Religious Commitment and Secular Reason

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Cambridge University Press, 2000 M03 13 - 258 pages
Many religious people are alarmed about features of the current age--violence in the media, a pervasive hedonism, a marginalization of religion, and widespread abortion. These concerns influence politics, but just as there should be a separation between church and state, so should there be a balance between religious commitments and secular arguments calling for social reforms. Robert Audi offers a principle of secular rationale, which does not exclude religious grounds for action but which rules out restricting freedom except on grounds that any rational citizen would accept. This book describes the essential commitments of free democracy, explains how religious and secular moral considerations can be integrated to facilitate cooperation in a world of religious pluralism, and proposes ideals of civic virtue that express the mutual respect on which democracy depends.

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Contents

THE PLURALITY OF PATHS TO LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
3
LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
4
OUTLINES OF A CASE FOR LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
8
FREEDOM AND COERCION
27
THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
31
THREE CENTRAL PRINCIPLES OF CHURCHSTATE SEPARATION
32
CHURCHSTATE SEPARATION VIEWED FROM A RELIGIOUS STANDPOINT
41
PUBLIC OBSERVANCES EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND TAX EXEMPTION
51
THE PRINCIPLE OF THEOETHICAL EQUILIBRIUM
135
THEOLOGY AND THE AUTONOMY OF ETHICS
139
CIVIC VIRTUE AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM IN A RELIGIOUSLY PLURALISTIC DEMOCRACY
143
CIVIC VIRTUE
145
VIRTUES AS NORMATIVELY STRUCTURED ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER
146
THE GROUNDS OF CIVIC VIRTUE
149
CIVIC VIRTUE AND THE GROUNDS FOR SOCIOPOLITICAL ACTION
155
CIVIC VIRTUE AND THE BALANCING OF RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR REASONS
163

CHURCHSTATE SEPARATION AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF GOVERNMENTAL POWER
59
A SURROGACY CONCEPTION OF JUSTIFIED COERCION
65
THE POSITIVE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS ARGUMENTS IN A LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
69
THE ETHICS OF CITIZENSHIP AND THE BALANCE OF RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ARGUMENTS
79
RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS AND SECULAR REASONS
81
RELIGION POLITICS AND THE ETHICS OF CITIZENSHIP
82
TWO PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP
86
SOME PROBLEMS OF APPLICATION
105
THE ETHICS OF CITIZENSHIP AND THE ACCOMMODATION OF RELIGION
109
RELIGION AND ETHICS TOWARD INTEGRATION
116
RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
123
THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS CONSIDERATIONS IN CIVIC DISCOURSE
168
INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSIONS OF CIVIC VIRTUE
176
RELIGIOUS CONVICTION AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM
181
PREVENTION OF KILLING THE INNOCENT AS A RATIONALE FOR VIOLENCE
182
SOME ARGUMENTS FOR PERSONHOOD AT CONCEPTION
187
THE RESTRICTION OF ABORTION AND THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE
195
VIOLENCE AND COERCION VERSUS CIVILIZED DISAGREEMENT AND PERSUASION
204
ETHICS RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY
209
NOTES
217
INDEX
253
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