Secularism Minus Exclusion: Developing a Religious-Friendly Idea of Public Reason

Abstract

����� ��� Religion enters the public sphere by all sorts of routes and in all sorts of ways from questions of the Islamic head-scarf to tax exempt status to the language on our currency. This essay looks at one dimension only of the broad debate over the legacy and future of secularism. My topic is the appeal to religious reasons in public debates to justify policy preferences and state legislation. It used to be, not so long ago, that the academic debate about the place of religious reasons in the public sphere could neatly be divided into exclusivists and inclusivists. 1 The former argued for the exclusion of religion from public debate and politics and the latter for the inclusion of such considerations. Furthermore, exclusivists were for the most part secular philosophers advocating secularism, while inclusivists were religious thinkers criticizing contemporary understandings of secularism. The picture is no longer so neat and tidy. First, secular liberal philosophy has developed a more nuanced, varied and critical attitude toward secularism, brought on in large measure by responding to criticism from religious quarters. To be a secular thinker leaves open the question of what form of secularism one endorses. Second, many if not most defenders of public reason no longer draw the line between public and nonpublic reason along strictly religious/ secular lines. Religion, as we will see, still poses some particular problems for the liberal public sphere but for the most part these problems are no longer dealt with by prescribing radical forms of god-ectomy. Finally, a number of secular philosophers argue not simply that one cannot and ought not exclude religious arguments from public debate but that religion can, has been, and will continue to be a positive force in the public sphere.