Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism: The Foundational Crisis of the Separation of Church and State

by J. Judd Owen

Overview

If liberalism is premised on inclusion, pluralism, and religious neutrality, can the separation of church and state be said to have a unitary and rational foundation? If we accept that there are no self-evident principles of morality or politics, then doesn't any belief in a rational society become a sort of faith? And how can liberalism mediate impartially between various faiths—as it aims to do—if liberalism itself is one of the competing faiths?

J. Judd Owen answers these questions with a remarkable critical analysis of four twentieth-century liberal and postliberal thinkers: John Dewey, John Rawls and, most extensively, Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish. His unique readings of these theorists and their approaches to religion lead him to conclusions that are meticulously constructed and surprising, arguing against the perception of liberalism as simple moral or religious neutrality, calling into question the prevailing justifications for separation of church and state, and challenging the way we think about the very basis of constitutional government.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226641928
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	07/01/2001
Edition description:	1
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

J. Judd Owen is an assistant professor of political science at Emory University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. If Liberalism is a Faith, What Becomes of the Separation of Church and State?
2. Pragmatism, Liberalism, and the Quarrel between Science and Religion
3. Rorty's Repudiation of Epistemology
4. Rortian Irony and the "De-divinization" of Liberalism
5. Religion and Rawls's Freestanding Liberalism
6. Stanley Fish and the Demise of the Separation of Church and State
7. Fish, Locke, and Religious Neutrality
8. Reason, Indifference, and the Aim of Religious Freedom
Appendix: A Reply to Stanley Fish
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Publisher

Does the success of liberalism – the great political philosophy of toleration, equal freedom, and moral and religious pluralism – rest on conformity to a faith that is unjustified and unjustifiable? This deeply learned and thoughtful book forces liberals and their critics to face difficult and enduring foundational questions. Those concerned with justice and public justification in conditions of deep moral and religious diversity need to confront this book.
— (Stephen J. Macedo, Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University, and author of Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy)

A remarkably well-written discussion of two figures who are central to much contemporary debate, Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish, and of the implications of their views for the role of religion in our political order. This is one of the best analyses of their work. As a result of reading this book, I surely have to reconsider some of my own positions.
—(Sanford Levinson, Centennial Chair in Law and Professor of Government, University of Texas, and author of Constitutional Faith)

Recipe

At the same time that dissatisfaction with the shape of church/state relations is on the rise, liberalism is witnessing ever-spreading postmodern skepticism regarding the theoretical soundness of its core principles. What doe these two tends have to do with each other? Potentially a great deal, according to J. Judd Owen, who contends that the liberal posture to religion cannot be divorced from, but rather lies at the deepest level of, the serious questions confronting liberalism's original rationalist basis.

Through a careful critique of Richard Rorty, John Rawls, and Stanely Fish, Owen argues that today's "post-rational" liberalisms can only evade or obscure, but cannot resolve, liberalism's perennial difficult with religion. Yet by politically fostering an indifference to question of religious truth, liberal rationalsim itself shares balme for its present crisis. Antifoundationalism is thus not a radical alternative to liberal rationalism, but its unintended byproduct.

Presenting an original map of the current landscape of political thought, Owen's provocative book cuts across politcal science, philosophy, religion, and constitutional theory.