[lit-ideas] Re: Religion & Public Reason
- From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>, "Lit-Ideas@Freelists. Org" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 10:19:59 +0700
Walter O. wrote:
"I don't think that references to "the lawfulness of laws" - i.e. that
all are equally subject to its legislative legitimacy and coercive
sanctions - are sufficiently specific and concrete for purposes of
informing immigrants of limits to possible claims of violations of
Charter freedoms to religious exercise. Many people entering the
Canadian community do so under the assumption that not only will their
economic lot in life improve but that they will be able to construct
and pursue flourishing lives for themselves and their families without
having to compromise what they consider to be their rights to
religious exercise. They are often deeply mistaken and once they're
here, some believe themselves to be cheated by laws that putatively
contradict such rights."
Virtually all of the immigrants I have met in Canada have come with
the awareness that they will have to adapt to the conditions in
Canada. They understand that they will have to learn English or/and
French, they will live in very different communities, and they will
have to compromise when it comes to cultural and religious traditions.
They may not be able to appreciate the degree to which they will need
to compromise, but my sense is that they realize that there will have
to be compromise. This was my experience having lived in downtown
Toronto in a university environment that attracted people from every
part of the world. I don't know how representative this experience
is, but I suspect Walter might be wrong on these facts.
I don't think that immigrants should receive a lecture in political
philosophy, but rather, what I think needs to be made clear is that
they need to make themselves aware of the laws of the land because, in
Canada, these laws are enforced. Not the laws of Somalia, or
Indonesia, or Scotland, but the laws of Canada. Whatever objections
immigrants have regarding the restrictions these laws may place on
cultural or religious practices would then be focused where they
belong, on the laws of the land, rather than on discussions of rights.
This is what I mean by the lawfulness of laws. If people feel that
their rights are being infringed on, then they should be encouraged to
contribute to the political process that produces the laws of Canada.
Walter continues:
"I believe that educating people into the democratic way of life
requires the giving of *public* reasons for the impermissibility of
maxims that may be otherwise deemed permissible or even obligatory by
certain religious or other cultural commitments. (And conversely.)
Abstract allusions to "the lawfulness of laws" doesn't much help here
since that conception and its attendant imperative is often
(mis)understood with reference to some substantive conception of the
good/authentic life - conceptions that may contradict the notion of
constitutional democracy as a procedural form of governance grounded
in universal conditions of argumentation/discourse."
I am trying to distinguish between the process involved in creating
laws, and the functioning of these laws. When it comes to people who
commit crimes, for whatever reasons including religious or 'hate', the
state should focus on the functioning of the legal system. It is
irrelevant whether someone commits a crime because God told them or
because they hate Muslims. These are 'private' reasons and have no
place in the functioning of the law. There are the laws of the land
and they apply equally to everyone, regardless of the beliefs they
hold and the reasons they employ. This is why I think immigrants
should be made aware of the fact that Canada has its own distinct set
of laws that will be different from other countries.
Where the evaluation of private and public reasons, as well as the
permissibility or impermissibility of maxims, is appropriate, is in
the political process of legislating laws. In this process, people
will give private reasons, that is reasons that belong to a particular
institution or way of life. For example, in discussing a tax bill, a
branch of the government will offer an assessment of the impact the
bill would have on government revenues, or a religious group might
offer an assessment of the impact on the poor. Also in this process,
people will give public reasons, that is reasons that are not
restricted by institutions or ways of life. For example, people may
object that the government's assessment of the bill's impact ignores
important factors. Or people may object to the religious group by
arguing that they misunderstand how the bill applies to the poor. In
short, it is in the making of laws that private and public reasons
matter. It is in the political process that people contribute their
substantive conceptions of the good/authentic life and people evaluate
these contributions in order to reach a degree of agreement on a
legislative bill that would then become a law. The political process
is, then, the appropriate venue for discussing religious rights and
how laws might or might not infringe on these rights.
Walter concludes:
"I'm not clear on what Phil's objections to Habermas and Rawls on
these matters are about. Perhaps those objections are tied to Phil's
idea that legal processes in a democracy are somehow to be
differentiated from rational processes/procedures of reason-giving? I
would support a differentiation between the two, but with the proviso
that the former must be grounded in the latter."
I don't understand how there can be a rational process/procedure of
reason-giving without a clear sense of the law. In Kant's terms,
reason has its force because it commands in a law-like fashion.
Similarly, I don't understand how there can be anything like a law
without some form of a rational process/procedure of reason-giving.
For these reasons, it makes sense to me that reason-giving and
lawfulness are distinct but necessary for each other, and that neither
can be a ground for the other. Both Habermas and Rawls fail to
maintain this balance and therefore misunderstand the significance of
both reason-giving and lawfulness.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Indonesia
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