Comprehensive Doctrines Research Articles

Comprehensive Doctrines in the Public Sphere – A Case for Politicization

The problem with religious reasons is not whether they should be present in the public sphere but how they should be present. Political theorists such as Jeremy Waldron, Juergen Habermas, and Christina Lafont have favored two approaches to making religion legitimate in the public sphere. They have either tried to work out the conditions under which religious reasons can contribute to public sphere in a fruitful way or they have drawn attention to the moral content of religious principles. However, I argue that the latter approach relies too heavily on the propositional content of religious arguments to the detriment of investigating how they are politicized in the public sphere. It is my conviction that without looking at how given religious morality is politicized, a false moral consensus is manufactured, which given the motivational pull of religion can be dangerous. Furthermore, the article makes a case for a more realistic idea of a public sphere where other comprehensive doctrines such as feminism or economism are taken into account as well. Moreover, the evaluation of religious reasons should include their relationship to a given background political culture, which will increase a critical edge of a political theory.

John Rawls e a questão da religião e da razão pública

A problemática que permeia todo O liberalismo político, livro tardio de Rawls, é saber como pessoas com diferentes doutrinas compreensivas tais como as filosóficas, morais e religiosas, podem chegar a um acordo sobre questões políticas fundamentais. No entanto, as questões religiosas permeiam o conjunto da obra rawlsiana como, por exemplo, quando John Rawls morreu, em 2002, foi encontrado entre seus arquivos um texto intitulado On my religion. Nele Rawls descreve a história de suas crenças, referindo-se ao período como aluno de graduação em Princeton (1941-1942). Em dezembro de 1942, ele escreve Uma breve investigação sobre o significado de pecado e fé: uma interpretação baseada no conceito de comunidade. Nesses casos, o problema é saber como pessoas com diferentes doutrinas compreensivas religiosas podem chegar a um consenso sobreposto. A solução para o problema de como a legitimidade política pode ser alcançada, apesar do conflito religioso, e de como, entre cidadãos de diferentes crenças, a justificação política pode prosseguir sem referência, em específico, à convicção religiosa. Isso tudo é relacionado com a ideia de razão pública.

The limits of conjecture: Political liberalism, counter-radicalisation and unreasonable religious views

Originally proposed by John Rawls, the idea of reasoning from conjecture is popular among the proponents of political liberalism in normative political theory. Reasoning from conjecture consists in discussing with fellow citizens who are attracted to illiberal and antidemocratic ideas by focusing on their religious or otherwise comprehensive doctrines, attempting to convince them that such doctrines actually call for loyalty to liberal democracy. Our goal is to criticise reasoning from conjecture as a tool aimed at persuasion and, in turn, at improving the stability of liberal democratic institutions. To pursue this goal, we use as case study real-world efforts to counter-radicalise at-risk Muslim citizens, which, at first glance, reasoning from conjecture seems well-placed to contribute to. This case study helps us to argue that the supporters of reasoning from conjecture over-intellectualise opposition to liberal democracy and what societies can do to counter it. Specifically, they (i) underestimate how few members of society can effectively perform reasoning from conjecture; (ii) overlook that the burdens of judgement, a key notion for political liberals, highlight how dim the prospects of reasoning from conjecture are and (iii) do not pay attention to the causes of religious persons’ opposition to liberal democracy. However, not everything is lost for political liberals, provided that they redirect attention to different and under-researched resources contained in Rawls’s theory. In closing, we briefly explain how such resources are much better placed than reasoning from conjecture to provide guidance relative to counter-radicalisation in societies (i) populated by persons who do not generally hold anything close to a fully worked out and internally consistent comprehensive doctrine and (ii) where political institutions should take responsibility for at least part of the existing alienation from liberal democratic values.

Disaggregating the Creationist Challenge to Liberal Neutrality

In the US and elsewhere, creationist groups have challenged the mandatory science curriculum because it introduces the theory of evolution as the true story of biodiversity. This paper disaggregates this challenge in two distinctive levels. On the substantive level, creationists claim that Darwinian evolution is not value-neutral, as most scientists portray it, but it works as a philosophically-loaded theory that amounts to naturalism, which is a comprehensive doctrine that undermines traditional theism. Creationists then contend that its exclusive teaching violates the liberal promise of religious neutrality. To restore metaphysical fairness, they propose to include non-naturalistic theories into the official curriculum as a way of balance. On the epistemic level, creationists criticise liberal institutions—from courts of justice to educational boards and executive officials—that demarcate science in a way in which supernatural hypotheses can never compete for the best factual explanation. Under the guise of a purely methodological naturalism, they argue, liberals are opting for a cognitive filter that is biased against the belief that God intervenes in cosmic history. To restore epistemological fairness, they propose that theories that suggest supernatural agency should be rehabilitated and eventually included in the science curriculum. In these two distinct levels, the creationist claim is advanced as a logical implication of political liberalism's purported commitment to religious impartiality.

El Moderno Prometeo: El Director Escolar como Líder Mediador para la Justicia Social y el Desarrollo Sostenible

In the present investigation, we propose to problematize the characterization of the directive leadership in the school surroundings from the theoretical contributions of social justice, which we define as a broad spectrum with three main edges around the construction of the notion of the good and the means to achieve it: as equity by Rawls, the capabilities approach of Sen and the critical social of Pereira. At the same time, we propose to identify how these edges operate as an axiological framework that guides the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda and, in turn, how these objectives contribute to delimit the indeterminate series of capacities pursued by comprehensive moral doctrines, in a framework of substantive freedom. From this theoretical discussion, we approach the role of the director as a conscious leader of the mediation that exerts between the school and social environment capable of upsetting injustices, from an ethical horizon that refers to the agent of justice of Pereira. In view of the challenge posed by this task, we return to the Promethean figure in its tragic-heroic character, in order to warn about the structure and the necessary support strategies in the impulse of all transformative work. In this sense, it is argued that Education for Sustainable Development (EDS) offers a frame of reference at a cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioral level to address cross-cutting issues that affect the classroom from a social and sustainable leadership perspective.

Judicial Ideology Emerges, At Last, In Second Amendment Cases

Americans seem increasingly divided along party lines when asked general questions of value regarding gun policy. Partisan divides are sometimes smaller for relatively specific policy questions, interestingly, but gaps can be found either way. One might also expect ideological divides when judges decide constitutional claims to gun rights. Those claims are not governed by any rigid and comprehensive doctrine. And yet, in an earlier study of federal circuit court cases decided from 2008 through early 2016, no ideological divide between judges was apparent. With more recent data, however, we cannot as easily suggest that judges are special in the struggle over gun policy. For 2016–2018, three different proxies for judge ideology are significant predictors of judge votes in civil gun rights cases. We estimate a 21-point gap between Republican and Democratic appointees in the probability of supporting a claim during that timeframe. Moreover, the gap appears to result primarily from Democratic appointees becoming less likely to support gun rights claims over time. The explanation for this shift does not appear to be new judges, however. On average, President Obama’s appointees do not seem to vote differently from other Democratic appointees. The best explanation for the change is not yet known. Possibilities include new judicial attitudes, new issues arising from post-Newtown firearms regulation, and a new political environment initiated by the 2016 presidential campaign. In any event, judicial review in gun rights cases is beginning to look more like larger disagreements in this country over concrete gun policy proposals—disagreements with which we are quite familiar.

The Quinean Assumption. The Case for Science as Public Reason

ABSTRACTThe status of scientific knowledge in political liberalism is controversial. Although Rawls argued that the noncontroversial methods and conclusions of science belong to the kind of reasons that citizens can legitimately call forth in public deliberation, critics have observed that the complexity and elaborateness of scientific arguments drive them away from the spirit of public reason, i.e., that which should reflect judgments that are the product of general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense. In other words, scientific claims remain as inaccessible as esoteric or religious reasons. This paper contends that this objection can be met by introducing a crucial assumption, drawn from W. V. O. Quine and the ‘naturalized epistemology’ tradition: that scientific reasoning and everyday reasoning are not two different epistemic categories but rather form a continuum. The former is just a filtered or refined version of the latter. Accordingly, evidence-based scientific reasoning is common to all citizens, regardless of their actual acceptance of specific scientific claims. Following the Quinean Assumption, political liberals may argue that, unlike religious or esoteric sources of knowledge, scientific reasoning is the expression of a cognitive operation that is fundamentally shared across comprehensive doctrines and politically reasonable individuals.

THE PATH OF PSYCHOSPIRITUAL INTERVENTION FOR SELF HEALING: THE MULTI RELIGION PERSPECTIVES

Purpose: The research of spiritual-religion diversity based on culture shows that psychological health gets through worship, faith, and knowledge. The letter aims to find of self-healing method based on psycho-spiritual doctrine in the Indonesian culture.
 Methodology: The method of descriptive-qualitative is used to explore five informants who participate in every religion including Islam, Christian, Catholic, Hindu, and Buddha. The selection of informants based on certain criteria that they must have functional and structural of comprehensive spiritual-religious doctrine on the private higher education institution based on religion in Yogyakarta and Center Java. Besides, the informants are lecturer, man, and at least thirty years of age. Information gathering makes use of documentation, deep interview, and questionnaire method. Data analysis uses content analysis that has abstracted from finding of verbatim themes.
 Results: The result describes that each adherence of religion is convinced about all of the doctrine from their holy book. They convince that the doctrine has a solution for the psychological problem of human being, but the procedure and method are unique and specific, that is to become the identity of each religion. Healing level of the psychological problem depends on their worship, faith, and knowledge.
 Implications: The conclusion is that psycho-spiritual method based on religion can be able to increase the psychological health of adherence through self-healing. The research implication shows that they need to sustainable examination for the implementation of each method for adherence.

Political Confucianism and Multivariate Democracy in East Asia

AbstractSungmoon Kim's pragmatic Confucian democracy tries to provide a mediating position between the instrumental model and the intrinsic model of democracy. However, this model of Confucian democracy is problematic because it fails to justify the unique role Confucianism plays in accommodating democracy when it is one among many comprehensive doctrines in East Asia. To be truly pragmatic about democracy is to hold a pluralistic attitude toward how people will come to terms with it. This article aims to push the pragmatic tendency further and propose an alternative model of democracy that has a multivariate structure, a neutral state, and an active public role for Confucianism. This multivariate model represents a more promising future for democracy in East Asia.

What Parents May Teach Their Children

Many liberals assume that, while children should not be rigidly indoctrinated, parents may raise them according to their own comprehensive values. Matthew Clayton, however, argues that the reasons for embracing antiperfectionism in politics also apply to parental authority. In this paper, I defend the perfectionist conception of childrearing. I claim that we cannot realistically foster a child’s sense of justice without embedding it in a comprehensive doctrine. Furthermore, I argue that since parents cannot avoid bearing some responsibility for their children’s intial orientation to comprehensive doctrines, they are justified in parenting according to their own views of the valuable and true.

Public reason, civic trust and conclusions of science

Rawlsian idea of public reason refers to the boundaries on political justification of coercive laws and public policies that have wide impact on lives of citizens. The boundaries of public reason means that political justification should be based on reasons we can expect every citizen can reasonably accept independently of any comprehensive religious, philosophical or moral doctrine to which she adhere. In modern liberal democracies characterized by reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines it is unjustified for political argumentation to be based on claims that many citizens can not accept. As I understand it, the point of idea of public reason is to strengthen the relationship of civic trust or civic friendship that can ensure inherent stability of just political regime. An important part of the idea of public reason is how it incorporates scientific claims in political argumentation. Rawls writes that citizens are to base their public justification on „presently accepted general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense, and the methods and conclusions of science when those are not controversial.“ If the idea of public reason is the source of political stability it is necessary to answer what it means that conclusions of science are controversial in political and social context? First, scientific controversy is different from controversy of comprehensive doctrines. Science stands outside of comprehensive doctrines so conclusions of science will not be controversial because they clash with comprehensive beliefs, but they will be controversial if they rely on comprehensive beliefs. Second, if conclusions of science are controversial within scientific community, if there are some expert witness disputing its validity, then maybe value-judgments can enter to set standards for certification of the scientific claim. If potential consequences of scientific claim are bad for welfare of some group in society than standards of evidence that will certify this claim must go up. Finally, even if some scientific claim has been certified it still can be controversial as a premise in political justification. The reason can be that certification has not been transparent and many citizens do not realize that this claim is part of scientific consensus. Again, the criterion for controversy of scientific conclusions in political context is connected to the notion of trust and not to the validity of scientific claim or supportive evidence by itself.

A Comprehensive Doctrine for an Evolving Threat: Countering Terrorist Use of Social Networks

Terrorists are using social media for the mass dissemination of terrorism-supporting messages. Activating the “long arm of the law” mechanism over media corporations, similar to that in the financial sector, will help to eradicate this phenomenon. The article describes the structure of a holistic framework that expands legal liability for the publication of terrorism-supporting content so that it applies to the entire chain of participants facilitating its distribution: the corporation, the platform, the Web-user publishing the content, and the Web-user viewing the content. The article proposes an adaptation of criminal legal tools at the state and international levels, as well as tools from the field of civil law; finally, the article argues that civil society also has the power to generate social change and to shape a mindset that imposes corporate liability on user content.

Confucian Democracy and a Pluralistic Li-Ki Metaphysics

This essay explores the possible constructive role of a Confucian metaphysics in the pluralistic Confucian-democratic context of South Korea. In his recent landmark study, Sungmoon Kim has argued that South Korean democracy is sustained by a public culture of civility that is grounded in Confucian habits and mores and yet is pluralistic in ethos. I appreciatively interrogate Kim’s thesis in order to advance a claim that a comprehensive Confucian doctrine such as Confucian metaphysics can contribute significantly to the flourishing of Confucian democratic public culture, provided that it affirm a pluralistic ontology. I contend that the tradition of Korean Neo-Confucian li-ki metaphysics, particularly one found in the works of Nongmun Im Seong-ju, offers rich resources for a pluralistic ontology despite its history of ethical monism. By putting Nongmun’s thought in conversation with some of the contemporary critiques of the Schmittian (mis-)appropriation of the notion of popular sovereignty, I outline a pluralized version of the Rousseauian general will—a kind of critically affectionate solidarity of diverse groups of people—that is Confucian in character. My claim is that such a critically affectionate solidarity finds its grounds in and draws its nourishment from a pluralistic Confucian ontology.

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHURCH’S SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

This article responds to criticisms regarding pneumatology and the church’s social responsibility that are often joined and directed at Reformed tradition and theology. We will argue that, as reflected by its confessional standards, the Reformed tradition inherits a comprehensive doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, it also provides rich materials for Christian guidance and reflection on the church’s social responsibility. Therefore, if local churches neglect their social responsibility, it must not be because of the lack of the church’s teaching on its social responsibility; rather, the cause of this neglect has to be sought elsewhere.

At the Original Position as a Fetus: Rawlsian Political Theory, Human Rights, and the Pro-Life Imperative

The approach of liberal political philosopher John Rawls on the issue of abortion relied on his construct of “public reason,” in which citizens in a pluralistic democracy restrict the use of deliberative arguments and reasons which are drawn from their “irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines,” including their religious worldviews. From this reasoning, Rawls concludes that a just society is one which includes the legal right to abortion. However, I contend that the use of another of Rawls’s theories — “justice as fairness” — leads to an alternate conclusion: that legally sanctioned abortion represents the unjust persecution of a specific population — the unborn. This theoretical approach lends itself to the conclusion that a just society ought to protect the fetus as a uniquely vulnerable position in society.

Rethinking the Politics–Religion Distinction

ABSTRACTWilliam T. Cavanaugh argues that the politics–religion distinction presupposes covert commitments that inappropriately support a “migration of the holy” from the church to the state. Despite his strong critical instincts, several of his genealogical propensities appear to stand in tension with his commitments to constitutional democracy and the universality of grace. By contrast with Cavanaugh, John Rawls’ post-metaphysical reformulation of the politics–religion aims to identify a public criterion compatible with a plurality of comprehensive doctrines. Although I commend Rawls for retaining some form of this distinction, I question the possibility of a post-metaphysical standpoint and its compatibility with his commitment to what he calls the “fact of pluralism.” Drawing on Bernard Lonergan’s transpositions of human nature and grace in this paper’s final section, I develop an alternative account of the relationship between politics and religion that aims to harmonize some of the strongest insights from the work of Cavanaugh and Rawls.

A Federal Question Doctrine for EU Fundamental Rights Law: Making Sense of Articles 51 and 53 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights

The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (Charter) has attracted both praise and criticism. The specific critique is that there is no way of knowing where the stopping point for the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) reaching into national law is. On one level, this is the problem of how easily the jurisdiction of the CJEU in fundamental rights cases is triggered: it is addressed by Article 51 of the Charter and the sometimes very controversial case law thereunder. On another level, however, the question becomes what room is left for rights protected under national or international law, even if the CJEU may have jurisdiction over the matter. This is addressed by Article 53 of the Charter, which, unfortunately, does not receive sufficient attention in the case law. Accordingly, there does not appear much, if any, room for deviation from the EU standard. This is due to the fact that, somewhat counterintuitively, EU fundamental rights law is often perceived as dealing with powers rather than rights. Using US law as a point of comparison, it will be argued that the focus needs to shift back to rights, which must lie at the heart of a more comprehensive EU fundamental rights doctrine. The argument will proceed as follows: first, I will explain the lack of coherence in EU fundamental rights law, which is in particular due to an unsatisfactory trade-off between a competency-based approach and a pure rights rationale. Second, I will argue that a more fruitful interaction between Article 51 of the Charter (dealing with EU jurisdiction), and Article 53 (dealing with standards of rights protection) would improve this trade-off. Third, I will show that re-focusing on rights would make room for a more coherent and comprehensive EU fundamental rights doctrine that would also fit into EU internal market, citizenship, and private law.

Religious Authority in Public Spaces: The Challenge of Jurisdictional Pluralism

The new significance of religion in Australian politics raises serious questions about how our politics is conceived and conducted. Liberal theorists have proposed three successive approaches to resolving the problem of religious disagreement in a diverse society. The first was to propose that reason, rather than religion, should bind the society together; that individuals should be free to continue to practice their religion privately, but that religion must no longer play a guiding role in public life. The second liberal solution was to extend the prohibition to all ‘comprehensive doctrines’, whether religious or secular, and to insist that state power must only operate on the basis of ‘public reasons’ that any sensible person could in principle understand and accept. The third liberal solution has been to propose that secular reason and religious conviction operate in a deliberative dialogue with each other, in which each recognises its limitations and its reliance on the other. However, the relationship between religion and politics is today being challenged by a new development that none of these approaches can really address. This development is the re-emergence and intensification of legal and jurisdictional pluralism. Jurisdictional pluralism challenges the liberal settlement, not by threatening to ‘take over’ the state as such, but by developing alternative forms of public order that exist alongside those of the state. This development requires us to think about the relationship between religion and the state in a different way: one in which religion doesn’t simply inhabit spaces that are private while the state possesses monopolistic control over the public sphere. In this renewed religious politics, religion seeks to define, create and inhabit spaces that are just about as public as those governed by the secular state. This is a situation that our politics has only just begun to think about.

The Canadian Living Tree Doctrine as a Comparative Model of Evolutionary Constitutional Interpretation

Abstract This paper starts with a general contextualisation of how Canadian constitutional law acquired an important role in global constitutional conversations in recent decades. It then considers, in particular, the well-known Canadian Living tree doctrine as a model of evolutionary constitutional interpretation, and argues that it is a relevant case study for our purposes since it is able to precisely link the ‘history, evolution, influence and reform’ of constitutional law in a comprehensive doctrine. The doctrine's comparative influence will be analysed in particular: the Living tree is especially relevant, since its comparative influence is traceable both in the work of courts that are historical participants in transnational judicial conversations, and courts that are new players in the game.

Liberalizm Marthy C. Nussbaum: między autonomią jednostki a polityczną tolerancją

Martha C. Nussbaum w oparciu o teorię sprawności (capabilities approach) tworzy wizję powszechnego ładu politycznego opartego na szacunku i tolerancji. Czy rzeczywiście jej teoria może stać się podstawą międzynarodowego liberalizmu politycznego? Wszak nosi ona wyraźne cechy opcji światpoglądowej – etyki moralnej autonomii jednostki. W dyskusji z Lindą Barclay Nussbuam odcina się od takiej interpretacji. Podkreśla pluralistyczny i uniwersalistyczny charakter swoich rozwiązań. Chce, aby konsensus oparty na teorii sprawności przekroczył bariery kultur, religii i narodowości. Stawia więc cele ambitniejsze niż sam Rawls, czołowy polityczny liberał. Wskazuje też inne, poza Rawlsem, źródła idei liberalizmu politycznego. Piętnuje dostrzegany u Berlina i Raza brak szacunku wobec religii.