wins by default” (295) (HE FAVORS SILENCE)
• GAUS: liberal commitment to non-domination and sanctity of conscienceÞ for rejection religious reason is enoughÞ no problem @ integrity

6.4 Convergence and Establishment

•  Establishment Clause: state may not affirm any religious truth claim
• Koppelman: if state refrains from teaching evolution bec of religious reasons of citizens then it affirms these reasons correctness implicitly (silence case) (296)
• Considering individual conscience Gaus is more plausible than Koppelman

7. Critical Questions about the Convergence Conception

• Despite his rejection of 4, 5, Gaus still accepts PJC (297)

7.1 Is There a Presumption against Coercion Alone?

• Gaus claims that PJC distributes an asymmetrical justificatory burden: state coercion must be justified not the lack of
• Worth/respect>care for their well-being: not only a presumption against state coercion but also a presumption against non-coercive yet harmful state action (298)
•  “then state inaction that diminishes human well-being must also be presumptively wrong” (299) (ie. leave vulnerable, malign neglect) (Henry Shue, Basic Rights)
• then Gaus is wrong: lack also should be justified, any state coercion should be (300)

7.2 Can the Convergence Conception Survive Symmetry?

•  Gaus’s asymmetrical construal of PJC>ie. “silence” not needed to be justified but “creationism” is in need> “when state coercion cannot be justified, then non-coercion is justified by default, even if non-coercion is intensely controversial”
•  If we adopt a symmetrical interpretation of PJC, “none of the available policies can be justified to all, in which case each of the available policies is morally illegitimate” >not applicable because we must adopt a policy >a good reason for rejection of the symmetrical construal of PJC(301)  
• But because Gaus’s asymmetrical construal isn’t plausible, tooÞ “we hv good reason to reject (PJC) altogether. It is too demanding.”

7.3 Concluding Note on Religiously Justified Coercion after (PJC)

• “If state coercion need not be justified to each of the coerced, then it is in principle possible that state coercion can be justified by some religious rationale for which there exists no conclusive secular corroboration.” (301)
•  “If we should reject (PJC), we have no good reason to affirm (PRI). From this, further implications follow: if we have no good reason to affirm (PRI), then we also have no good reason to affirm (DRR).”(302)
• “a coercive measure that requires a religious rationale need not be morally defective in any respect.” (302)

of Waldron: "Two-Way Translation: The Ethics of Engaging with Religious Contributions in Public Deliberation"

Waldron, Jeremy. 2010. "Two-Way Translation: The Ethics of Engaging with Religious Contributions in Public Deliberation" NYU

1.An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture

2.Two Sets of Concerns about Religious Interventions

• Ethics of response (to these evangelics) (2)
• some>these interventions are to reconstruct govt (dominionism) (3)
• prof Gushee (evangelic): right, yes it is impossible a less religiously pluralistic age, actually it should be under this constitution and we should reform our rhetoric and political practice accordingly since people fear from us” (4)
• “so long as there is due recognition of the multi-faith and secular aspects of our society and due recognition of the constitutional structure that responds to that, there is no particular reason for church people to refrain from participation in public life on the basis of their values”
• but some: these interventions are implicitly theocratic “implicit theocracy”
• some: it is inherently appropriate to adduce reasons for one’s political position that make no sense to and fail to resonate with large sections of the public (5)” “civility”
• 2 concerns of implicit theocracy and civility (civil intelligibility) ie: Rawls: incompatible wt public reason (6)
• “as a practicing Episcopalian” JJJ (7)

3. The Worry about Implicit Theocracy

• distinction between practical and theoretical authority (8)
• theoretical>a matter of expertise not ruling, not impose duties ie: a professor of economy not minister
• concern @ theocracy is about practical authority and this can be applied for the sort of interventions in the case of Roman Catholic intervention in abortion like “it should be illegal as the Pope says” but most religious interventions aren’t of this kind, rather they want prohibition “because it is wrong” (9)
• “there is nothing implicitly theocratic about drawing upon theoretical authority (in this case, church) so far as the bearing of religious principles on public policy is concerned.”   
• “people miss this because of a silly assumption that there is no such thing as expertise in the great moral and political issues that we face”
• “the assumption is that most of us would do better to follow what is said in this ancient book” (bible) (10)
•  “many of the religious interventions that people are concerned about are not scripturally based at all”
• “any claim about Jesus being Lord transcends this category of theoretical authority among humans. However, I think it also transcends any plausible claim about practical political authority as well.” (11)
•  claim: the moral force of religious propositions>follows>thereby subjecting ourselves to a sort of theocratic rule (WALDRON: this doesn’t follow) (12)
• “we long to obey the demands of our faith=of morality> actually one isn’t more offensive: “It is distinguished only from the analogous moral resolve by (what in the eyes of many people are) the weird beliefs Christians hold about the sources of moral insight.”

4.Addressing Religious Talk to Non-Believers 

•  “The real issue is not theocracy, it is intelligibility.”
• Claim: “people of faith should refrain from participating in public debate in terms that reflect their religious commitments. If we are not to turn democratic politics into a Babel of mutually incomprehensible assertions, maybe we should search for a common vocabulary and a set of premises that we can all converge on in political dialogue.” (12-3)
• “we must beware of exaggerating the deliberative character of modern politics”
• not neglect other respectable functions of a political statement may serve: bearing witness, explain himself ( sort of view, not persuading), preach to the choir
•  “Is the engagement of nonbelievers with something like the Evangelical Declaration necessarily a dialogue of the deaf?” (14) 2 phil. misconceptions make it seem so:
1. mutual understanding is an all-or-nothing businessÞ Nagel ethics of contributing to public justification: “It must be possible to present to others the basis of your own beliefs, so that once you have done so, they have what you have, and can arrive at a judgment on the same basis.” (Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy): this fails to characterize most episodes of mutual understanding: impatience, distraction, imperfect hearing, comprehension, hermeneutic, significance within my set of beliefs: “never exactly be my having what you have”, we aren’t identical search engines, not just logics but rhetoric
2.  “to assume that communication is really possible only between persons who share a common framework of concepts” (14): BUT NO, “we should not underestimate the ability of humans from disparate backgrounds to talk with one another,---”(15)Þ anyway, we deal with mutual intelligibility within a given culture, not incommensurability between cultures (modern ABD), also most is religious and others are familiar and have librariesJ so it isn’t that “they cannot possibly understand” about which there is something uncivil as they claimed (16) (17ie.political economy not easy to understand but cam be)**Karl Popper: the Myth of the Framework: In Defense of Science and Ratioanlity

5. Two-Way Translation

• Lincoln as hero of Rawls used a religious rationale in his Second Inaugural and Rawls said @ that it might not have violated “public reason as it applied in (Lincoln’s) day” and these “could surely be supported firmly by the values of public reason” <->translate into secular talk (18) “in terms of proper political values”
• Rawls: burden of this proviso fall on the religious speaker (19)
• Habermas: “requirement of translation must be conceived as a cooperative task in which the non-religious citizens must likewise participate) (link of Habermas) (19) then for him, the civility burdens of public reason is a a two-way street. (20)
•  It is not civil for secular citizens to strain not to understand what is being said or block out/refuse. “Or rather, a person can do that; people don’t have the obligation to listen to and grapple with everything that is said in public discourse. But then if they do turn a deaf ear, for whatever reason, to some of what is being said, they can hardly turn round and complain about the incivility of the speaker.” 

6. Religious Contributions as Immoderate

•  Last concern: antagonism, tension, being offended (20), lack of moderation (21)
•  “extreme moral expression spurred on by religious conviction is inherently inappropriate in politics, concerned with moral relativity and compromise” (22)
• example o Weber’s views on politics (22-3)

7. Conclusion

• misconception, misunderstanding of religious-based arguments in modern political theory by secular theorists (Rawls, Dworkin) “mostly a travesty”