Public Moral Discourse

Robin Lovin

doi:10.3390/rel12040255

Abstract

Public moral discourse encompasses open discussions in which moral concepts of good and right are brought to bear on questions of public policy and on broader issues of basic rights and the goals and rules that guide social institutions. These public questions also raise practical, apologetic, and political concerns that are central to Christian ethics and moral theology. Public discourse frames legal and political understandings of religious freedom, and Christian ethics has a practical interest in ensuring that these choices do not limit Christian worship and formation or unduly restrict the institutional life of the church. Public discourse also engages apologetic theology in a moral task because the questions raised in public discourse involve conceptions of human good, human nature, and human community that have been discussed in Christian theology across the centuries. Christians have a distinctive understanding of persons in society that they hope to make effective, or at least to make understood, in a wider public discussion. Finally, public moral discourse gives rise to a moral responsibility for Christian participation in politics to create a public consensus on the creation of shared human goods.

Highlights

This essay aims to relate public moral discourse to the concerns of Christian ethics by describing it as a “province” within the larger realm of Christian theology
The purpose of this discussion of public moral discourse as a “province” of Christian ethics, is to review some of these developments that shape the discourse as we have it today in relation to the problems of religious freedom, apologetic theology, and the political concerns of contemporary Christian theology
These ideas of dignity, virtue, and political community are transforming our understandings of public moral discourse in ways that provide a richer account of what politics requires of persons and of the biological and social conditions that make it possible for them to rise to those requirements

Summary

Introduction

This essay aims to relate public moral discourse to the concerns of Christian ethics by describing it as a “province” within the larger realm of Christian theology. In the most general terms, public moral discourse is how a society brings moral concepts of good and right to bear on matters of public policy and on questions about law, justice, and the goals of public institutions The history of these discussions can be traced back to scholars who advised the rulers of ancient China and to the citizen assemblies of Greece and Rome. The general use of terms like “conservative”, “liberal”, “progressive”, or “radical” is a reminder that modern public discourse shapes and is shaped by political philosophy, even if few of the participants are aware of the theoretical disagreements among the scholarly specialists The purpose of this discussion of public moral discourse as a “province” of Christian ethics, is to review some of these developments that shape the discourse as we have it today in relation to the problems of religious freedom, apologetic theology, and the political concerns of contemporary Christian theology. That will leave many philosophical questions about the discourse itself unanswered, but this overview should be sufficient to explain why theologians and Christian citizens should take an interest in the subject

What Makes a Discourse “Public”?

Withdrawal or Engagement?

Public Understanding of Religious Freedom

An Apologetics of Christian Humanism

The Politics of Penultimate Goods

Conclusions