Democracy, Religion & Public Reason - Ricerca sull'intelligenza artificiale specializzata al MIT

Democracy, Religion & Public Reason

Samuel Freeman

A convention of democracy is that government should promote the common good.
Citizens’ common good is based in their shared civil interests, including security of
themselves and their possessions, equal basic liberties, diverse opportunities, and an
adequate social minimum. Citizens’ civil interests ground what John Rawls calls “the
political values of justice and public reason.” These political values determine the po-
litical legitimacy of laws and the political constitution, and provide the proper bases
for voting, public discussion, and political justification. These political values sim-
ilarly provide the terms to properly understand the separation of church and state,
freedom of conscience, and free exercise of religion. It is not a proper role of govern-
ment to promote religious doctrines or practices, or to enforce moral requirements of
religion. For government to enforce or even endorse the imperatives or ends of reli-
gion violates individuals’ freedom and equality: it encroaches upon their liberty of
conscience and freedom to pursue their conceptions of the good; impairs their equal
civic status; and undermines their equal political rights as free and equal citizens.

I n American constitutional democracy, reasonable people generally agree

on the fundamental importance of freedom of conscience and religion and
a democratic society’s duty of tolerance of diverse religious, philosophical,
and moral views. Differences on these questions normally concern whether re-
ligious beliefs and practices warrant special protections compared with philo-
sophical and nonreligious moral beliefs and practices. And if special protection
for religious freedom is warranted, does it extend to providing political support
and public endorsement of religious symbols and practices, such as prayer in pub-
lic schools? The contention that religion has a legitimate place in public political
life, and that religious reasons are legitimate grounds for political decisions, are
often rationalized by appeals to majoritarian democratic sentiments. If members
of a religiously homogenous community support prayer in public schools, Poi
why should this not be permitted so long as children are not coerced to partici-
pate? Few who argue this position would accept the teaching of atheism in pub-
lic schools if it had majority support, on grounds that it violated their freedom of
religion. This suggests that political arguments for public religious symbols and
practices are not motivated by political values, but rather by belief in the greater
importance of religion over nonreligion. The position is in tension with the liber-

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al justification for liberty of conscience and tolerance of diverse views and ways
of living, which assumes that conscientious religious convictions and conduct are
not exceptional or deserving of greater political protection and endorsement than
are nonreligious philosophical and moral convictions and conduct.

Is majoritarian democratic support and legal enforcement of religious moral-
ity–such as religious opposition to rights of abortion and contraception, or laws
declaring fertilized eggs legal persons from the moment of conception–compat-
ible with the First Amendment nonestablishment clause and free exercise clause
of the U.S. Constitution and freedom of individual conscience? Similar questions
are raised by a government’s endorsement of religious beliefs and symbols of re-
ligion. State endorsement of Christianity or religion in general calls into question
the political equality of those who reject it. Even if state endorsement of religion
or religious symbols and practices does not involve coercive interference with
individual conscience, it can jeopardize or diminish the equal civic standing of
nonbelievers.1 State endorsement of religion dilutes nonbelievers’ equal rights of
political participation and their claims to a political justification of laws and public
policies on terms they can accept as free and equal democratic citizens.

I contend that these and related questions regarding freedom of conscience
and religion, political equality, separation of church and state, and special support
and accommodation for religion turn on whether political measures can be jus-
tified in terms of what John Rawls calls “the political values of justice and public
reason,” or sometimes simply “public reasons.”2 To explain the idea of political
justification by public reasons, I begin with some remarks on the subject of liberal
neutrality between religion and the political values of a constitutional democracy.
My aim is to clarify the idea of democratic public reason and explain its relevance
to questions regarding the proper role of religion in political decisions and public
life in a liberal constitutional democracy.

N eutrality Between Religions and the Good. Religious critics of liberalism con-

tend that in protecting freedom of conscience and institutional sepa-
ration of church and state, liberalism claims but inevitably fails to be
“neutral” between religion and nonreligion, or with respect to the values individ-
uals affirm, or among different religious, moral, and philosophical views. It is true
that liberal institutions and laws cannot be neutral in a causal sense toward reli-
gion in their influence and effects on society and its members: the many freedoms
and opportunities liberalism guarantees affect beliefs and practices. Infatti, Essi
often draw people to question and abandon their religious views and violate re-
ligious imperatives and customary moral norms. Liberalism also influences reli-
gious doctrine itself, and eventually the mainstream religions in the West have
either come to endorse most of the equal rights, liberties, and opportunities liber-
alism supports (such as equality for women), or risked marginalizing themselves.

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesDemocracy, Religion & Public Reason

But liberal freedoms and opportunities have the same unsettling effects on secular
beliefs and institutions and individuals’ adherence to nonreligious doctrines and
conventions. So, it can at least be said that liberalism is neutral in its disruptive ef-
fects on traditional beliefs, practices, and institutions of all kinds.

In protecting freedom of conscience, thought, and individuals’ tastes and pur-
suits, liberalism is sometimes said to aspire to be “neutral” or impartial with re-
spect to “the Good”: the values, commitments, ideals, and ways of living tolerat-
ed in liberal society. But liberal institutions, in addition to protecting individual
rights and liberties, promote goods and public benefits of many kinds often op-
posed by traditional religions: the equality of women; publicly funded education
to develop individuals’ minds, capacities, and skills so they can be productive,
self-supporting, and take advantage of diverse employment and cultural oppor-
tunities; individuals’ health and well-being through public health measures and
provision of health care; public goods such as infrastructure necessary for a mod-
ern society (highways, airports, public transportation, and so on); scientific and
medical research; exploration of nature and outer space; publicly funded libraries
and museums for the discovery and preservation of knowledge and culture; E
protection of species and the environment. Modern liberals presuppose these are
political values that are legitimate for government to protect and pursue, in addi-
tion to traditional political values of safety and security of persons and their prop-
erty, economic prosperity, and individual liberty.

Here, pure, it is noteworthy that the traditional justifications of liberalism are
grounded in controversial philosophical positions. These include both religious
doctrines of natural law originating in God’s commands (John Locke), and also
nonreligious doctrines that assume such intrinsic values as negative liberty and
minimizing coercion (Friedrich Hayek), moral and rational autonomy (Immanuel
Kant), social utility (Jeremy Bentham), individuality (J. S. Mill), and the plurali-
ty and free choice of values (Isaiah Berlin).3 Further, it is argued that in defining
what constitutes the domain of right and justice, liberalism cannot avoid endors-
ing a particular philosophical view of value and the nature of right and justice that
conflicts with religion, or controversial epistemic views about rationality, reason-
ableness, accessibility of reasons, and mutual acceptability.4

These examples suggest that the claim that liberalism purports to be “neutral
between religion and the good” is unfortunate. Clearly this is not true of tradi-
tional philosophical justifications of liberalism. The philosophical liberalism of
Kant, Mill, Rawls’s Theory of Justice, Ronald Dworkin, Joseph Raz, and others who
endorse individual autonomy, while tolerant of diverse religions, make little pre-
tense about being “neutral” toward traditional religions with respect to individu-
als’ good. They all presuppose (partially) comprehensive conceptions of right and
value that directly conflict with most religious creeds. Inoltre, few if any reli-
gions accept the utilitarian conceptions of value affirmed by Bentham, Mill, E

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149 (3) Summer 2020Samuel Freeman

Henry Sidgwick that overall happiness (not communion with God) is the ultimate
good in all activities. Fewer still endorse Kant’s claims that reason (not God’s will)
is the source of morality and justice, that a human’s rational will is the origin of
value, and that moral autonomy–acting for the sake of right and justice–is the ul-
timate good and measure of a person’s moral worth. Kant’s and Mill’s liberalisms
are extensions of their comprehensive moral views and address the optimal so-
cial and political conditions that enable individuals to fully exercise their capaci-
ties and realize moral and rational autonomy (Kant) or individuality (Mill). While
both endorse the liberal idea that individuals are to be free to decide their own
conceptions of a good life, they both subscribe to a kind of perfectionism of the
self to guide individuals’ decisions about which values and endeavors they ought
to pursue (implicit in Kant’s duties to oneself to perfect one’s own capacities and
Mill’s distinction between higher and lower pleasures). Even Rawls’s account of
“the good” in A Theory of Justice, though only “partially comprehensive,” is be-
holden to Kant’s and Mill’s accounts of rational and moral autonomy.

The intrinsic value that many philosophical liberals assign to individual au-
tonomy means their liberalism is neutral neither in its effects, its aims, its values,
nor its justification of liberal institutions. For the implication of these philosophi-
cal liberalisms is that transcendent religious doctrines are false in crucial respects,
regarding both the nature of morality and value, and also (given liberalism’s alli-
ance with the natural sciences) the origins of the universe, humankind, and many
natural facts. One can understand then why there is so much religious opposition
to liberalism among fundamentalists, evangelicals, and orthodox religions: for
philosophical liberalism’s fundamental ideas are incompatible with the doctrines
of the traditional religions.5

There is no feasible way to make laws and public policies neutral in their effects
on religion or on individuals’ conceptions of the good. Liberals contend nonethe-
less that so long as laws and public policies are neutral in their aim, are not designed
to discriminate or burden religion, and promote legitimate state purposes (Di
which liberalism and traditional religions often disagree), these measures should
be politically legitimate.6 There might be some accommodation given to religions
to mitigate burdensome effects, such as exempting Amish children from com-
pulsory education requirements at age fourteen,7 or exempting religious employ-
ers from providing no-cost contraception in health care they are required to pro-
vide employees.8 But accommodations and exemptions from legal requirements
for religious reasons raise questions of their own regarding neutrality and favor-
itism toward religion. Ancora, without any attempt at accommodation whatsoever,
there can be problems of unfairness in the distribution of burdens on individu-
als’ exercise of their freedoms of conscience and religion.9 To enforce dress codes
at school, lavoro, and the military that deny the wearing of any religious headgear
seems to unfairly discriminate against members of minority religions when the

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesDemocracy, Religion & Public Reason

attire has great religious and moral significance. If neutrality in the effect of laws
with purportedly neutral aims is not always possible, there still remains a question
of the neutrality or fairness of treatment of those who experience exceptional bur-
dens in spite of government’s pursuit of neutral aims.10

One promising way to address the problem of political neutrality toward reli-
gion and conceptions of the good in a liberal constitutional democracy is with the
idea of neutral or impartial justification: public justification in terms of public reason
and the political values of justice. To clarify these complex ideas, consider Locke’s
claim in A Letter Concerning Toleration that the business of government is not the
salvation and care of people’s souls, but instead is restricted to the procurement of
certain “civil interests” all have: “Life, Liberty, Health, and Indolency of the Body;
and the Possession of outward things, such as Money, Land, Houses, Furniture,
and the like.”11 The general idea is that government’s primary if not exclusive role
is to impartially promote the common good, which consists in protecting and pro-
curing certain fundamental interests that are essential to the good of all citizens:
their lives, liberties, property, and other political values. Going beyond Locke, so
long as government does so impartially without intending to discriminate in favor
or against religion, it acts legitimately (“neutrally”), even if laws have disparate
effects on certain religious confessions or nonreligious conceptions of the good.
There is disagreement about how “compelling” these civil interests must be to re-
strict religious ritual and conduct, and about whether general laws unfairly bur-
den religion in certain circumstances or are “narrowly tailored” enough so as to
avoid such burdens. But the general idea of the legitimate and compelling civil in-
terests that government may impartially pursue is characteristic of the liberal tra-
dition and provides a way into understanding the “neutral” or public justification
of laws according to the political values of justice and public reason.

T he Structure of Democratic Public Reason. The idea of political justification by

public reason is a natural corollary to the main idea of social contract the-
ories: that the fundamental terms of social cooperation should be gener-
ally acceptable to free and equal persons expected to comply with them. Accept-
able on what grounds? Hobbesian contractarians contend that cooperative terms
should be acceptable to each when justifiable on grounds of each individual’s pri-
vate interests and personal religious and moral convictions, and when terms of
social cooperation are the outcome of a bargain among these conflicting interests
and views.12 The Hobbesian view provides a fitting characterization of the polit-
ical compromises typical of a pluralist majoritarian democracy wherein citizens
vote for candidates who represent their private interests and religious and moral
concerns. By contrast, the liberal-democratic contract tradition says that terms of
social cooperation should be impartially justified and acceptable to citizens gener-
ally on grounds of the shared civil interests they have in their capacity as free and

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149 (3) Summer 2020Samuel Freeman

equal citizens. These civil interests provide the grounding for legitimate constitu-
tional principles and laws that can be impartially justified to all citizens–justified,
not as an unstable compromise among conflicting private interests and moral and
religious convictions, but in terms of political values of public reason all can en-
dorse in their capacity as free and equal citizens.

Democracy in the United States embodies tendencies of both the Hobbesian
and the liberal-democratic social contract views.13 Here I focus on the liberal-
democratic contract doctrine and its account of public reason as embodying the
more appropriate conception of public political justification for a constitutional
democracy.

What is public reason and the political values it incorporates? Turn again to
Locke’s liberal account of the civil interests of citizens and the political ideal of
free and equal persons that informs these civil interests. The duties of government
are to attend to the common civil interests of society’s members: for Locke, their
lives, liberties, health, external possessions, and leisure time. These civil interests
are shared among persons with the capacities for reason since all are born free and
equal (by virtue of God’s creation, Locke says). The civil interests of free and equal
persons with capacities for reason ground certain political values and fundamen-
tal principles (or “laws of nature” in Locke’s terms) that are in each individual’s
interest when others respect and comply with them. As the political agent of the
sovereign people, it is the duty and proper role of government through the laws to
promote the common civil interests of free and equal persons by enforcing these
principles and political values of justice, which constitute the “public good.” Cit-
izens are to exercise their rights of conscience or “private judgment” to decide
if government has violated its trust by exceeding its legitimate powers. But there
is no mention yet of public reason or the duty of government to justify its laws to
citizens. Locke, though an early liberal, was not an advocate of democracy. Jean-
Jacques Rousseau was the first to invoke the idea of public reason, which he distin-
guishes from the private reason of individuals grounded in their personal interests
and pursuits. Public reason for Rousseau is the reason of the collective body of cit-
izens as they impartially deliberate on measures that meet requirements of justice
and promote the common good of all. Public reason is to guide the “general will,"
or citizens’ deliberations and collective judgments on laws that effectively realize
the civil interests and common good of all citizens.14

By the time Rawls inherits the idea of public reason, most of its background
and structure are in place. The democratic ideal of public reason and of the public
justification it supports presume:

1. An ideal of free and equal persons with the capacities for practical reasoning,
which are the “moral powers” to be reasonable by complying with require-
ments of justice, and rational in forming and pursuing a conception of the
good.

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesDemocracy, Religion & Public Reason

2. Free and equal persons’ fundamental civil interests in developing and exercis-
ing their moral powers, since these enable citizens to engage in social and
political cooperation as equal citizens and pursue their individual concep-
tions of the good.

3. The political values of justice and public reason, which are necessary to promote
the fundamental civil interests of citizens, including for Rawls the “pri-
mary social goods”: basic rights and liberties, diverse opportunities and
powers and positions of office, income and wealth, and the social bases of
self-respect.

4. A political conception of justice grounded in citizens’ fundamental civil interests
and their associated political values that enables citizens to assign priorities
to political values and determine the balance of public reasons as they are
applied to decide laws, public policies, and constitutional questions.

Public reason provides the bases for public political justification of laws to all
citizens. Accordingly, it is crucial to the democratic idea of public justification that
public reasons must be shared among free and equal citizens generally, not simply
reasons that are intelligible or otherwise accessible to citizens as in Hobbesian
accounts of public justification. Not all reasons shared by citizens are public rea-
sons: we all have reasons for personal cleanliness and to clean our clothes and liv-
ing quarters periodically, but these are neither political values nor public reasons.
Public reasons are shared because they are grounded in the civil interests of free
and equal citizens generally and express the political values that these civil inter-
ests support. Finalmente, public reason requires a political conception of justice whose
principles and ideals provide determinate “content” to public reasoning, since it
enables citizens and their political representatives to address the many disputes
regarding the significance and relative weight or importance of political values.

Rawls has a more expansive conception of civil interests than does Locke,
Kant, and nineteenth-century classical liberals. They were primarily concerned
with establishing personal rights of conscience and belief, and economic rights
and liberties for a nondemocratic private commercial society. In order to accom-
modate liberalism to the circumstances of a modern, diverse democracy, it is nec-
essary to generalize the civil interests of free and equal persons. All reasonable
citizens now regard themselves as free, socially equal, and legally independent re-
gardless of race, nationality, or gender. They also regard themselves as responsible
for their lives and conceptions of their good, and as having rights to participate as
civic equals in democratic deliberation on social policies and decisions on laws re-
quired by justice and the common good. For these reasons, free and equal moral
persons have, in their capacities as democratic citizens, fundamental civil inter-
ests in the “full and informed exercise” of the moral powers of practical reasoning
that enable them to rationally decide and pursue their aims, and also to reason

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149 (3) Summer 2020Samuel Freeman

about and responsibly comply with requirements of justice and the common good
in their capacity as democratic citizens.

Citizens’ civil interests in these capacities for practical reasoning are funda-
mental, not for perfectionist reasons or because many citizens accept the intrin-
sic good of rational and moral autonomy. Piuttosto, the exercise of these capacities
is necessary for all citizens–regardless of their conscientious convictions and fi-
nal purposes–to take part in and benefit from social and political cooperation in
a democratic society. Without the capacities to be rational and reasonable, indi-
viduals are unable to critically deliberate about and effectively pursue their pur-
poses, understand and comply with laws required by justice, and more generally
take responsibility for their actions and lives and effectively participate as equal
citizens in social and political life. Rawls interprets the more familiar civil inter-
ests of Locke and classical liberals–the security of life, liberty, property, and so
on–as among the primary social goods mentioned earlier, which are all essen-
tial to the exercise and development of the moral powers and the pursuit of most
any permissible rational conception of the good in a modern democratic society.
The fundamental civil interests of citizens in their moral powers and the primary
social goods are the fundamental political values that are the main business of gov-
ernment to develop, protect, or procure for all citizens. They provide the founda-
tion for other political values of justice that should ground public reasoning about
laws, public policies, and requirements of the political constitution.

Regarding the “political values of justice and public reason,” Rawls says,
“These values provide public reasons for all citizens.”15 Among the liberal polit-
ical values Rawls specifically mentions are such values of justice as equal political
and civil liberty, equality of opportunity, social equality and economic reciprocity,
the common good, the social bases of self-respect, and the necessary institution-
al conditions for these values. There are also the political values of public reason
that include guidelines for free and public inquiry, the appropriate use of concepts
of judgment, inference and evidence, and such political virtues as reasonableness,
fair-mindedness, and a readiness to honor the duty of civility, all of which make
reasoned public discussion possible.16

Rawls later says that the values mentioned in the Preamble to the U.S. Contro-
stitution are examples of political values: a more perfect union, justice, domestic
tranquility, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liber-
ty for ourselves and our posterity, all of which include more specific values under
them, such as the fair distribution of income and wealth. Effective and efficient
use of economic resources are political values, which include promoting econom-
ic prosperity and preventing economic, environmental, and other kinds of social
loss or waste.17 This includes the development of human as well as real capital, E
thus adequate education of citizens to develop their capacities and skills so that
they can be economically productive, self-supporting, and successful in their cho-

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesDemocracy, Religion & Public Reason

sen pursuits. Economic reciprocity is also a political value, which means both that
citizens should have adequate means to develop and exercise their moral powers
and pursue a wide range of conceptions of the good, and also that there be a fair
distribution of income and wealth. Having diverse opportunities for productive
employment is a political value, as are the physical health and mental well- being
of citizens that are necessary for them to lead productive and successful lives.

Other political values Rawls mentions relating to human health and the envi-
ronment are preserving the natural order to further the good of ourselves and fu-
ture generations; promoting biological and medical knowledge by fostering spe-
cies of animals and plants; and protecting the beauties of nature for purposes of
public recreation and “the pleasures of a deeper understanding of the world.”18
From his brief discussions of the right to abortion, we learn that among the rele-
vant political values are “appropriate respect for human life,” the reproduction of
liberal society over time, full equality of women, and respecting the requirements
of public reason itself in political discussion of controversial issues.19 Political val-
ues that relate to the family are the freedom and equality of women, the equality
of children as future citizens, the freedom of religion, and the value of the fami-
ly in securing the orderly production and reproduction of society and its culture
from one generation to the next.20

This is not an exhaustive list of the political values that should govern public
reason, political decisions, and political justification in a constitutional democ-
racy. Generalmente, political values include the values, principles, and ideals that are
significant if not essential to enable democratic citizens generally to adequately
develop and fully exercise their moral powers, take advantage of diverse opportu-
nities and pursue their freely determined conceptions of the good, and participate
as socially and politically equal members of a democratic society on grounds of
reciprocity and mutual respect. Given the many political values that are signifi-
cantly instrumental to these ends, most if not all political questions that legiti-
mately arise in a democratic society can and should be addressed by reasoning in
terms of these shared political values. In this regard, public reason is, Rawls says,
“complete.”21 This is especially the case when “constitutional essentials” and
“matters of basic justice” are at stake: questions regarding individuals’ consti-
tutional rights and liberties, equal opportunities and equal protection under law,
the proper constitutional powers and procedures of government, the fulfillment
of individuals’ basic needs so they can effectively exercise basic rights and liber-
ties and take advantage of opportunities, and finally the achievement of economic
reciprocity with the fair distribution of income and wealth.22

But even regarding questions that are not constitutional essentials or matters
of basic justice, the political values of public reason normally should guide politi-
cal officials’ judgments. This seems reasonable if not required in the case of the ad-
equate provision of many public goods that may not be required by basic justice,

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such as where to construct highways and public transportation, public works,
funding postsecondary education for all, the provision of certain public services
(like legal aid), and funding cultural institutions (such as art museums, orches-
tras, and convention centers). In the absence of political values that guide deci-
sions on these and other publicly funded measures, public funds will be misused
for nonpublic purposes or prone to unfair distributions depending on people’s
wealth and political influence.

Rawls envisioned certain ostensibly perfectionist values governments can sup-
port when constitutional essentials and basic justice are not involved, such as art,
historical, and other museums, or subsidies for orchestras, jazz concerts, and the-
aters. Public subsidies for parks, national holiday celebrations, convention cen-
ters and coliseums, perhaps even stadiums for athletic events, also seem to quali-
fy. For given the wide range of political values of public reason Rawls mentions–
including “public recreation and the pleasures of a deeper understanding of the
world”–even many perfectionist, entertainment, and other leisure values would
seem to be instrumentally justifiable in terms of the political values of education,
health and mental well-being, and so on. As Rawls says in justifying laws that pro-
tect “the claims of animals and rest of nature”: “In each case we should start from
the status of adult citizens and proceed subject to certain constraints to obtain a
reasonable law.”23 The constraints he mentions are that measures that promote
perfectionist and other values not required by constitutional essentials and basic
justice must sufficiently relate to and suitably advance citizens’ fundamental civil
interests in the “adequate development and full and informed exercise of the mor-
al powers” and other political values of public reason.

It is because the political values of public reason can accommodate a wide
range of subsidiary instrumental values that Rawls can claim that the political
values of public reason are virtually “complete”: they are sufficient to address all
or nearly all legitimate questions regarding political policies and laws regulating
conduct and individuals’ rights, liberties, opportunities, and other matters of le-
gitimate public concern, at least so far as constitutional essentials and basic jus-
tice are concerned. Ancora, it is important that the values many consider perfection-
ist (scientific, mathematical, and literary knowledge, aesthetic creativity and ap-
preciation, athletic prowess and dexterity) are not to be promoted for their own
sake even though individuals may value them as such. They are rather to be pro-
moted since they are conducive to realizing citizens’ civil interests and the public
good.

P olitical Legitimacy. The implication of the liberal-democratic claim–that

the proper role of government is to promote only the civil interests of free
and equal citizens and associated political values–is that laws and policies
designed to promote nonpolitical values that cannot be justified in terms of civil

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interests and political values of public reason exceed government’s mandate and
are not politically legitimate. If democratic government is to exercise its coercive
powers to justifiably compel conduct or expend public funds, then it should do so
only for reasons that citizens can accept as compatible with the civil interests and
political values they share as citizens. Inoltre, political legitimacy is important
because it defines the limits on government officials’ powers to exercise political
authority, and also citizens’ duties to obey laws that they might regard as contrary
to their particular interests or conscientious beliefs, or even as unfair or unjust.
Even if they regard laws as contrary to their conscientious beliefs or as unjust, cit-
izens with few exceptions have a moral duty of political justice to comply with
politically legitimate laws, those justifiable in terms of political values of public
reason.

Rawls tells us that laws and “all questions arising in the legislature that con-
cern or border on constitutional essentials or questions of basic justice should be
settled, so far as possible, by principles and ideals that can be endorsed” by “com-
mon human reason” and supported by political values that “can serve as a basis of
public reason and justification.”24 This is a condition on laws’ political legitimacy.
The mere fact of majority will–that a majority of citizens support measures that
promote their individual interests or comprehensive religious, philosophical, E
moral views–is not sufficient to bestow political legitimacy on measures. Invece,
political officials in their public acts and decisions have a “duty to honor public
reason” in order to confer political legitimacy.25 Moreover, citizens also have a
moral “duty of civility, to be able to explain to one another on those fundamental
questions how the principles and policies they advocate and vote for can be sup-
ported by the political values of public reason.”26

These are three separate requirements of political legitimacy. The first impos-
es a political obligation on government officials: that they make decisions on laws
and other matters on grounds of the political values of public reason and provide
a public justification in these terms. The second is an analogous moral duty of ci-
vility on citizens: that they publicly advocate and vote only for candidates who
support measures that are politically legitimate and supported by the political val-
ues of public reason. Third, citizens have a duty that applies especially when they
advocate and vote for political policies or legal measures on the basis of their reli-
gious and other comprehensive views: to explain to other citizens how their votes
also conform to the political values of public reason.27

Many argue that it is unreasonable to expect religious citizens not to vote their
religious views but vote political values instead, since it compromises their “reli-
gious integrity.” For this reason, citizens’ duty of civility allegedly cannot require
that citizens vote or advocate public reasons if they are contrary to their religious
beliefs. This is but one religious challenge to the implications of political legitima-
cy and public reason.

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R eligion and the Neutrality of Political Justification through Public Reason. The po-

litical values of public reason, as I’ve described them, potentially include
development of human capacities that might seem to be perfectionist val-
ues, provided they are instrumental to realizing the fundamental civil interests of
democratic citizens. But if that is so, then why shouldn’t religious faith, ad esempio
belief in God and in the divine ordering of the universe, also be contemplated as
instrumental to promoting political values and legitimate public grounds for laws
and public policies? After all, for many people, religious knowledge and experi-
ence (knowledge of the Bible and theology, prayer and meditation), like knowl-
edge of science, art, and literature taught in public schools, are conducive to their
being well-rounded persons and law-abiding citizens. So why should certain reli-
gious beliefs, symbols, and practices, such as school prayer and religious instruc-
zione, not be incorporated into public reason and the political domain, so long as
they promote good citizenship, public education, and other political values as well
as many citizens’ sense of justice?

The requirement that government impartially promote the common good,
and that it do so without aiming to discriminate in favor or against religion, rules
out relying on religious means to promote civic ends and the common good. Let
us assume that public school prayer would in fact calm students at the beginning
of the school day and help them focus on their classes and schoolwork. Even if the
primary purpose of school prayer is not religious but to promote the education
of children, still the means taken to promote this civic purpose does so in ways
that discriminate in favor of religion. It is difficult to argue that promoting reli-
gion is not a secondary aim here since there are many legitimate alternative means
other than compulsory school prayer to achieve the same civic purpose of provid-
ing optimal conditions to educate students (for instance, mindfulness or breath-
ing exercises, or a moment of silence for reflection). Applying the constitutional
test of strict scrutiny when fundamental rights are at stake (liberty of conscience
and freedom of thought), prayer in public schools is not “narrowly tailored” to
achieve legitimate civil aims or interests. Inoltre, school prayer and religious
symbols in civic places, even if for civil purposes, promote particular religions or
religion generally; as Justice O’Connor said, this makes those who have different
or no religious beliefs appear and feel as if they are outsiders and not fully mem-
bers of the civic community.28 Finally, these practices involve government en-
tanglement with religion, and jeopardize the democratic value of “separation of
church and state.”

Some philosophers claim that for many people, religious beliefs and values
ground their beliefs about justice, and it is difficult for them to understand polit-
ical values of justice and their duty to obey valid laws apart from their religion.29
Nor can they maintain their “integrity” as persons unless they can appeal to their
religious faith in coming to a decision and justifying their position on all pub-

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lic matters. For many religious persons, prayer in public school and political fo-
rums, religious displays and symbols in publicly owned places, and other public
recognition of their religious faith reinforce their commitment to justice and be-
ing conscientious law-abiding citizens, and hence promote the virtues of justice
and other political values of public reason. This raises a different question from
whether religious citizens have a civic or moral duty at all to exercise their po-
litical rights only in accord with the political values of public reason (addressed
below). Conceding that they do, the question here is whether religious reasons,
symbols, and practices should be publicly acknowledged and endorsed by gov-
ernment as a source of legitimate public reasons when they are sufficiently con-
ducive to citizens’ compliance with justice and their accepting political values of
public reason.

Generalmente, the fact that political endorsement of religious reasons, symbols,
and practices might be conducive to promoting the moral powers and related po-
litical values for many people does not mean that religious reasons themselves
should be regarded as public reasons; nor that they should have a politically rec-
ognized role in official decisions regarding laws and policies; nor does it justify
political endorsement of religious practices or symbols. For to be public, political
values must be shareable among all reasonable citizens and relate to their civil in-
terests in their capacity as free and equal citizens. Teaching the arts and sciences in
public schools to develop human capacities for reasoning, scientific, mathemati-
cal, and historical knowledge, literary and aesthetic appreciation, and sports and
physical prowess enables citizens to choose from and take advantage of diverse
employment and cultural opportunities, cultivate habits of maintaining good
health, and promote other political values. But advocating and encouraging par-
ticular religious beliefs and spiritual connection to the divine is to provide reasons
and instill beliefs that are accepted by some citizens but rejected by others. They
reject these religious reasons not simply as false or misguided on grounds of their
own conscientious religious, philosophical, and moral convictions and concep-
tions of the good, but also reject them as politically unreasonable in their capacity
as democratic citizens based on their fundamental civil interests because they are not con-
ducive to the development and exercise of the moral powers of citizens gener-
ally or to realizing other public political values. The same is not true of general
education in the sciences, math, and history, even the history of art, philosophy,
and religion. For there is little or no reason to question the evidential standards of
these intellectual inquiries, even if there may be grounds for questioning the aes-
thetic value of some art and music, or the truth of the philosophical, ethical, E
religious doctrines surveyed in such courses. There is a clear difference between
teaching the beliefs, practices, and histories of different religions, versus advocat-
ing, affirming, and enacting religious beliefs and practices, such as by affirming
religious creeds in public schools, legislatures, or courts.

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Chief among the political values of justice are social and civic equality and the
priority of equal basic rights and liberties, including equal liberty of conscience
and freedom of thought and association, over other social values. When the offi-
cial grounds for laws and public policies are based in religious reasons that are not
acceptable as either comprehensive or public political values by democratic citi-
zens generally, then they conflict with rather than promote the exercise of many
citizens’ fundamental civil interests, as well as their conceptions of the good. Lib-
erty of conscience protects not simply freedom of conscientious belief but also
the freedom to act on one’s moral convictions consistent with the civil interests
and legitimate rights of citizens. When religious reasons are made to serve as po-
litical reasons for coercive laws (such as prohibitions or unreasonable restrictions
on extramarital and gay sex, contraception, or abortions), then there are serious
questions regarding infringement upon dissenters’ liberty of conscience and free-
dom of thought and association: they are being legally required to comport them-
selves with others’ religious morality without justification by the political values
of public reason.

Inoltre, even if conduct and beliefs are not legally coerced by political en-
dorsement of religion and religious morality, still many citizens’ civil interests are
treated as irrelevant or overridden on the basis of other citizens’ religious, phil-
osophical, or moral beliefs. Nonconformists then are not being publicly treated
or regarded as fully equal citizens, since they decline to recognize or participate
in publicly sanctioned religion and its practices. Inoltre, the exercise of demo-
cratic political power in which they share is being employed for reasons that they
reject based not simply on their conception of the good, but even in their capac-
ity as equal citizens.30 The exercise of their equal rights of political participation
is thereby impaired, and their claim to a public political justification in terms of
public reasons they can accept is denied.31

The view here does not apply only to religion, so it does not discriminate against
religion as such. For the same constraints should apply to laws that are justifiable
purely on grounds of nonreligious philosophical and moral views acceptable to
only a portion of democratic citizens. This includes utilitarian values of maxi-
mizing aggregate welfare, libertarian values of absolute property and self-own-
ership, Kantian values of moral autonomy, Millian individuality and other per-
fectionist doctrines to develop excellences, and virtues and ways of “flourishing”
that cannot be justified in terms of political values of justice and public reason.
Likewise, for government to publicly endorse or advocate in public schools athe-
ism and scientific materialism (that the material universe is all there is) come nel
former Soviet Union and other communist nations, or similar controversial meta-
physical doctrines, also conflicts with public reason. Believing these philosophi-
cal doctrines is not necessary for the development and full and informed exercise
of the moral powers, or educating citizens so that they can be productive, be self-

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supporting, and fully take advantage of a liberal society’s diverse opportunities, O
fulfill their roles and duties as free and equal citizens. Here I assume that the em-
pirical and mathematical sciences, including Darwinian evolution, can be taught
in public schools without denying what many believe to be God’s role in creating
the universe, and without the implication of scientific materialism and atheism.
There is no legitimate empirical science of either atheism or of God’s necessary
role in creation, nor are these metaphysical positions necessary assumptions for
any of the empirical sciences, nor for a liberal political conception of justice.

Let us return now to the issue of liberal neutrality and what it could mean in
the context of political liberalism and public reason. Political liberalism we have
seen is not neutral with respect to the good if that is taken to mean that there can
be no conception of individuals’ good or fundamental interests that it is the role of
a liberal society to secure and encourage. Public reason assumes there are certain
fundamental civil interests of democratic citizens that it is the purpose of govern-
ment to realize and promote, since they are essential for free and equal citizens to
lead free, independent, and productive lives and fulfill the obligations of citizens.
Chief among these are the primary social goods: rights and liberties; diverse edu-
cational, employment, and cultural opportunities; powers and positions of office
and responsibility; income and wealth; and the social bases of self-respect. Oth-
er political values are assumed to be essential to realizing the fundamental civil
interests of citizens and the primary social goods necessary for them (health and
absence of disease, education and development of individuals’ capacities, and so-
cial unity, among others). What political liberalism eschews is a conception of the
final ends or ultimate good that is presumed to be essential to each individuals’
good: whether that be maximum happiness, moral autonomy, individuality or ra-
tional autonomy, human flourishing or perfectibility, the beatific vision of God or
experience of the Holy Spirit, and so on. The basic liberal rights and liberties guar-
antee each person the political freedom to decide, revise, and pursue their own
conception of the ends and pursuits that give meaning to their lives. This does not
mean that moral autonomy, individuality, or individual freedom are themselves
intrinsic values within political liberalism. But it does mean that having the polit-
ical freedom to decide and act on one’s conception of the good and having ample
diverse opportunities to pursue it–as guaranteed by the basic liberties and their
priority and fair equal opportunity–as well as the political autonomy to partici-
pate as a social and political equal in civic and public life of a democratic soci-
ety are political values of justice and public reason that are fundamental to liberal
constitutional democracy.

Nor does political liberalism and the values of public reason pretend that laws
must be neutral in their effects. As we saw above, there is no way to formulate laws
or public policy so that they do not advantage or burden anyone or the pursuit of
some values more than others. What can be required by public reason is procedural

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149 (3) Summer 2020Samuel Freeman

impartiality in decisions and substantive fairness in the distribution of benefits and
burdens, and also that government take appropriate means to reduce unnecessary
burdens of its decisions and mitigate or compensate for the costs to individuals
that laws and policies may cause.

Procedural impartiality in making and applying laws and government regula-
tions suggests a way that liberalism should aspire to be neutral: neutrality of aim
is basically an impartiality requirement of public reason. It requires that govern-
ments in their decision-making not aim to advantage or disadvantage particular
persons or groups or permissible conceptions of the good or comprehensive doc-
trines unless justifiable by sufficient public reasons. This is part of formal justice:
that laws be general in their content and application, and fairly apply to everyone
or all within some relevant group aimed to be affected by the laws (such as the el-
derly, the disabled, owners of motor vehicles, convicted felons, and so on). Nor
should the state aim to do anything intended to advantage or disadvantage one or
more comprehensive religious, moral, or philosophical doctrines more than oth-
ers, or give greater assistance to those who pursue it.

Finalmente, and perhaps most significant, the political values of public reason
are neutral with respect to the justification of laws and public policies. That there be
shared political reasons grounded in the civil interests and essential good of free
and equal democratic citizens and the political values these interests support is
the primary purpose of appeal to political values of public reason in deliberating
on laws and public policies, and in citizens’ justification to others of the politi-
cal positions they advocate and politically support and vote for. Democratic citi-
zens with different individual interests and who affirm diverse and conflicting re-
ligious, philosophical, and moral views cannot be expected to agree on all the laws
that are legislated in their name as members of the body politic. But they should
be able to accept and endorse the political reasons that underlie and are used to jus-
tify the laws. Otherwise, the political power they share is being imposed to pro-
mote individual interests and religious, philosophical, and moral views that they
reject and that cannot be justified on any grounds reasonably acceptable to them.
Then both their freedom as individuals and their equal status and political power
as citizens are being curbed for reasons they can reasonably reject, and they are
not fully free and equal citizens.

P olitical Legitimacy, the Duty of Civility, and the Scope of Public Reason. We have

seen that political legitimacy imposes a political duty on government offi-
cials to make decisions on grounds of the political values of public reason,
at least when constitutional essentials and basic justice are at stake. Secondo, an
analogous moral duty of civility extends to citizens: they advocate and vote for
candidates who support measures that are also politically legitimate and hence
are supported by the political values of public reason. Third, citizens’ duty of civil-

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ity also requires that, when citizens advocate and vote for measures on the basis of
their religious and other comprehensive views, they explain to other citizens how
their votes also conform to the political values of public reason.32

Some contend it is unreasonable to expect religious citizens to constrain their
votes by political values of public reason. Such constraints limit their fundamen-
tal freedom of religion, deprive them of their religious identity, and compromise
their integrity as religious persons.33 This is supposedly why religious citizens
cannot have the duty of civility to explain their votes in terms of political values of
public reason, or even a duty to consistently vote political values when these con-
flict with their conscientious religious beliefs.34

The duty of civility is a moral duty, not a legal duty backed by sanctions. More-
Sopra, liberty of conscience means that citizens legally can vote and politically ad-
vocate as their religious convictions require, and they have the freedom to act on
their religious convictions so long as they do not violate the rights, liberties, E
equal opportunities of others or violate any legitimate laws. So religious believ-
ers who oppose, Per esempio, contraception and all rights to abortion on grounds
of religious doctrine have a political right to advocate and vote their religious be-
liefs, even though this conflicts with their duty of civility and the political values
of public reason. Political rights of liberty of conscience override the moral duty
of civility so that citizens cannot be legally required to vote only political values
of public reason or to explain how their votes and political advocacy on religious
grounds is (or is not) compatible with public reason. But citizens’ basic rights and
liberties legally entitle them to speak and act in ways that conflict with many mor-
al duties that are not legally mandated. News sources and politicians who regu-
larly mispresent the truth to the public normally have a legal right to do so, even
though they violate moral duties of veracity and political obligations as fiduciary
agents of the public. Ancora, the fact remains that the policies and laws they advocate
are not politically legitimate according to the principle of political legitimacy un-
less they comply with political values of public reason. So, if candidates vote to en-
act laws that express their political supporters’ religious and moral objections to
all contraception and abortion, or to gay marriage or LBGT military service, Poi
these laws are not politically legitimate, however much majoritarian support they
may have. The problem is that other free and equal citizens are being coerced into
compliance with a majority’s religious and moral convictions with no public po-
litical justification in terms of political values of public reason.

Finalmente, regarding the contention that it is unreasonable to expect religious per-
sons to vote contrary to their religious convictions when they conflict with public
reason: in what sense is it unreasonable? It may be unreasonable within the terms
of their comprehensive religious or philosophical doctrine and its account of
what is reasonable and unreasonable. But it is not politically unreasonable within the
terms of the political values of justice and the requirements of public reason, nor

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149 (3) Summer 2020Samuel Freeman

within a liberal political conception of justice. What is politically reasonable and
unreasonable is not to be decided by the conception of reason set forth in one or
another comprehensive doctrine. Invece, within political liberalism, the notion
of reasonableness, like the notion of being rational, is constrained by public rea-
son and the requirements of public political justification. Recall that among the
political values of public reason are guidelines for free and public inquiry, the ap-
propriate use of concepts of judgment, inference, and evidence, and such political
virtues as reasonableness, fair-mindedness, and a readiness to honor the duty of
civility, all of which make reasoned public discussion possible.35 We cannot gen-
erate the requirements of public reason and a liberal political conception by start-
ing “outside” political argument with one or another philosophical conception
of reason and reasonableness. Reason and reasonableness themselves need to be
given a moral-political interpretation in terms of what is appropriate to demand
or expect of others in their capacity as democratic citizens. So, Rawls specifies the
idea of free and equal moral persons implicit in democratic culture and their fun-
damental civil interests; then he constructs the account of political values, public
reason, and political reasonableness on those bases. When is someone being po-
litically unreasonable? That is largely a matter of working out whether someone is
offering and insisting on using considerations in public political arguments that
are unsuited to the setting of justification addressed to free and equal persons with
shared civil interests but different reasonable comprehensive views. Citizens and
politicians are politically reasonable when they seek to cooperate with and sup-
port laws that can be justified to other citizens on grounds of principles, reasons,
and political values they can accept in their capacity as free and equal citizens mo-
tivated by their fundamental civil interests. It is politically unreasonable for leg-
islators, judges, and lawyers engaged in political argument to rely exclusively on
philosophical or religious doctrine regarding the requirements of reason (ad esempio
natural law doctrine) in deciding whether rights to gay marriage, contraception,
or abortion are reasonable. And the same is true of other comprehensive meta-
physical and moral doctrines. Comprehensive doctrines are not relevant to deter-
mining what is politically reasonable and politically justifiable in terms of public
reason.36

P olitical appeals to religion occupy an ambiguous place in U.S. history. Re-

ligious reasons argued by the abolitionists and later Martin Luther King Jr.
played a significant role in the public rejection of slavery and racial segrega-
zione. Such religious arguments for the dignity and equality of humankind are po-
litically legitimate and compatible with public reason. But appeals to religion also
play a continuing role in the rejection of the civil rights of gay and transgender
people, opposition to contraception and abortion, and support for nativist immi-
gration policies.37 These are politically illegitimate appeals to religious reasons.

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It is not the role of a constitutional democracy to either intentionally promote or
impede citizens’ religious beliefs or doctrines. Religious reasons and motives are
not legitimate grounds for advocating public policy and deciding laws unless con-
sistent with democratic citizens’ civil interests and political values of justice and
public reason. These political values provide the legitimate bases for public po-
litical justifications of laws and public policies among free and equal citizens in a
democratic society.

author’s note

This essay was prepared for a conference in Rome in March 2019 on democracy and
religion sponsored by the Australian Catholic University. I am grateful to the par
ticipants at the conference for their helpful comments, especially to Nevin Climen
haga for his challenging remarks. I am also grateful to Gerald Gaus, Kevin Vallier,
Stephen Macedo, and other participants at a conference on public reason at the
University of Arizona in May 2019. Thanks to Alan Patten, who helped me to clar
ify my position on neutrality, and to Pierce Randall, who made many valuable sug
gestions. Finalmente, I am very grateful to Robert Audi for his comments and sugges
tions throughout the process of writing, presenting, and preparing this essay for
pubblicazione.

about the author

Samuel Freeman, a Fellow of the American Academy since 2017, is the Avalon
Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy and of Law at the Univer
sity of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Liberalism and Distributive Justice (2018), Justice
and the Social Contract: Essays on Rawlsian Political Philosophy (2007), and Rawls (2007).

endnotes

1 See Justice O’Conner’s concurring opinion in Lynch v. Donnelly 465 NOI. 668 (1984), in which
she says that government’s endorsement of religion “sends a message to nonadherents
that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community.” Christopher
Eisgruber and Lawrence Sager, Religious Freedom and the Constitution (Cambridge, Massa.:
Stampa dell'Università di Harvard, 2007); and Cécile Laborde, Liberalism’s Religion (Cambridge,
Massa.: Stampa dell'Università di Harvard, 2017), 84–92, provide thorough discussion of this and
related issues.

2 John Rawls, Political Liberalism, expanded ed. (New York: Columbia University Press,

2005), 139, 224.

3 See John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government (1690); Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the
Metaphysics of Morals (1785); Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and

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149 (3) Summer 2020Samuel Freeman

Legislation (1823); John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859); Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of
Liberty (1960); and Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958).

4 See Christopher Eberle, Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, 2002), 14–16, on controversial epistemic assumptions of justificatory lib
eralism; and Laborde, Liberalism’s Religion, 162–163, on Rawlsian liberalism’s controver
sial distinction between the domain of right and justice versus the good.

5 See Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press,
1981); and Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (Nuovo paradiso, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 2018).

6 In Employment Division v. Smith 494 NOI. 872 (1990), the Supreme Court argued that since
drug laws are neutral in their aim and not designed to burden religious practices, Questo
justifies the denial of unemployment benefits to Native Americans fired for using pey
ote in religious rituals. Tuttavia, Justice Scalia, writing the majority opinion for the
Court, failed to consider whether enforcement of drug laws against religious rituals
served any compelling government purpose.

7 Yoder v. Wisconsin 406 NOI. 205 (1972).

8 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores 573 NOI. 682 (2014).
9 Compare Employment Division v. Smith with Sherbert v. Verner 374 NOI. 398 (1963), which held
that a Seventhday Adventist who refused to work on Saturdays for religious reasons
could not be denied unemployment benefits.

10 On the fairness justification and neutrality of treatment, see Alan Patten, “Liberal Neu
trality: An Interpretation and Defense,” The Journal of Political Philosophy 20 (3) (2012):
249–272; and Alan Patten, “Religious Exemptions and Fairness,” in Religion in Liberal
Political Philosophy, ed. Cécile Laborde and Aurélia Bardon (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2017).

11 See Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), ed. James Tully (Indianapolis: Hackett,
1983), 26. By “indolency of the body” Locke seems to mean the absence of pain and ex
ertion, which suggests that leisure or free time–the time not required to work to meet
basic needs–is a civil interest. See Julie Rose, Free Time (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni
versity Press, 2016).

12 See David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); E
Gerald Gaus, The Order of Public Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011),
two of the most prominent contemporary Hobbesian contract views.

13 Currently we live in a degenerating democracy with a president who thrives on conflict,
shuns compromise and impartiality, and makes no attempt at public political justifica
tion to all citizens, but instead promotes only the personal, moral, and religious inter
ests of his supporters.

14 See JeanJacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract (1762) (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2019).
15 John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” in Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Free

Uomo (Cambridge, Massa.: Stampa dell'Università di Harvard, 2001), 601.

16 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 139, 224.
17 Rawls, Collected Papers, 584.
18 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 245.

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19 See also John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard Universi

ty Press, 2001), 117; and Rawls, Political Liberalism, 243.

20 Rawls, Collected Papers, 601.
21 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 225, 241.
22 Constitutional essentials for Rawls are 1) matters that concern or affect the exercise of basic
rights and liberties and opportunities and their priority over other social values, anche
as the basic social minimum providing for the basic needs of all citizens, all of which
are covered by his first principle of justice; E 2) the structure of government, includ
ing constitutional offices and their legitimate powers and the procedures for legislat
ing, applying, and enforcing laws. Rawls, Political Liberalism, 227–228; and Rawls, Justice
as Fairness, 47–48. Basic justice concerns matters that determine or significantly affect the
structure of the economy, the specification of economic property rights, and the fair or
just distribution of income and wealth; and questions whether justice requires fair equal
opportunities or some other conception of equal opportunities, which are covered by
Rawls’s second principle of justice. Rawls, Political Liberalism, 228–229; and Rawls, Justice
as Fairness, 48–49. Most issues regarding the economy concern basic justice and should
be settled by political values of public reason. Rawls, Political Liberalism, 229.

23 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 245.
24 Ibid., 137, 215.
25 Ibid., 217.
26 Ibid.
27 Rawls calls this requirement “the proviso.” Ibid., 453, 462–466.
28 See Justice O’Connor in Lynch v. Donnelly.
29 Vedere, Per esempio, Paul Weithman, Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006). See also Eberle, Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics;
and Nicholas Wolterstorff, “The Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of Polit
ical Issues,” in Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff, Religion in the Public Square: IL
Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (New York: Roman and Littlefield, 1997).
30 See Joshua Cohen, “Establishment, Exclusion, and Democracy’s Public Reason,” in Rea-
sons and Recognition: Essays in Honor of T. M. Scanlon, ed. R. Jay Wallace, Rahul Kumar, E
Samuel Freeman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 256–275.

31 Robert Audi makes a similar point with respect to governmental preference for a reli
gion, which he says tends to concentrate greater political power in the preferred reli
gion and its members and impairs democracy, since other citizens do not have equal
opportunities to exercise political power on a fair basis. Robert Audi, “The Separation
of Church and State and the Obligations of Citizenship,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 18
(3) (1989): 259–296, 266.

32 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 462–466.
33 See Kent Greenawalt, Private Consciences and Public Reason (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1995), 67.

34 In addition to ibid. and Eberle’s Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics, see Wolterstorff, "IL
Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of Political Issues”; Michael Perry, Love
and Power: The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993); Jeremy Waldron, “Isolating Public Reasons,” in Rawls’s Political Liberalism,

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149 (3) Summer 2020Samuel Freeman

ed. Thom Brooks and Martha C. Nussbaum (New York: Columbia University Press,
1993); and Gerald Gaus and Kevin Vallier, “The Roles of Religious Conviction in a Pub
licly Justified Polity,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 35 (1–2) (2009): 51–76.

35 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 139, 224.
36 This responds to Eberle’s contention, in Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics, that political
liberalism is not neutral with respect to epistemic considerations, such as notions of
rationality, reasonableness, and other grounds for justification. Political liberalism is
neutro, I contend, because its account of political reasonableness and public justifica
tion comes from within political liberalism itself, and is not grounded in comprehen
sive doctrines regarding the requirements of reason.

37 Vedere, Per esempio, Paula White in Julia Duin, “She Led Trump to Christ: The Rise of the
Televangelist Who Advises the White House,” Washington Post Magazine, novembre 14,
2017.

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