The Liberal Conscience: Politics and Principle in a World of Religious Pluralism

Abstract

The Liberal Conscience: Politics and Principle in a World of Religious Pluralism. By Lucas Swaine. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 240p. $35.00. In this book, Lucas Swaine argues that modern liberalism has failed in its efforts to provide adequate justification of liberalism's political legitimacy to religious adherents. This may seem a surprising contention, given the vast literature that attempts to do precisely this, reaching easily as far back as John Rawl's Political Liberalism if not to the constitutive works of Hobbes and Locke. In particular, according to Swaine, contemporary liberalism has failed because it does not offer arguments that can appeal to religious believers, preferring instead a standard of “reasonableness” that cannot assail the faith commitments of religious believers.