In recent years, moral and political philosophers have begun to focus upon the impact of pluralism on conceptions of civic obligation, legitimacy, and justice. According to the political liberalism of John Rawls, citizens should justify their political views in terms of values that are neutral among divergent worldviews; they should not, for instance, rely on religious values when determining how to vote or what to advocate on the issue of funding for stem cell research. I argue that this conception of the neutrality of the public sphere rests on the problematic presupposition that political matters may not and need not be informed by religious or moral values. Debates regarding abortion, euthanasia, and homosexual marriage, however, exemplify the extent to which political and religious or moral concerns are interrelated. I defend the view that any resolution to these matters takes a stand on religious and moral debates and offer a conception of evaluative pluralism that encourages citizens to confront religious and moral concerns that underlie political disagreements. The dissertation develops two main lines of argument in my dissertation. The first proceeds from objections to Rawls' characterization of the public sphere. I claim that his Political Liberalism is committed to a fundamental difference between public and nonpublic matters that should be rejected. I argue that nonpublic matters are, in some cases, inextricably tied to public matters, and that requiring citizens to forgo nonpublic considerations in these cases unreasonably expects citizens to refrain from debating pertinent issues. I argue also that political liberalism lacks an important concept of respect for citizens as reasoners. The second line of argument proceeds from Jürgen Habermas' theory of public deliberation. I argue that Habermas' discourse theory offers important resources, previously unexamined by scholars, for the problems posed by religion in the public sphere. Rather than defending a neutral public sphere, Habermas suggests that public deliberation about cultural and religious disagreements is intrinsic to the formation of a public opinion. In the end, I argue that Habermas' discourse theory should be extended to include an account of civically obligated epistemic attitudes and clear distinctions between ethical-religious and moral-religious reasons to better account for the way nonreligious citizens can understand and assess religious views.

Last modified

• 08/28/2018

Creator

• Melissa Kristine Yates

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2BX4F

Subject

• Philosophy

Keyword

• discourse theory
• pluralism
• toleration
• political liberalism
• deliberation
• public reason

Date created

• 2007-12-03

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright