Religion as a Legal Proxy

In what follows, after briefly summarizing Koppelman’s position, I argue that his view is vulnerable to the charge that using religion as a legal proxy is unfair to those with comparable, but otherwise secular, ethical and moral convictions. Koppelman has, of course, anticipated this objection, but his responses are either ambivalent or insufficient to overcome it. The case for adopting religion as a proxy turns partly on arguments against other potential candidates. In particular, Koppelman rejects the freedom of conscience as a possible substitute. But even if he is right that its coverage is not fully extensive with the category of religion, the law does not have to choose between them. It can and should provide significant protections for both

Obligation, Anarchy, and Exemption

Book review: Against obligation: The multiple sources of authority in a liberal democracy. By Abner S. Greene. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2012. Pp. ix + 333. Reviewed by Micah Schwartzman

Obligation, Anarchy, and Exemption

Book review: Against obligation: The multiple sources of authority in a liberal democracy. By Abner S. Greene. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2012. Pp. ix + 333. Reviewed by Micah Schwartzman

The Unreasonableness of Catholic Integralism

In this symposium contribution, we argue that Catholic integralism is unreasonable. Our conception of reasonableness is defined in terms of substantive moral and epistemic commitments to respecting the freedom and equality of citizens who hold a wide—but not unlimited—range of religious, ethical, and philosophical conceptions of the good. In arguing that Catholic integralism conflicts with this understanding of reasonableness, it might seem that we are begging the question against integralists. But our purpose here is not to engage integralists on their own terms. So far, the debate about integralism has been conducted mostly among Catholics and Christian conservatives. Our critique is external to Catholicism and not intended to persuade integralists by offering them arguments from within their own religious views. That might be a viable form of internal criticism, or “reasoning from conjecture,” which entails arguing from within others’ religious or philosophical doctrines to show that they have reasons to accept liberal principles. We leave that project to others. Our purpose here is to explain the sense in which integralists are unreasonable from a liberal perspective, which requires explicating and applying moral concepts that lie at the center of liberal political thought. Our conception of reasonableness is drawn from political liberalism, which takes some fundamental ideas to be constitutive of political morality in liberal democratic societies. These include the ideas of society as a fair system of social cooperation in which citizens see each other as free and equal, and the idea of reasonable pluralism, which holds that in any free society, citizens acting in good faith will affirm a wide range of comprehensive religious, ethical, and philosophical views. A task of political and legal philosophy is to work out the implications of these ideas, which are implicit in our liberal democratic political culture. We try to do that by rehearsing what we take to be the main ideas of Catholic integralism and by showing how they conflict with a conception of reasonableness that requires cooperating on fair terms, including by respecting the freedom and equality of citizens, regardless of whether they affirm a particular religious view. We shall also return to the case of Mortara, which helps to clarify what is at stake in rejecting the moral values of such a conception

The Politics of Proportionality

A Review of How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America Apart. By Jamal Greene

Jews, Not Pagans

Richard Schragger & Micah Schwartzman’s contribution to the 2019 Editors’ Symposium: Pagans and Christians in the City

The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty

This Introduction to our edited book, The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty (Oxford University Press, 2016), offers an account of the “corporate turn” in law and religion. Here the term “corporate” refers to any organized body of people - groups, associations, organizations, and institutions - and, more specifically, to for-profit corporations. Our contention is that the relationship between law and religion has shifted dramatically in the last decade, moving from a conception of religious freedom focused mainly on individual liberty toward one that privileges the rights of religious organizations. We trace this development in two stages, describing the initial movement from individual liberty to church autonomy, or what some have called “freedom of the church,” and the subsequent extension of religious liberty claims to for-profit corporations. We then survey the main questions about corporate religious liberty addressed in the book and provide an overview of its structure