adequate secular reasons — or not
On Kathleen Parker’s claim that religious conservatives need to make arguments for their positions without invoking God, Larison surveys the arguments and the links. About this controversy I have just two things to say:
1) The issues at stake were thoroughly and intelligently hashed out more than a decade ago in this book by two Christian philosophers, Robert Audi and Nick Wolterstorff. Audi thinks that religious believers in the public sphere always need to present “adequate secular reasons” for their views; Wolterstorff has his doubts about that.
2) What religious believers should be doing in these situations depends on what they hope to achieve. If your primary concern is to influence public policy, then of course you should use the arguments that are most likely to persuade people whose support you need, which may mean keeping some of your own distinctive convictions in the background. But some Christians believe that something is more important than influencing public policy, and that is bearing public witness to Christian faith and practice. And if that’s your primary goal, then coming up with “adequate secular reasons” for your beliefs is pretty much the last thing you’ll want to do. But then of course you shouldn’t complain if people find your arguments puzzling or even repulsive.
I have a friend that is a Christian Ethicist. He contends that it is impossible to adequately explain to a non-Christian, the Christian reasons for a particular decision. While I understand his point I think your last point is very important. If you can’t explain something to someone, then you can’t be upset when people don’t understand you. I think that is part of the point of the Mystery of Christianity.
— Adam S · Dec 12, 03:40 PM · #
Rolling back through any set of premises inevitably ends in air. The main question is, at what altitude are you comfortable jumping off.
— JA · Dec 12, 04:40 PM · #
Alan, you’ve probably seen it already, but I think this Douthat-from-Derbyshire post is fascinating.
— JA · Dec 12, 05:12 PM · #
I don’t quite align with JA here. I agree with the general point, but for me “rolling back through any set of premises” leads not to air, but to rock. You get to first principles where the only explanation, like an exasperated parent to a hyper-inquisitive child, is “It just is!” Lewis’ The Abolition of Man concludes on this basic point.
So the goal for any policy debate, not just moral ones, is to agree on first principles and derive arguments from there. Thankfully most people in this country agree that liberty, equality, and justice are good first principles, disagreeing largely on what happens when they come into conflict. But I am not sure they are any more rational than Christian first principles. So while I agree that we should use these secular principles to argue policy rather (or perhaps in addition to) Christian principles whenever possible, that is largely due to the practical reality that the former is widely accepted and the latter less so.
— Blar · Dec 12, 08:08 PM · #
Blar:
I think what you mean by “rock” and what JA means by “air” are the same thing: basically, axioms.
So the goal for any policy debate, not just moral ones, is to agree on first principles and derive arguments from there.
I’m not soi sure about that. I think that one of DeToq’s great observations is that the practice of democratic government teaches people that they can sometimes disagree radically about philosphical premises, and still agree about practical issues. Often the village communist and the President of the Chamber of Commerce can agree that the frickin’ pothole at the corner of Third and St. Clair needs to be filled in, pronto.
Alan:
Great post.
— Jim Manzi · Dec 12, 09:55 PM · #
Not to disagree with the esteemed Mr. Manzi, but I think Tocqueville would be better described as arguing that American democracy worked to the degree that its citizens shared, often unreflectively, a set of moral premises that he thought were pretty closely tied to Christianity. He seemed to think that democratic societies where everyone was left to their own devices, at least with respect to foundational moral claims, was one in which we’d all be in some serious trouble.
On the religious reasons claims, I’d suggest Chris Eberle’s book Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics.
— Bryan · Dec 12, 11:43 PM · #
I loves Jim’s comment because it exhorts the tendency in myself to self-indulgently create abstractions. I’ll try to reign it in, but try to imagine why the communist and capitalist would agree to fix streets and you will eventually get to some first principle about a functional civic society that is frankly irreducible.
As for “air” versus “rock,” I figured JA meant axioms in much the same way I did, but “air” makes it sound like axioms are vague things that tend to dissipate when you examine them too closely. I think they are a little more concrete than that.
— Blar · Dec 13, 06:27 PM · #
“You get to first principles where the only explanation, like an exasperated parent to a hyper-inquisitive child, is “It just is!””
How is that not air? I have to disagree heartily with Blar. Public policy is not about first principles, it’s about ends that all (or most) parties agree are unsuitable and how to address them. Public policy is moderation writ large; it’s the pragmatism that has to temper whatever idealism motivates the disparate actors.
Or I could just scroll down and agree with Mr. Manzi.
— James F. Elliott · Dec 15, 10:44 PM · #
“it’s about ends that all (or most) parties agree are unsuitable and how to address them”
And on what basis would most parties agree to the suitability of ends, if not for some agreement on first principles?
— Blar · Dec 16, 04:39 PM · #
My problem with the religious right isn’t that they cite religious reasons for their policy positions. My problem with the religious right is their unspoken assumption that religious citizens ought to have more political power than secular citizens. I have no problem with faith used as a reference to moral values. But in American politics, an appeal to faith is usually a disguised argument from authority — “I have faith, and you don’t, and therefore I know God’s will, and you don’t, so I should have power and you shouldn’t.” The religious right doesn’t have a public relations problem. It naturally generates opposition from secular people who see the mixture of religion and politics as an attack on their liberties.
— Jerry · Dec 16, 07:01 PM · #
I don’t know if anyone still cares about my eccentric point about policy and first principles, but a good potential counter-argument occurred to me. One could agree that the notion of the need for healthy civic infrastructure is irreducibly axiomatic; however, nearly everyone agrees on the principle, yet we still have arguments about best implementation. Therefore, the crux of such policy disagreements is not with the principles, but with procedures. I could think of counter-counter-arguments, but this is enough of a distraction.
Anyway, my original point was that everything we do is rooted in first principles, spoken and unspoken. Just because we tend to agree on unspoken first principles, which makes discussing them moot; that does not make arguments based on explicit principles illegitimate.
— Blar · Dec 16, 09:40 PM · #