A week and a half behind us and we are now cruising into passover. I think its a perfect time to have this conversation. Trust in polarized age. His most recent book. Radical religious alternatives. Our second speaker is the naval academys who is professor of philosophy. His books include religious conviction and liberal politics. Once again right at the heartland of our topic of justice and the justice war tradition. His special interest the various ways in which religion and warfare intersects. The profession of arms is i believe in the process of growing into a book. Turning it over to are you going first . Okay. You go first. Thank you so much. It is wonderful to be introduced by two absolute fabulous people. One of my favorite human beings on the planet. Ive had the pleasure of getting to know for the last couple of years. Kevin, all good things must wait kevin and i have collaborated. What we want to do is introduce a number of topics that religion and politics. There would open for, i dont know, a freeforall . A really terrific conversation. I dont have a need videotapes. I have nothing but a piece of paper. Sixteen17 minutes. The conversation that weve had over the last year should convince me i should be getting some comments on what a liberal democracy is. So, i favor a rather minimalist conception which i will introduce with a short statement from Michael Perry in 2003. We live in a time where demagogues come up polemicist and pundits have succeeded in returning the word liberal into an epithet. That is reclaim our discourse. Americans are all liberals now. We affirm the true and full humanity of every person without regard to race, mac, religion and so on. Therefore certain basic freedoms it is this affirmation that makes democracy and liberal democracy political morality a liberal morality. There is conception that appeals to me for a number of reasons. It is true. Each human being really a sacred it comports with important elements of the tradition. It is economical. Even in our partisan and pulverized time. Citizens affirm equal dignity in various rights grounded thereon. Perhaps most personally for today it is compatible with very different conceptions of the proper role in public life. It is not uncontroversial. Different theorists employee competing conceptions of what makes democracy. Dialectical mischief. Another critic decries liberalism it turns out that what is objected is not liberal democracy but some controversial working at conception thereof. So, for example, if it is correct, liberalism is tied to a kind of enlightenment according to which basic political norms must satisfy. It is evident from self evidence it is liberalism with insatiable humanitarianism in which the state must be neutral between different ways of life. We are privileging particularly the life of sacrifice for military service. So understood now a commitment to liberal democracy really did have that, then we should follow him and rejecting it. Indeed we should do so for excellent liberal reasons. After all, whatever sum up whatever founders declared the claim that each human being is created equal is anything but selfevident. The standards attributing to liberalism would preclude a sense to that liberal harm. It would turn out to be incoherent. Liberals have excellent reason to reject the constraints that undermine their basic commitments. Moreover, the neutrality is both implausible on its face and contradicted by the regular practice of our government. Liberals have excellent reason to promote our privilege lifestyles that are essential to the defense of liberal democracy from its many enemies. As we do when we honor some and only some the medal of honor. Incoherent and implausible, we should reject liberal democracy as it is construed but we should not reject liberalism it sells. Does each human being enjoyed equal dignity. Does each therefore possess basic rights to speak freely to own property as god conscious dictates. Participating elections to determine the composition of the great governing authorities. If you respond affirmatively in each case, then you are a liberal democrat. So committed you are free to disagree with your fellow citizens almost like anything else. Lets explore one of those disagreements. Is it morally acceptable for member of congress to vote grandma for heterosexual monogamy on the way of a grounded conception of human sexuality. That is the only reference to sex i will have today. [laughter] may citizen persuade to support a generous immigration policy to the most vulnerable and powerless to those created in the image of god. May a marine officer be led by jesus command that we love our enemies to impose on his subordinates that endangers the each of these cases, someone brings their faith into public life in a particular way by taking a religious reason as a basis for policy matter that inevitably affects the wellbeing of some who do not share that persons faith. What should we make of people that do this sort of thing . The question here is not what position we should take regarding marriage immigration but about whether we may rely on our faith commitments to determine which position to take regarding such matters. The question is not one of them all law about morality. Religious arguments apply in the public life the way legislators moved. The public responsibilities. Lighting 1000 flowers for Many Americans but they took is a critically important source. So, for example it sustains the conviction that each human being even the most vulnerable or socially insignificant and with dignity. It explains why this is the case it specifies the Many Political implications thereof. Four Many Americans, therefore, their assessment of competing policies perhaps decisively on their faith commitment. Because it is morally excellent for us to support very policies that we conscientiously believed to be correct, it is easy to do so on religious grounds. We should not discriminate against it. Rather equal treatment of the religious is the importer of the day. Striving to adopt policy positions for which there is nothing to say. Truly it is good for us to have as many persuasive reasons as we can muster. We should learn from our compatriots. Taking seriously their criticisms. Refusing to insulate from their criticisms. We should exit from our own perspective. And attempt to discern for others to adopt the policies we favor. In short conscientiously with one another as we attempt to discern what policies they support. At the end of the day, our deliberative and persuasive powers run out. We may find ourselves conscientiously compelled to support policy position that depends decisively on our faith. Religious as the case may be. We think, we deliberate together , we disagree, we bowed our conscious and then we live with the results. That is a very brief indication. Happy to chat about it in the conversation. Many disagree. Many liberals disagree. Particularly when Public Officials say members of congress or officers in the military fulfill their public duties. Why . What is the source . As i noted above a liberal democracy protects the rights to religious freedom when human beings are free to determine from themselves what to determine about religious matters they will inevitably disagree. If estate really does leave it up to citizens whether to believe in god, they will affirm very different conceptions of what god is like. As a consequence then of its core commitments the liberal democracy will inevitably include a pervasive unlike liberalism and enlightenment, liberal democracy and religious pluralism arent explicitly designed. In that context, many advocate for a constrained role for religious arguments a more constrained rule that you and i favor. We have to reach collective agreements on matters that affect us all. We must authorize the state to coerce compliance with our collective agreements and so we should try to provide with what they regard as adequate reason for our policy decisions. This is partly a matter of reducing alienation those with whom we deliberate together are likely to be less alienated by state coercion than those who we do not sub deliberate. Partly a matter of respect. We affirm the dignity of those from whom we disagree by providing them with reasons that at least may persuade them that our favored policies are correct we do not just say because i said so. That is how we treat children out free and equal compatriots. Thus line of argument constraints the role that religious arguments may play in public life. A state policy that cannot be justified without a religious argument leaves that without any at all to read doris policy to provide them with only a religious rationale is the functional equivalent of providing with no reason at all. This is profoundly disrespectful it is insulting. It treats others like children. Alienating to boot. Something like this argument leaves many to show that it may not decisively depend on religious reasons for its justifications. Moreover, citizens and state officials restraining themselves from overseeing policies that they realize depend decisively. One final point by way of explicating this more restrictive view, what kind of reason can provide this required expectation. How can we reach some collective resolution as to how we are to live together in a way that respects the dignity of all. We do so by appealing to Common Ground. We do not just repeat the reasons that persuade us and affirm our disagreement but we appeal to share premises that provide some deeper basis for resolving the particular matter at hand. That is the kind of rationale that can justify coercion in the pluralistic liberal democracy our reasons that are shared by or at least in some respects shareable by a diversely committed population. The only shared or shareable reasons are secular. Only the secular is the universal, natural and comment. It is invariably particular secretary and. Religion always divides. The secular can least unite. Only the secular, never the religious decisively justify state coercion. So, this restricted view is inconsistent with the more inclusive conception that i favor. What is wrong with it . Here is the first concern. Suppose that you support the invasion of afghanistan on the ground that it is a response morally. I am a hardbitten real list. [laughter] there is one in the audience that i know. Opposing the invasion because it is detrimental to the security of the United States. We disagree. We may try to find some Common Ground though i have no idea how that would go. There seems to be no such Common Ground given our fundamentally different conceptions of the morality of war. Are we therefore these options . Of course not. You can appeal to my abiding realistic commitments in order to persuade me to change my mind you inhabit my way of thinking and construct an argument that you will persuade me to follow you and supporting invasion. Suppose you succeed. We reach an agreement, not by retreating to Common Ground but by following the implications of our distinct and incompatible. We agree on a policy but we are 180 out on the reasons for the policy. This is often how political argument works. We disagree profoundly. There is no way that we will resolve the disagreements, but we do not avoid them. I entered your perspective. It may be secular and it may be religious and i do my best to show that you should after all reach the same conclusions that i do. Given my very different assumptions, experiences and priorities. I engage with you not is a generic human being but as a particular person you are. Secular totalitarian, conservative catholic. I do the same for others. Eventually, i articulate a spread of secretary and reasons that provide many others with what they regard as persuasive reasons for my favorite policies so far as i can tell, policies justified by such a diverse spread of reasons can be every bit as respectful as appeal to a shared or shareable rationale. Shared reasons may be nice, but they are not morally necessary. Answer religious arguments may play exactly the same justifying role as do secular arguments. They provide reasons that appeal to others in their particularity here is a second concern he had the requirement that state policies must be justified by shared reasons is supposed to provide a filter. Through which political arguments must pass. Because religious arguments are never shared and world democracies cannot justify coercion. They are filtered out. This is only one instance of a much more general strategy. To identify some filter that screams out for religious but not the secular. So, for example, have proposed some kind of epistemic filter. The reasons that may justify state policies and here you take a pic from a wide variety of options. They must be no monster bowl accessible valuable, criticize a bull in the ideas of religious reasons are none of those things , some secular reasons are only the secular and never the religious can justify this. So, i cannot assess each proposed filter. Let me indicate my most general reasons for skepticism of the view. Any filter on political arguments must be porous enough to allow us to rely on a spread of secular reasons that enables us to resolve the kind of policies we cannot avoid. But it cannot be so porous that it allows any religious reason. But whatever the filter, some religious region reasons will sneak through. To drop the metaphor there just is not any relevant property that all coercion justifying secular reasons that all religious reasons or lack. Time constraints preclude me from providing what really needs to be an extensive exploration of that claim. I will just have to substitute examples for argument. So, i take it as given that liberalism is a militant degree. We liberals cannot avoid determining when the use of military violence is permissible and when it is not. Any determination must provide, must involve some kind of a proportionality assessment. For example, the invasion of the u. S. Invasion of afghanistan was just, i will only use one of these like p as the name of the statement i will make. I will keep referring to that and what im referring to is the next sentence. The goods achieved by the invasion of afghanistan were proportionately evil as accustomed to the invasion. For the invasion of afghanistan. So, here we go. I take that claim to be a kind of reason on which the most brutal kind. But, for, the required kind of proportionality between goods and evils, the liberal democracy will not wage war. Placing justifying role disallowed to any and every religious consideration. Possibly proportionality judgments of this sort are secular. So then inquiring minds want to know. What is so impressive about p. What is it about secular p such that it can play a justifying role to any and every religious reason. I doubt that there is a principled and otherwise defensible answer to that question. My suspicion is that the proportionality judgment differs in no relevant epistemic sociological or moral respect from at least some religious crimes. It is not shared in respects that religious reasons are not. When people are free to make up their own mind as the secular claims, they will disagree every bit as much as they do on religious matters. As recent defense testified proportionality is a realm of the inevitable and the unavoidably contentious. Again, it is doubtful that they possess any epistemic evidence unavailable to any at all religious reasons. Frankly that is because they are not that epistemically impressive. Our basis for believing it is subjective, contentious in ways that must truly remind us of the basis for any religious reasons. Recent events testify to just how tenuous the hold we have on such difficult judgments. That is why it is hard to believe that no religious reasons enjoy the epistemic credentials needed to avoid being filtered out. It turns out that it is arbitrarily included exclusionary to claim that only the secular and never the religious can decisively justify state policies on liberal democracy. Liberals must make certain policy decisions. Certain secular reasons may play a decisive role and there is no relevant difference between those acceptable secular reasons and familiar kinds of religious reason. Again, equal treatment is the order of the day. Both secular and religious reasons may play a decisive role let me end at the beginning. Many liberals affirmed general restrictions in which they may play in public light. They guard those restrictions as a morally necessary response to the religious pluralism and gender are. In so doing they built highly contentious commitments into their favorite conception. This is bad for liberal democracy. We are already polarized enough. We should not make enemies will be do not need to. Rejecting liberalism in part of the exclusionary treatment of religion. He lightly rejects that treatment but he is wrong to join liberalism himself. The two are no more intimately related. They are much more inclusive to this. One that welcomes robust religious contributions to public life. It is great for the United States and its great for religion as well. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much for that. Ive been talking about these religion and politics issues for a long time. Really since the dissertation committee. I decided to invite chris because in 2002 there was this really remarkable book. Today, remaining a systematic critique at the kind of mainline approach to liberalism and politics. I commend to you all. As old friends we decided to coordinate our talks. What i want to do is take you through the kinds of stages of academic debate about religion and politics that carry on. There is roughly three. Spirit the first is when this religion in Public Discourse debate kinda began. The late 80s through the early 90s. And then i will talk a little bit about, well, it kind of died in part because we started arguing about religious exemptions. That debate kind of died because now we are talking about liberalism. So, someone who is trying to contribute to these debates and trying to follow them i think you may just find useful a roadmap, a history of how artists discussions have evolved and changed. So, what happened is a number of important deliberated democratic theorist that wanted to talk about Public Discourse. In the ethics of Public Discourse in the role of religion in that. These included this. Who together were the most influential political philosophers of that time. Both of them originally held Something Like a position that chris describes. But their position became unstable and they both moved not to wear chriss, but they moved in that direction. As did the pure analytic distributors at this date. They all had held this very restrictive view and the weirdest thing about this debate is all the bigwigs and it changed their minds in the same direction. They change their mind in the same direction. Which is remarkable. Because of how rare that is. I think that the th