Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics (Part 2): The Ideal of Conscientious Engagement

Yesterday I posted an introduction to the major questions that Chris Eberle explores in his book Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics. I indicated that in my next post I would summarize Eberle's case against the doctrine of restraint, but it has become clear to me that it would be better for me to precede this with a summary of what Eberle's position shares in common with justificatory liberalism (JL). Thus, I'll reserve discussion of the doctrine of restraint for a future post. Today I'll talk about the "ideal of conscientious engagement."

Let's imagine citizen X, a religious person deeply concerned by the direction that culture has taken (note: I'm purposefully avoiding language like "moral decline" or "social injustice" so as to not suggest that citizen X is by nature conservative or liberal. The exact issues of concern are not relevant to the point I'm illustrating). Citizen X feels strongly about a variety of issues, and his religious faith inspires him to speak out on these issues in order to steer public policy to address these problems. But citizen X is faced with a choice about how, precisely, he speaks out about these issues. Citizen X could, for example, simply offer zealous defenses of public policies that flow from his deeply held beliefs irrespective of the protests of citizens who do not share these beliefs. He could strive to martial political power so that policies are enacted consistent with his deeply held beliefs. He could blithely ignore the objections of non-believers, dismissing their reasons as evidence of their heterodoxy or moral depravity.

Liberal theorists would treat this sort of posturing as a quintessential example of disrespect. To ignore the voice of other citizens who do not share one's deeply held religious beliefs is illiberal; we are being bad citizens when we do so. Fortunately, other postures are available to citizen X. Citizen X could choose to conscientiously engage other citizens who do not share his deeply held beliefs. Eberle, with justificatory liberals, argues that conscientious engagement is critical to meaning of respect in a liberal democracy. Conscientious engagement entails some constraints on how we engage other citizens. Eberle highlights 6 constraints that make up the ideal of conscientious engagement. To demonstrate respect for other citizens, Citizen X will do the following (104-105):

(1) She will pursue a high degree of rational justification for the claim that a favored coercive policy is morally appropriate.
(2) She will withhold support from a given coercive policy if she can't acquire a sufficiently high degree of rational justification for the claim that that policy is morally appropriate.
(3) She will attempt to communicate to her compatriots her reasons for coercing them.
(4) She will pursue public justification for her favored coercive policies.
(5) She will listen to her compatriots' evaluation of her reasons for her favored coercive policies with the intention of learning from them about the moral (im)propriety of those policies.
(6) She will not support any policy on the basis of a rationale that denies the dignity of her compatriots.

The ideal of conscientious engagement points to the critical role of discourse in liberal democratic politics. Because laws are coercive it is important that citizens remain open to the reasons offered by other citizens about the merits of public policies, especially those citizens with whom we disagree. In public discourse respect requires that we pursue reasons that we can reasonably expect other citizens will accept, even when we disagree with one another about our comprehensive beliefs (Note: Eberle's appeal to public justification in (4), above, is problematic in relation to the overall logic of his book, in which one of the central claims is that there is no way of establishing a coherent, defensible account of what qualifies as public reason. I hope to address this in a future post).

I'll conclude this post with a concrete example that will clarify what it means to live up to the ideal of conscientious engagement. Public policy pertaining to same-sex relations stands as one of the more controversial public policy issues today. One could well imagine religiously motivated citizens--Christians who believe that same-sex relationships are against natural and divine law, for example--calling for the repeal of laws that forbid discrimination against same sex couples, or advocating for the reestablishment of sodomy laws that punish consensual same-sex activity. Let's imagine that Citizen X is a religiously-motivated citizen of this sort. He is morally opposed to gay marriage. He is against public policies that in his view legitimize same-sex sexual activity (e.g. anti-discrimination laws that protect gay and lesbian individuals), and he laments the invalidation of sodomy laws by the 2003 Supreme Court ruling, Lawrence V. Texas . According to Eberle, the ideal of conscientious engagement requires that citizen X make an earnest effort to communicate the merits of these policies to citizens who do not share his religious beliefs. Citizen X needs to take seriously that the coercive laws that he supports will cause no small amount of distress for those citizens who do not share his beliefs. Thus, he must
seek reasons that these other citizens might reasonably accept, even when these reasons are not the primary reasons why he himself advocates these laws. Citizen X must adopt a posture of openness to the counterclaims of other citizens. On these matters Eberle's vision of liberal democratic respect coincides with that of justificatory liberals.

This is another long post, so I'll close with a cliffhanger. Eberle and justificatory liberals agree about the importance of conscientious engagement. But what does respect require when public reasons are unavailable or evidentially insufficient to justify a public policy? On this point Eberle parts company with JL. I'll turn my attention to this in my next post.