Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism: The Foundational Crisis of the Separation of Church and State

by Owen, J. Judd

• ISBN13: 9780226641928
• ISBN10: 0226641929
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

If liberalism is premised on inclusion, pluralism, and religious neutrality, can the separation of church and state be said to have a unitary and rational foundation? If we accept that there are no self-evident principles of morality or politics, then doesn't any belief in a rational society become a sort of faith? And how can liberalism mediate impartially between various faiths--as it aims to do--if liberalism itself is one of the competing faiths? J. Judd Owen answers these questions with a remarkable critical analysis of four twentieth-century liberal and postliberal thinkers: John Dewey, John Rawls and, most extensively, Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish. His unique readings of these theorists and their approaches to religion lead him to conclusions that are meticulously constructed and surprising, arguing against the perception of liberalism as simple moral or religious neutrality, calling into question the prevailing justifications for separation of church and state, and challenging the way we think about the very basis of constitutional government.

Author Biography

J. Judd Owen is an assistant professor of political science at Emory University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
If Liberalism Is a Faith, What Becomes of the Separation of Church and State?	1	(14)
Pragmatism, Liberalism, and the Quarrel between Science and Religion	15	(25)
Rorty's Repudiation of Epistemology	40	(27)
Rortian Irony and the ``De-divinization'' of Liberalism	67	(30)
Religion and Rawls's Freestanding Liberalism	97	(32)
Stanley Fish and the Demise of the Separation of Church and State	129	(22)
Fish, Locke, and Religious Neutrality	151	(14)
Reason, Indifference, and the Aim of Religious Freedom	165	(8)
Appendix: A Reply to Stanley Fish	173	(8)
Notes	181	(18)
Bibliography	199	(8)
Index	207