Religious Freedom and Toleration: A Liberal Pluralist Approach to Conflicts over Religious Displays

Abstract

Among the defining features of a liberal pluralist state is what John Rawls has called the “fact of pluralism”: individuals hold diverse “comprehensive doctrines” as to the meaning, value, and ends of life. For Rawls this is a permanent feature of modern democracies, a fact which motivates him to seek a political conception of justice that rests on fundamental intuitive ideas of a democratic society, implicitly shared by people whatever their religion or other comprehensive doctrine happens to be.1 For Rawls, a liberal society addresses conflicts by seeking an “overlapping consensus” that does not favor one particular comprehensive doctrine—such as a particular religious or philosophical world view—because no such view would be acceptable to all members of society. Thus, imposing it would require the oppressive use of state power.2 Common ground is sought by exercising the civic virtue of tolerance, of “being ready to meet others halfway.”3...