[lit-ideas] Re: Reason and Politics
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:49:56 -0230
I don't think the issue here is a matter of the tenets of a religion. Democracy
as a political system, and rationality as a system of universal imperatives,
are obligated to disregard the truth or rightness of any religious view. The
question for your account is really how and whether Enlightenment values of
benefit maximization (or any other E. value, for that matter) can legitimately
trump the right to religious expression in a pluralist democracy where freedom
of religion is a charter or constitutional right. "Successful pluralism" surely
involves a fair system of cooperation between all cultural and religious groups
in which the rights of all are protected. I'm not clear on how the preservation
of any one right can be "a subsidiary goal" to the preservation of other
rights.
Walter Okshevsky
Memorial U.
Quoting Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> >>Suppose someone were to aver: 'There is no true freedom
> of religion in a democracy if there is no freedom to burn
> heretics and apostates as required by our religion.' What
> would the proper response be to such a claim?"
>
> And why were Satanists overlooked in Bush's so-called
> faith-based initiatives? Surely they could have run a soup
> kitchen between animal sacrifices.
>
> Suppose the answer is that in a liberal democracy,
> Enlightenment values of maximum happiness overrule the
> tenets of any particular religion? The highest goal being
> successful pluralism -- goals subsidiary to that being
> freedom of religion, speech, usw.
>
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