عنوان

What Is Wrong with Divinitia?

LA126863

انگلیسی

What Is Wrong with Divinitia?

[Article]

Zofia Stemplowska

Leiden

Brill

Theorists of liberalism put forward diverse conditions for what makes a state just and legitimate. In what follows I examine Cécile Laborde's suggestion that a just and legitimate liberal state may have an established religion. Such a state may take the form of what she calls Divinitia: a state with some symbolic recognition of religion, conservative laws in matters of bioethics including abortion, religious accommodation from general laws, and religious references in public debate. I argue that Laborde's requirement that public justification of policies by public officials is conducted in terms of accessible reasons either rules out too many or too few policies. I then suggest that not only justice but also the legitimacy of states can be ensured only if concern for justice has a greater role to play in the selection of state policies than Laborde suggests. We have good reasons to doubt that Divinita would qualify as just and legitimate. Theorists of liberalism put forward diverse conditions for what makes a state just and legitimate. In what follows I examine Cécile Laborde's suggestion that a just and legitimate liberal state may have an established religion. Such a state may take the form of what she calls Divinitia: a state with some symbolic recognition of religion, conservative laws in matters of bioethics including abortion, religious accommodation from general laws, and religious references in public debate. I argue that Laborde's requirement that public justification of policies by public officials is conducted in terms of accessible reasons either rules out too many or too few policies. I then suggest that not only justice but also the legitimacy of states can be ensured only if concern for justice has a greater role to play in the selection of state policies than Laborde suggests. We have good reasons to doubt that Divinita would qualify as just and legitimate.

2019

104-113

Secular Studies

1/1

2589-2525

accessibility

democracy

legitimacy

liberalism

public justification

religion

Zofia Stemplowska

10.1163/25892525-00101007

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y