Liberal Neutrality, Religion and the Good

Abstract

Over the last few years, a number of legal and political philosophers have argued that there is nothing special – legally and constitutionally – about religion. Religion should be understood as a sub-set of a broader category, what John Rawls called ‘conceptions of the good’, and it should not generate claims of unique, exclusive treatment. These philosophers articulate what I call an ‘egalitarian theory of religious freedom’. It is egalitarian because it places religious and non-religious conceptions of the good on a same plane; and argues that all citizens, whether religious or not, are entitled to equal concern and respect. Egalitarian theorists of religious freedom aim to ‘generalize toleration’: to extend the idea of religious freedom to neutrality towards secular worldviews, lifestyles, sexual preferences, and so forth. All citizens deserve equal respect as citizens, whatever their particular conception of the good – be it a life of intellectual reflection, of pious devotion, or of consumerist hedonism. Religious citizens, for example, should not be exclusively entitled to exemptions from general laws: other citizens (such as secular conscientious objectors) deserve equal consideration.