[lit-ideas] Re: Religion & Public Reason
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:31:24 -0230
Quoting Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Walter O. wrote:
>
> In other words, a "democracy" originally refers to a way of speaking
> ... a way of giving reasons to others. This is what we need to teach
> our young and our 'New Canadians.' ... Perhaps we need to clarify
> these imp. points to immigrants coming over in search of "freedom of
> religious exercise." We need to make it explicitly clear that "honour
> killings" will land you in jail for a very long time, as will physical
> and/or emotional abuse of your children. And that if you wish to have
> a drivers license issued to you, you will have to have a picture taken
> of your face - graven images or not. And if you are a Sikh and you
> wish to be a member of the Ontario Motorcycle Patrol, you will have to
> remove your turban and wear a motorcycle helmet. Surely these are not
> Draconian maxims. After all, Canada is not La France!"
Phil:
> A few quibbles.
>
> First, the important points that Walter suggests should be pointed out
> to immigrants are not reasons nor ways of speaking. And I think it is
> a good thing that they are not reasons or ways of speaking. Contra
> Rawls and Habermas, what distinguishes liberal democracies, like
> Canada, is not a rational process but rather a legal process within
> which Canadians organize their social and political lives. So, as
> Walter notes, we have laws about killing, driver identification and
> road safety. There will have been many reasons why these laws were
> passed, and these reasons were not necessarily shared by all those
> supporting the laws, but for the sake of the country/province, what
> matters is the lawfulness of those laws. That is, what matters is
> these laws are understood as providing equal and fair constraints or
> rights on all, and that these constraints and rights are enforced by
> the coercive powers of the government.
>
> Second, when it comes to killing, drivers licenses and helmets, that
> some objections to laws are religious is irrelevant. What
> distinguishes Canada from France is that, in general, Canadian law
> does not concern itself with religious matters, only legal matters.
> What makes the French prohibition of the hijab or niqab objectionable
> is the obvious hypocrisy of a radically secular state concerning
> itself with religious reasons. I would, then, revise Walter's points
> so that all immigrants were made aware that the laws of Canada,
> including laws regarding killing, driver identification and road
> safety, apply equally to all people in Canada.
>
> It is this emphasis on the lawfulness of laws, as opposed to their
> reasons, which distinguishes Canada from France.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Phil Enns
Walter:
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. Examples of this I have provided in my post above.
I believe that ducating 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'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.
Perhaps Phil can inform us of his concerns here?
Walter O
MUN
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