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DOI: 10.1177/0191453708098761

2009 35: 215Philosophy Social CriticismJames W. Boettcher

Habermas, religion and the ethics of citizenship

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James W. Boettcher

Habermas, religion and theethics of citizenship

Abstract A recent essay by Jrgen Habermas revisits political liberalism

and takes up the question of the extent to which democratic citizens andofficials should rely on their religious convictions in publicly deliberatingabout and deciding political issues. With his institutional translation proviso,a proposed alternative to Rawls idea of public reason, Habermas hopes tododge familiar (and often overstated) criticisms that liberal requirementsof citizenship are unfair or disproportionately burdensome to religiousbelievers. I argue that, due in part to its sharp contrast between the obli-gations attributed to political officials and those attributed to ordinarycitizens, Habermas position is beset by additional, quite considerable diffi-culties. I conclude that Habermas account of religion in the public sphere

does not present a genuine alternative to the leading liberal theory of citizen-ship and public reasoning.

Key words citizenship deliberation liberalism Jrgen Habermas public reason John Rawls religion and politics

In keeping with a traditional aim of critical theory to address the strugglesof the age, Jrgen Habermas has turned his attention to one of the morepressing concerns of contemporary democratic societies, namely, the

problem of religiously and culturally based disagreement and conflict.From the standpoint of his discourse theory of democracy, Habermaswritings over the past several years have increasingly addressed issuesof toleration, cultural rights and the relationship between the religiousand the secular in a postsecular age.1 A recent essay, Religion in thePublic Sphere, also revisits Rawlsian political liberalism, this time withparticular emphasis on the proper role of religion in political discourseand decision-making. The central question of this recent essay concernsthe extent to which democratic citizens and officials may rely on their

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religious convictions in publicly deliberating about and deciding mattersof law and policy.

This latest analysis of political liberalism may seem to fit a familiar

pattern. Reflecting on the long-awaited 1995 exchange of essays betweenRawls and Habermas, Charles Larmore has observed that while Habermasstressed the differences between their respective political philosophies,Rawls instead sought to locate common ground.2 One suspects thatRawls would have adopted a similar approach, had he responded to asubsequent essay in which Habermas clarified and sharpened one of hismain lines of criticism against political liberalism.3 Habermas morerecent essay raises new criticisms, challenging the Rawlsian understand-ing of the public-political role of religion. Engaging the literature on

public reason and religion, he hopes to stake out a middle positionbetween Rawls and his many critics. But, as I shall argue, the require-ments of citizenship entailed by the most plausible version of this positionare in the end not so different from those of Rawlsian public reason.

Perhaps this is not especially surprising, considering some of Haber-mas other references to Rawls. While he had once contrasted politicalliberalism with own discourse-theoretic Kantian Republicanism on thebasis of their different starting intuitions, he now refers to Kantianrepublicanism as a form of political liberalism.4 Moreover, in the earlieressays Habermas was mainly critical of the idea of overlapping consen-sus, which is said to present an insufficiently intersubjectivist model ofpublic justification. But this criticism does not appear in recent essays thatincorporate the Rawlsian insight that citizens should be able to locatedifferent moral justifications for political conceptions of justice whichare embedded as modules in their respective comprehensive doctrines.5

My focus will not be on the earlier critique of political liberalism,which Habermas had characterized in the first place as a mere familyquarrel.6 My main goal is instead to examine Habermas more recentaccount of religion in the public sphere, and to determine the extent to

which it provides an alternative to the liberal idea of public reason. Twofeatures of the Habermasian account are especially important in thisregard. First, Habermas distinguishes the stronger requirements associ-ated with the formal political decision-making of legislators and othergovernment officials from the weaker requirements that would applyto ordinary citizens in the public sphere. Only political officials andcandidates for office are required to justify their political decisions andconduct their political discussions with reasons that are generally access-ible and independent of religions doctrines. Second, Habermas proposes

an institutional translation proviso according to which all citizens wouldcontribute to the ongoing project of seeking appropriate secular trans-lations for politically relevant religious claims. I shall argue that the bestinterpretation of this position is one which shows it to involve many of

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the same expectations (and supposed burdens) as Rawlsian public reason-ing. Specifically, there are additional problems with Habermas insti-tutional translation proviso, and these problems could be avoided by

interpreting his account of religion in the public sphere as involvingrequirements of citizenship similar to those of the leading liberal ideaof public reason.

I begin in the first section by reviewing several relevant issues fromthe earlier RawlsHabermas debate in light of Habermas more recentwritings. In the main part of the paper (sections 2 through 4), I analyzethe Habermasian approach to religion and politics, comparing it topolitical liberalisms ideal of public reasoning. In section 5, I turn to anadditional feature of Habermas approach, namely, his understanding

of the appropriate political attitudes expected of non-religious citizensin a postsecular society. It is primarily with this treatment of the limitsof secularist worldviews that Habermas advances the contemporarydiscussion of religion and politics, reminding us that an ethics of citizen-ship applies equally to adherents of philosophical naturalism and othernon-religious comprehensive doctrines.

1 The 1990s RawlsHabermas debate

Despite its obvious importance for the project of political liberalism,religion does not emerge as a principal theme in the 1990s RawlsHabermas exchange of essays. Instead, according to a main line of criti-cism developed in Habermas essays of that period, political liberalismis faulted for not including an adequate theory of practical reason thatwould supply the standpoint i.e. the moral point of view from whichmoral questions and questions of justice could be resolved. At least twospecific problems are identified in this regard.

First, Habermas criticizes the Rawlsian account of justification and

normative validity. In his Reply to Habermas, Rawls had explainedthat there are three logical moments to the justification of a politicalconception of justice.7 A political conception is (a) pro tanto justifiedon the basis of political values alone and then (b) fully justified by indi-vidual citizens who must determine how to weigh and order politicaland non-political values within their comprehensive doctrines. Finally,a political conception is (c) publicly justified when all reasonable citizensundertake a full justification and mutually acknowledge the fact of theirhaving thereby arrived at an overlapping consensus. The problem with

this model, according to Habermas, is that citizens are denied an addi-tional standpoint from which the reasons for their convergence on apolitical conception would be jointly accessible. A political conceptionis supposed to provide public reasons content, but public justification

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of the political conception itself depends upon the non-public, groundingreasons of citizens various comprehensive doctrines. Thus prior to theemergence of an overlapping consensus, Habermas argues, citizens do

not have access to a public, intersubjectively shared perspective fromwhich they could make impartial judgments.8

A second, related problem concerns the priority of political valuesover non-political values in cases of conflict. This priority is an essential albeit, as Rawls admits, also seemingly paradoxical element in the ideaof public reason, insofar as citizens are sometimes required to exerciserestraint in their appeal to the non-political values of their comprehen-sive doctrines. Habermas argues that Rawls never actually demonstratesthis priority. He simply presupposes it, or sometimes expresses the hope

that reasonable citizens will themselves come to recognize it. Yet, paceRawls, the priority of political values is best understood as a require-ment of practical reason which must be imposedon competing world-views and which can only be justified by appeal to an epistemic authoritythat is itself independent of worldviews.9

The first problem identified by Habermas admits of a rather straight-forward solution, especially in light of Rawls later writings.10 For theemergence of an overlapping consensus on a publicly justified politicalconception of justice is not a precondition for public reasoning anddeliberation. Rawls explains that the content of public reason is suppliedby the family of reasonable political conceptions of justice. Each citizenappeals to the political conception that he or she takes to be most reason-able and to political values that others could be expected to endorse asat least reasonable.11 Thus the idea of reasonableness and the multiplereasonable political conceptions circumscribed by this idea are sufficientfor specifying a framework for public reasoning and deliberation; a pre-existing overlapping consensus is not necessary. Moreover the family ofreasonable political conceptions is said to be limited by the criterion ofreciprocity, which also provides a standpoint from which citizens politi-

cal claims and arguments are jointly accessible and criticizable. Accord-ing to this criterion, [o]ur exercise of political power is proper only whenwe sincerely believe that the reasons we would offer for our politicalactions were we to state them as government officials are sufficient,and we also reasonably think that other citizens might also reasonablyaccept those reasons.12

The second problem, concerning the priority of political values, is themore difficult one to resolve, given political liberalisms philosophicalmethod of avoidance. As is well known, insofar as political liberalism

makes use of ideas of practical reason e.g. specifying normative con-ceptions of the person and society these ideas are not drawn from acomprehensive moral theory that would also demonstrate how citizensshould balance prima facie obligations of public reason alongside their

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other moral or religious obligations, ideals and values. How, then, do weexplain an obligation to recognize the priority of political values in publicreason as a requirement that must be (morally) imposed on comprehen-

sive doctrines?This is a question that I have addressed elsewhere and shall not take

up here.13 But it is worth noting that a concern with the moral ground-ing of public reasons requirements is notexplicitly addressed in recentwritings in which Habermas appropriates the model of overlappingconsensus in order to explain the demands of religious tolerance.14

Drawing directly on Rawls in several recent essays, he avers that a politi-cal morality of human rights and equal respect for all is a module thatfits into [different] orthodox chains of justification.15 Hence, even for

Habermas, religious citizens are expected to justify a particular politicalmorality not as a modus vivendi but from within their religious doctrines,sometimes by revising and adapting traditional attitudes and teachings.In the case of an individual citizen, Habermas concludes that the politi-cal values of the liberal state must be seen as fully justified in the Rawlsiansense, that is, as derived from (or at least consistent with) premisessupplied by that citizens comprehensive doctrine.

2 Habermas on religion in the public sphere

The starting point for Habermas account of religion in the public sphereis an analysis of the Rawlsian idea of public reason. The main featuresof the latter idea are well known. As an ideal of citizenship, the idea ofpublic reason is supposed to govern deliberation and decision-makingabout fundamental political questions i.e. constitutional essentials andmatters of basic justice in the public political forum of courts, legisla-tures, governmental discourses and campaigns for office. It applies firstto political officials and ideally to citizens as well, when they decide

fundamental questions or when they otherwise enter the public politicalforum as advocates or discussants. The content of public reason consistsmainly of common sense, scientific and historical knowledge, and thepolitical values specified and ordered by a reasonable political concep-tion of justice. On my interpretation, the three main requirements ofpublic reason are to deliberate with others in good faith, to seek suitablepolitical justifications based on the criterion of reciprocity and a reason-able political conception, and sometimes to exercise restraint in the justi-ficatory appeal to comprehensive philosophical and religious doctrines.16

Citizens and officials in the public political forum are not to rely solelyon their comprehensive doctrines in deliberating about and decidingfundamental political questions. They should attempt to identify soundpolitical justifications that their reasonable compatriots might accept as

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at least reasonable, that is, as consistent with their status as free andequal citizens engaged in fair terms of cooperation.

Drawing primarily on arguments advanced separately by Nicholas

Wolterstorff and Paul Weithman, Habermas identifies three problemswith this liberal standard approach to the role of religion in politics.17

A first criticism is that, all things considered, the practice of publicreasoning would have adverse political consequences, depleting the fundof social capital and civic competencies on which democratic societiesultimately depend. Religious doctrines articulate the urgency of strugglesagainst injustice and motivate citizens to look beyond their own narrowinterests. Furthermore, as Weithman argues, many persons become bettercitizens through the activities of churches and religious organizations.

Citizens should not be expected to identify with a conception of citi-zenship that would deprive them of these valuable political goods andopportunities.

A second criticism is that some citizens are simply incapable ofconsistently making the distinctions in judgment that the idea of publicreason would seem to demand. Identifying proper public reasons anddistinguishing them from religious reasons may be especially difficultfor those citizens who take themselves to be religiously obligated to basetheir political deliberation and decision-making on religious doctrine.As Wolterstorff observes, many religious believers see themselves asobligated to pursue an ideal of integrity, with religious doctrine directlyinforming all of their major choices and decisions.18 A third criticism, orset of criticisms, centers on this ideal of religious integrity. Wolterstorffargues that it is wrong to attribute requirements of public reasoning thatwould violate religious convictions essential to integrity or impose dis-proportionate burdens on religious citizens vis--vis non-religious citizens.

My own view, developed elsewhere, is that the strongest versions ofthese criticisms fail and that Rawlsian public reason remains a worthyideal.19 Habermas nevertheless attempts to develop an alternative ethics

of citizenship that would avoid these criticisms, whatever their merits asapplied to political liberalism.20 His alternative is based on his discoursetheory of law and democracy, with its fundamental discourse principle:Just those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected personscould agree as participants in rational discourses.21 Habermas politicaltheory adapts this general normative principle in order to explain howa group of free and equal consociates might legitimately regulate theirassociation by means of the rule of law. The discourse principle takesshape as a system of basic rights and a corresponding principle of democ-

racy, according to which just those statutes are politically legitimate towhich citizens would agree in legally constituted discourses.22 Thisprinciple is then institutionalized in a set of legal and deliberative-democratic procedures that are said to provide the basis for legitimate

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law-making for the following reasons. First, in virtue of their equalpolitical participation, citizens are able to see themselves as both authorsand addressees of the laws that govern them. Second, in virtue of the

epistemic dimension of democratic deliberation, citizens are able topresume that their deliberative outcomes are rationally acceptable.23

The epistemic dimension of deliberation leads Habermas to acceptan essential component of the liberal standard approach, namely, thatofficial political decisions should not be based solely and directly on reli-gious grounds. He maintains that political decisions backed by coercivepower must be formulated and justifiable in a language which is equallyaccessible to citizens at large. And, he further assumes that only secularreasoning is generally accessible. Thus, [m]ajority rule turns into repres-

sion if the majority deploys religious arguments in the process of politicalopinion and will formation and refuses to offer those publicly accessiblejustifications which the losing minority, be it secular or of a differentfaith, is able to follow and evaluate in light of shared standards.24

Several additional features of Habermas discourse theory are pre-supposed in this analysis. First, while it is not clear precisely whichconditions must be satisfied for a justification to count as accessible, onesuch condition would seem to involve the form of practical reasoningand argumentation adopted by citizens. Throughout his writings ondiscourse ethics, Habermas distinguishes moraldiscourses concerningwhat is equally good for all from ethicaldiscourses concerning the self-understanding and reflexively endorsed values of a context-bound com-munity.25 Democratic political deliberation must include both types ofdiscourse (along with pragmatic discourses and forms of bargaining),since citizens within political communities inevitably address ethical-

political questions concerning who they are and who they would liketo be in light of their particular circumstances, traditions and values. Butespecially under conditions of pluralism and multiculturalism, politicalissues often cannot be neutrally framed by appealing to the worldviews

or value constellations of particular religious or cultural groups.26 Facedwith irresolvable value conflicts at the ethical level, participants in dis-course should shift to a more abstract perspective in order to determinewhat is in the equal interest of all, bound by the rights that secure theequal coexistence of different groups.27

These distinctions between types of discourse are not discussed inReligion in the Public Sphere, even though they seem quite germane tounderstanding the notion of accessibility. For the purpose of interpretingHabermas, I shall simply assume the following definition, motivated by

Habermas appeal to shared standards of evaluation: accessible politicaljustifications are based on reasons which may be meaningfully evaluatedin light of standards shared by human beings generally, such as reliableperception and observation, rules of inference, common sense, basic

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scientific and moral reasoning, historical evidence and shared democraticpolitical values. Religious traditions have different authoritative texts,social teachings and methods of interpretation, and citizens cannot be

expected generally to share distinctively religious standards of evaluationfor political claims. Suppose that, for example, some practice or activityis said to be wrong because, according to a particular interpretationof Scripture, God has forbidden it. This is certainly a good reason foravoiding and perhaps criticizing the activity or practice in question, andso a potential justification for politically disfavoring or even prohibitingit. But it would be difficult for non-religious citizens and religiousbelievers from rival traditions to evaluate this reason in terms of sharedstandards. The appeal to religious authority does not provide a standard

of evaluation that we would expect to be shared by human beings gener-ally, insofar as they have adopted different religious and philosophicaldoctrines. Likewise, perception of Gods will might count as evidencefor the individual perceiver, though others can hardly be expected tohave the same access to it. Thus one can have a good reason to avoidand criticize an activity or practice even if that reason does not consti-tute an adequatepolitical justification for politically disfavoring or pro-hibiting it.

A second feature of discourse theory, which seems to be presupposedin the call for accessible political justifications, is that democratic pro-cedures such as majority rule are understood to have an epistemicdimension, that is, to be conceptually related to the search for truth orrightness.28 In cases of conflict, reaching an understanding on the basisof insight is an alternative to the use of force or violence. But thisalternative is possible politically only insofar as citizens can agree totheir constitutionally regulated democratic procedures and assume thatthese procedures aim at the right answers to disputed political questions.Habermas characterizes majoritarian decisions as provisional results thatmay be accepted by the losing minority provided that these results are

(a) procedurally correct, (b) supported by background deliberationsand (c) connected to a democratic process that affords members of theminority the opportunity to take up political questions anew.

A third feature of discourse theory is the distinction between formallystructured political will-formation that generates legislation and moreinformal processes of political opinion-formation, in which citizens arerelieved of the constraints and pressures associated with having to issuebinding decisions. In addition, a political systems institutional core mustbe distinguished from the peripheral network of communication that

constitutes the so-called public sphere. Ideally the discursive contribu-tions of actors in the informal public sphere, including those of churchesand other organizations of civil society, travel through procedural sluicesin order to influence the exercise of legislative and administrative power.

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Law is the medium through which everyday communicative power ispolitically channeled and organized, and democratic law-making isbased on the interplay between informal opinion-formation and official

decision-making in the legislature.29This last distinction is essential to Habermas recent attempt to split

the difference between Rawls and his critics. On Habermas view,ordinary citizens who are incapable, or even in principle unwilling, toidentify suitable political justifications need not refrain from appealingsolely and directly to their religious doctrines in discussing or voting onfundamental political questions. That is, they need not exercise publicreasons requirement of restraint. At the same time, they must know andaccept that only secular reasons count beyond the institutional threshold

that divides the informal public sphere from parliaments, courts, minis-tries and administrations.30 I interpret Habermas claim, repeated in asubsequent passage, that only secular reasons count, to mean that onlysuch reasons may count as justifications or as contributing in an essen-tial way to justifications of laws and policies. Within the institutionalcore where decisions are reached, only secular reasons have what we maycall justificatory weight.

Where does this leave ordinary citizens who rely solely and directlyon religious reasons in deliberating about and deciding matters of lawand policy? How do citizens whose reasons are denied justificatoryweight still understand themselves as politically autonomous authors ofthe law? Habermas answer is that religious reasons may contributeindirectly to decision-making, insofar as they are first translatedinto anappropriate secular idiom. Citizens should thus acknowledge an institu-tional translation proviso as a condition for expressing and justifyingtheir political judgments with religious reasons.31 The institutional trans-lation proviso implies the following:

1 that only secular reasons have justificatory weight within the insti-

tutional core,2 that secular translations of religious reasons are admissible withinthe institutional core, and

3 that ordinary citizens are permitted to rely exclusively on religiousreasoning in their political discourse and decision-making even whenthey are not personally able to locate appropriate secular translations.

The pursuit of secular translations should be an ongoing, cooperativeeffort on the part of both religious and non-religious citizens in theinformal public sphere. Although the details of this proposal are not

worked out, Habermas seems to assume that a citizen can justifiablytake a claim to be translatable insofar as he or she believes that otherswith more expertise or knowledge have succeeded or will succeed oncethey devote themselves to the task of translating it.

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A final point is that religious citizens are said to be able to abide bythis ethics of citizenship and comply with the institutional translationproviso only if they first have or are willing to adopt a set of necessary

epistemic attitudes. First, they must be able to endure the cognitive dis-sonance associated with maintaining their convictions while still accom-modating the existence of rival religious doctrines and non-religiousworldviews. Second, they must accept the independence of secularknowledge and modern science. Third, in order to recognize the priorityof secular reasoning, they must connect the egalitarian individualismand universalism of modern law and morality with the premises of theircomprehensive doctrines.32

3 Ordinary citizens, government officials and political

accountability

Does the Habermasian account of religion in the public sphere presenta genuine alternative to the liberal standard approach and, more speci-fically, to Rawlsian public reasoning? I am not convinced that it does.There are differences between the two approaches, ones which areemphasized and perhaps somewhat stylized by Habermas. However, withrespect to the demands placed on a politically active religious citizen,especially a citizen committed to an ideal of religious integrity, thesedifferences should not, in practice, make much of a difference. I hopeto establish this conclusion by reflecting further on two of the mainfeatures of Habermas position, namely, the distinction between ordinarycitizens and political officials and the call for accessible secular reasonsas part of the institutional translation proviso.

Consider first the proposal that a restraint requirement should applyonly to political officials, and not to ordinary citizens.33 How does thisproposal compare to Rawls idea of public reason? While Rawls extends

the main requirements of public reason to all, he also acknowledges thatthese requirements should apply in different ways to political officials andordinary citizens.34 According to Rawls, the idea of public reason appliesfirst to judges, government officials and candidates for public office. Asan ideal, public reason also applies to ordinary citizens, especially whenthey are voting on fundamental political questions or evaluating candi-dates for office. The restraint requirement does not apply to discussionsin the background culture of civil society. But all of the requirements ofpublic reason apply to citizens insofar as they are involved directly in law-

making on fundamental questions, through public referenda and othermechanisms of direct democracy. Moreover citizens would typicallydischarge their obligation to reason publicly as voters in their evaluationof political officials and candidates. Ideally citizens are supposed to think

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of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes,supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, theywould think it most reasonable to enact.35 Thus, in their role as voters

considering fundamental political questions, citizens would typicallyundertake the following two, related tasks: first, in forming their politi-cal judgments, they would sometimes analyze matters of law and policyas ifthey were legislators in order to identify the range of available publicreasons; and, second, they would attempt to hold officials accountableby, inter alia, repudiating flagrant violations of the main requirementsof public reason.

Indeed, this is what we would expect, insofar as an ideal of publicreason is to be realized in a society with representative institutions for

law-making, institutions which are constituted through periodic electionsand responsive to citizens at large. Here I assume that some form ofpolitical representation is both necessary and desirable for a deliberativedemocracy.36 I also assume that accountability understood as respon-siveness to the needs and claims of constituents should be includedamong the essential elements in an acceptable form of political represen-tation, counting as one of several essential elements.37 The accountabilitydimension of representation does not imply that representatives aremere delegates, instructed only to advocate and vote in accordance withthe preferences of local constituents. Representatives must deliberateand exercise good judgment, and on most issues they must consider theneeds and claims of citizens at large and other moral constituents, inaddition to those of local constituents.38 Representatives should also beable to give an account of their justifying reasons for their advocacy andvotes. Accountability may be secured not only through elections, butideally through additional deliberative procedures that would encouragereasoned exchanges between citizens and their representatives.39

The accountability dimension of political representation is importantto Habermas discourse theory as well. Popular sovereignty is said by

him to be institutionalized through democratic, politically accountablelegislative bodies in which representatives seek discursively formedjudgments in part to avoid the criticism and sanction of voters.40

Indeed, based on the earlier description of discourse theory, it seemsthat representatives who are properly responsive to the needs and claimsof citizens should be receptive to opinion-formation and input fromthe informal public sphere and capable of distinguishing between therelevant forms of argumentation and bargaining that contribute todemocratic discourse. Habermas recent essay suggests that representa-

tives are also responsible for adhering to a requirement that within theinstitutional core only secular reasons have justificatory weight indeliberation and decision-making. Thus representatives should be heldaccountable both for the uptake of appropriately translated religious

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liberal political culture and as among the expected virtues attached tothe role of citizenship. If the justifications and forms of argumentationpursued by legislators were to diverge sharply from those of ordinary

citizens, then a fairly obvious accountability problem arises. KentGreenawalt provides a clear explanation of this problem in an earlierbook on public reasoning:

If it were completely proper for citizens to form their views in any waythey pleased and to vote accordingly, but legislators were not supposed torely on citizen views based on nonaccessible and comprehensive grounds,citizens would appropriately vote out of office (and for that reason) legisla-tors who rightly declined to pay attention to citizens views developed fromnonaccessible and comprehensive grounds. This would be an anomalous

and regrettable combination of ideals for political behavior.44

In short, Habermas view of religion in the public sphere encountersthe following difficulty: unless the accountability dimension of repre-sentation is secured through ongoing evaluation by citizens, the require-ment that legislators rely only on accessible, secular reasons in politicaldecision-making will be less effective at encouraging politically justifiedlaws and policies. Legislators might even ignore this requirement alto-gether, insofar as their constituents fail to acknowledge or value it. Thedanger is that even fundamental political questions would be settled onthe basis of reasons that are inaccessible to many citizens. One solutionto this problem is for citizens to make a good-faith effort to evaluatethe reasoning of their representatives by satisfying requirements similarto those suggested by Rawls ideal of public reason. At least with respectto fundamental political questions, they would seek reasons that theybelieve other reasonable citizens could accept as at least reasonable (i.e.consistent with fair terms of cooperation between free and equal citizens)and, to this end, they would sometimes deliberate as if they were legis-lators and from a point of view that is in principle independent of their

religious doctrines.

4 Public reason, sincerity and translation

Suppose that citizens attempt to hold officials accountable in this way.The Habermasian approach to religion and politics may still seem tobe more accommodating to religious citizens insofar as it permits themto rely solely and directly on religious reasons in their own political

discourse and decision-making, provided that they continue to recog-nize the institutional translation proviso. Recall that translations aresupposed to be carried out jointly by citizens in the informal publicsphere and that appropriately translated religious claims may be treated

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by political officials as having justificatory weight. And, as we have seen,citizens have good reason to seek translations, both because they wanttheir own political judgments to be included in political decision-making

and because they want political decisions to be legitimate, and so basedon reasons that are generally accessible.

But what precisely does Habermas mean by translation? No criter-ion of adequacy for translation is proposed in Religion in the PublicSphere. The idea seems to be that some religiously based claims andarguments can be translated and still retain their basic meaning evenwhen translated into generally accessible secular reasons and arguments.A strong interpretation of the translation proviso suggests that somereligious claims and arguments are equivalent or at least sufficiently

semantically similar to corresponding secular claims and arguments. Aweaker interpretation suggests that politically relevant religious judgmentsare sufficiently supported by secular reasons which bear some meaning-ful resemblance to underlying religious premises, perhaps by addressingthe same themes or values.

Habermas seems to rely on the weaker interpretation in one of hisfew examples of translation. In Faith and Knowledge, he presents theexample of an appeal to the Genesis creation story in political discussionsabout whether parents should be allowed to intervene into the genomeof an embryo, presumably in order to select preferred genetic character-istics.45 The relevant insight in this case is that creation in the likeness ofGod does not undermine a persons freedom to act or his or her equalityvis--vis other human beings. But our sense of ourselves as free and equalmay indeed be threatened insofar as we are genetically programmed byothers.46 Notions of the inherent dignity and self-determining freedomof human beings might serve as (partial) secular translations of a religiousconception of persons as sacred and created by God. More important,Habermas maintains that even non-religious citizens should reflect on thedifference between dependence on God the Creator and the causal depen-

dence on other human beings which may arise or simply be perceivedif others have intervened without consent into a persons genetic consti-tution.47 To have been genetically determined by another might very wellundermine a persons sense of herself or himself as an equal.

The important question is this: how is the call for translation in thisexample different from Rawls claim that citizens and officials honorthe idea of public reason when they rely on the values of a reasonablepolitical conception of justice in their political discourse and decision-making? After all, for Rawls, a citizens political conception will typi-

cally be supported evidentially by his or her comprehensive doctrine,even though that conception must still be presentable as politically free-standing. In addition, according to the proviso associated with Rawlswide view of public political culture, citizens and officials are permitted

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to introduce religious and other comprehensive reasons at any time pro-vided that sufficient public reasons are presented in due course.48 Indrawing on reasonable political values morally grounded by their reli-

gious doctrines and in attempting to satisfy the proviso, citizens wouldappear to be pursuing a kind of translation of their religious views. Acitizen motivated by the concerns expressed in Habermas genetic engi-neering example could easily satisfy the requirements of public reason.

One obvious difference is that the category of Rawlsian public reasonsis not logically equivalent to the category of Habermasian accessible,secular reasons. But we should avoid overemphasizing this difference. Formuch depends on precisely what these latter terms mean for Habermas.According to the definition of accessibility that I have already proposed,

Rawlsian public reasons are accessible since they may be meaningfullyevaluated in light of standards shared by human beings generally.49

What about the idea of secularity? Habermas does not provide a defini-tion of secular reasoning; nor does he follow Rawls in stipulating thatsecular reasoning is the non-public reasoning associated with a secularcomprehensive doctrine, such as comprehensive liberalism. Habermasseems to assume that a secular reason is simply a non-religious reason.Robert Audis more precise formulation is helpful in this regard: [A]secular reason . . . [is] one whose normative force, that is, its status asa prima facie justificatory element, does not depend on the existence ofGod (or on denying it) or on theological considerations, or on the pro-nouncements of a person or institution qua religious authority.50 If thisdefinition is in the spirit of Habermas essay, then accessible, secularreasons are, in short, non-religious reasons that may be meaningfullyevaluated in light of shared standards. While this set of reasons is notlogically equivalent to the set of Rawlsian public reasons, there wouldbe considerable overlap between the two sets of reasons. All publicreasons are accessible and non-religious (and so are secular in the sensethat I am attributing to Habermas), even if some accessible, secular

reasons are non-public (in the Rawlsian sense), insofar as they are baseddirectly on a non-religious, comprehensive philosophical doctrine. Delib-erating citizens and officials who are guided by the ideals set forth byRawls or Habermas would for the most part pursue the same types ofreasons.51

A second, more interesting difference derives from Rawls character-ization of the family of reasonable political conceptions of justice thatprovides the content of public reason. Two characteristics of politicalconceptions are especially important. First, Rawls argues that among

the conditions that a conception of justice must satisfy in order to countaspolitical is that it can be developed from ideas seen as implicit in aconstitutional democracys public political culture, such as politicalliberalisms fundamental ideas of society and the person.52 Another

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important characteristic of political conceptions is that they should becomplete. That is, a citizens political conception should organize valuesin such a way that a reasonable answer is provided to all or nearly all

fundamental political questions. As Rawls puts it, [p]olitical values arenot to be ordered by viewing them separately and detached from oneanother or from any definite context. They are not puppets to be manip-ulated from behind the scenes by comprehensive doctrines.53 Togetherthese conditions impose considerable discipline on how doctrinal convic-tions would be translated into political values. Translations should notbe made in an arbitrary and purely strategic fashion; rather they shouldbe pursued within the framework of a more or less complete and free-standing reasonable political conception of justice that can be worked

out from a democratic cultures fundamental political ideas.The concerns motivating both Rawls and Habermas on this issueare understandable. Rawls hopes to guard against deliberative practicesin which political values and public reasons are invoked insincerely andad hoc as a mere pretext for decisions that are actually based solely ondoctrinal grounds. Just to be clear, on my interpretation of Rawls view,the political justifications that citizens advance need not be based onreasons that are actually shared by all reasonable citizens. Nor is it thecase that the political activity of religious citizens must be sufficientlymotivatedby what they identify as corresponding political justificationsbased on public reasons. Where the idea of public reason applies, citizensshould identify what they take to be sufficientpublic reasons for theirreligiously motivated political advocacy and voting. But they are entitledand encouraged to present additional public reasons that they do notaccept as decisive or sufficient, provided that these reasons, which areassumed to be significant or sufficient for others, are considered mini-mally credible and relevant, given the epistemic circumstances of theirreasonable interlocutors.54 Call a citizens political justification insincereinsofar as the values and reasons to which he or she appeals are not

considered credible or especially relevant for the case at hand. Supposefurther that a citizens political justification is ad hoc when he or she isnot concerned about how these values and reasons might be appliedconsistently to relevantly similar cases or to other fundamental politicalquestions. In appealing to political values insincerely and ad hoc a citizencannot assume that these values provide an adequate context of justifi-cation for political decision-making.

This same conclusion can be reached with respect to Habermasapproach. Recall that for him it must be possible to justify political

decisions in a language that is equally accessible to all citizens; there mustbe shared standards for evaluating political justifications. Thus, even forHabermas, a law or policy otherwise based solely and directly on in-accessible religious grounds should be no less objectionable just because

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its principal advocates in the informal public sphere or the legislatureinvoke political values insincerely and ad hoc. A conscientious citizencommitted to the institutional translation proviso would want only

adequate and credible translations to carry justificatory weight and wouldexpress this commitment in voting on fundamental political questionsor in evaluating candidates for office. If no adequate and credible non-religious justification for a favored fundamental law or policy is identi-fied, then presumably a conscientious citizen would eventually reconsiderhis or her support for that law or policy and exercise the correspondingmeasure of restraint in voting or evaluating candidates for office.

On the other hand, by not specifying in the same detail the frame-work within which translations should be pursued, Habermas approach

is to that extent more accommodating to politically relevant religiousclaims and arguments. Consider a citizen who sincerely attempts to locatewithin her or his religious doctrine a set of reasonable political valuesthat apply to most fundamental questions and which other citizens mightreasonably accept, but who fails to organize these values in the form ofa complete and freestanding political conception of justice. Although gapsand occasional inconsistencies remain in a more loosely organized set ofpolitical values, assume that our citizen is prepared to rely on these valuessincerely and consistently in an attempt to satisfy requirements of publicreason. Why shouldnt an ethics of citizenship include as suitable publicreasons the contributions of a reasonable religious citizen who fits thisdescription? As I see it, Rawlsian requirements of public reason shouldbe relaxed or modified in such a case, as well as in some cases in whichpolitical deliberation involves the analysis of difficult and complex non-political facts and judgments with ineliminable non-public content.55

Without pursuing this particular point further, I submit that the maindifferences between the Rawlsian and Habermasian approaches to reli-gion and politics would not be especially significant in practice. Neitherapproach restricts discussion in the background culture of civil society.

Both hold that it is illegitimate for official political decision-making toproceed solely and directly on the basis of religious doctrine. Both main-tain that general requirements of public reason apply more stringentlyto officials than ordinary citizens. And, even though Habermas does notendorse a restraint requirement for ordinary citizens, we should not over-estimate the significance of this difference. First, according to politicalliberalism the restraint requirement applies only in particular circum-stances.56 Second, Habermas approach seems to demand that consci-entious citizens make relevantly similar distinctions in judgment and

perhaps sometimes exercise restraint if they are to avoid insincere andad hoc appeals to political values and if they are successfully to holdtheir political officials accountable for adhering to the terms of the insti-tutional translation proviso. A law or policy otherwise favored solely

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and directly on religious grounds should eventually be reconsidered bycitizens who are truly committed to accessibility but cannot foresee iden-tifying an adequate and credible secular translation.

5 Secularism and the postsecular society

According to Habermas, religious believers are not alone in having toadopt demanding epistemic attitudes as part of an ethics of citizenship.They are not the only ones who might find discharging their civic obli-gations burdensome. We have already seen that citizens are supposed topursue translations jointly and cooperatively. This means that non-

religious citizens must do more than merely tolerate religious belief andpractice, where a merely tolerant agent is one who endures or puts upwith some objectionable, but not intolerable, belief or practice. Attemptsat translation are likely to fail if citizens at large view religion as neces-sarily irrational or as fundamentally incompatible with social modern-ization. Hence, according to Habermas, non-religious citizens must alsoremain open to the possibility that religious doctrines are a source ofimportant moral intuitions and judgments, some of which have not yetreceived an adequate secular translation.57 At least in their role as citizens,the non-religious must also be able to distinguish science from scientismand related forms of philosophical naturalism.

In what remains I want to reflect briefly on this last point by turningagain to political liberalism and considering philosophical naturalism asa comprehensive philosophical doctrine in the Rawlsian sense. Philoso-phical naturalism is the theory that everything that exists is natural.58

Whether or not they are physicalists, philosophical naturalists typicallydeny the existence of spiritual and supernatural realities.59 Recentattempts to explain and criticize religious belief from the standpoint ofevolutionary biology are consistent with philosophical naturalism, and

perhaps in part motivated by it.60 These positions must not be confusedwith what Audi has called the scientific habit of mind, or the moremodest commitment to using the scientific method in order to addressempirical questions.61 Neither philosophical naturalism nor scientism isentailed by a commitment to the scientific method. One might consist-ently adopt the scientific habit of mind along with, for example, religiousconvictions that assert or presuppose the existence of supernatural beings.The more important point here is that some varieties of naturalism denythe possibility that religious doctrines can ever serve as sources of moral-

political insight.Not all who are sympathetic to a naturalistic order of explanation

will necessarily endorse philosophical naturalism as a worldview thatwould also determine matters of law and policy and explain what our

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interests, rights and obligations are. But we could certainly imagine adoctrine of this sort, and one that could be pursued more or less reason-ably. A naturalistic conception of the human person might directly inform

political judgments about the permissibility of so-called liberal eugenics,or the freedom of individuals to choose forms of genetic engineering thataim at human enhancement. Or, to take another example, a naturalisticexplanation of religious belief, especially if combined with sentiments offear or animus toward religion, might direct a citizen to advocate placinggreater limits on religious freedom or religious education. The relevantquestions from the standpoint of an ethics of citizenship are not whetherparticular naturalistic explanations of this sort are correct or whether ageneral theory of philosophical naturalism is true. Rather, like the reli-

gious doctrines that they would ostensibly replace within the backgroundculture, varieties of philosophical naturalism are not likely sources ofreasons that all persons qua reasonable citizens could share. It wouldbe unreasonable to rely solely and directly on these views to resolvefundamental political questions.

In examining philosophical naturalism as a type of secularism,Habermas rightly calls our attention to neglected questions in the publicreason debates: just what is a secular comprehensive doctrine and whichdoctrines should we consider as we think through the implications ofrealizing an ethics of citizenship? Returning to the terminology of poli-tical liberalism, it does seem that some contemporary forms of philoso-phical naturalism are appropriately categorized as either comprehensivedoctrines or essential parts of comprehensive doctrines, even if they arenot connected to traditions of thought or moral theory in the way thatother philosophical doctrines are.62 Furthermore, if citizens are to complywith Rawls idea of public reason, they will need to adopt the epis-temic attitudes similar to those identified by Habermas, distinguishingthe methods and results of science from philosophical naturalism andattempting to understand their disagreements with the religious as

reasonable.Rawls did not examine philosophical naturalism in Political Liber-

alism, opting instead to discuss Kantian and Millian comprehensiveliberalisms as examples of secular comprehensive doctrines. This mayobscure our understanding of how the idea of public reason should applyto an increasingly important form of secularism, one that is supportedby prominent public intellectuals and often seen as fundamentally at oddswith religious commitment. Consideration of naturalism as a worldviewis also relevant to the much discussed question of the burdens of public

reason. Although the difficulties associated with making a publicnon-public distinction in political judgment and with setting aside the wholetruth (as one sees it) are typically discussed as burdens only for religiouscitizens, they might be encountered by philosophical naturalists and

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other non-religious citizens as well. Consider, just as a thought experi-ment, a society in which philosophical naturalism predominates, andreligious doctrines are endorsed by relatively few citizens. How would

this affect our judgments about the feasibility, fairness or overall appro-priateness of an ethics of citizenship? I take it that, according to politi-cal liberalism, the same norms of public reason would apply, safeguardingthe rights of religious believers and encouraging the pursuit of politicaljustifications that would secure justice for all citizens.

6 Conclusion

The main purpose of this article has been to determine whether the ethicsof citizenship recently developed by Habermas represents a genuinealternative to the liberal standard approach and to Rawls idea of publicreason in particular. I conclude that, unless it is to be interpreted so as togive rise to considerable difficulties, it does not. Habermas proposes toweaken requirements of citizenship without giving up the essential liberaldesideratum that legitimate political decisions be based on generallyaccessible reasons. Absent further explanation, this proposal seems toignore the important role citizens play in holding representatives account-able for their political reasoning and decisions. It also fails to address theconcern that citizens and officials pursuing secular translations of reli-gious utterances should avoid relying on insincere and ad hoc politicaljustifications. I have suggested that Habermas approach would avoidthese problems by attributing to ordinary citizens civic requirementssimilar to those of Rawlsian public reason, namely, to deliberate withothers, to pursue suitable political justifications, to hold their publicofficials accountable and sometimes to exercise restraint. If this is right,then perhaps in the end this latest round of the RawlsHabermas debateis best seen as yet another family quarrel, and a minor one at that.

Saint Josephs University, USA

Notes

I am grateful to Susan Liebell for comments and suggestions.

1 Jrgen Habermas, A Conversation about God and the World, in EduardoMendieta (ed.) Religion and Rationality (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2002),pp. 14767; Faith and Knowledge in The Future of Human Nature, trans.H. Beister and W. Rehg (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2003), pp. 10115;

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Intolerance and Discrimination, International Journal of ConstitutionalLaw 1 (2003): 212; Fundamentalism and Terror, in Ciaran Cronin (ed.)The Divided West (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2006), pp. 325; Between

Naturalism and Religion (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008).Several chapters from Between Naturalism and Religion appeared earlierin English-language journals, including Religious Tolerance The Pace-maker for Cultural Rights, Philosophy 79 (2004): 518; Equal Treatmentof Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism, The Journal ofPolitical Philosophy 13(1) (2005): 128; On the Relation between theSecular Liberal State and Religion, in Eduardo Mendieta (ed.) The FrankfurtSchool on Religion (New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 33948; and Religionin the Public Sphere, European Journal of Philosophy 14(1) (2006): 125.I rely on these translations here.

2 Charles Larmore, The Moral Basis of Political Liberalism, The Journal ofPhilosophy 96(12) (1999): 599625 (599).3 Jrgen Habermas, Reasonable versus True, or the Morality of World-

views, in Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff (eds) The Inclusion of theOther (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), pp. 75101.

4 Habermas, On the Relation between the Secular Liberal State and Religion,p. 340.

5 ibid., p. 347 and Habermas, Religious Tolerance, p. 12.6 Jrgen Habermas, Reconciliation through the Public Use of Reason, in

The Inclusion of the Other, p. 50.

7 John Rawls, Political Liberalism, expanded edn (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2005), pp. 3867.8 Habermas, Reasonable versus True, p. 84.9 ibid., p. 93.

10 Rawls, Political Liberalism, pp. 44090.11 ibid., pp. 241 and 450. See also my What is Reasonableness?, Philosophy

and Social Criticism 30(5/6) (July/September 2004): 597621.12 Rawls, Political Liberalism, pp. 4467.13 See my Respect, Recognition, and Public Reason, Social Theory and

Practice 33(2) (April 2007): 22349, arguing that the requirements ofpublic reason are based on a norm of respect for persons.

14 A related concern is introduced in the final section of Religion in the PublicSphere, pp. 1820. Habermas emphasis is no longer on the failure totheorize the moral point of view but on specific epistemic attitudes that aresaid to be preconditions for public deliberation. Habermas concludes thata freestanding political theory like Rawls cannot adequately account forhow these attitudes might be understood as resulting from a historicallearning process. I leave aside further analysis of this issue, which does notin any case appear to be central to Habermas criticisms of Rawlsian publicreason.

15 Habermas, Religious Tolerance, p. 12. See also Habermas, Intoleranceand Discrimination, pp. 67.

16 I outline these requirements in my Respect, Recognition, and PublicReason.

17 Standard approach is Weithmans term for the conceptions of citizenship

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and political justification defended by Rawls and Robert Audi, amongothers. See Paul Weithman, Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 6.

18 Habermas, Religion in the Public Sphere, p. 8, referring to NicholasWolterstorff, The Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of PoliticalIssues, in Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff (eds) Religion in thePublic Square (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), pp. 67120 (105).

19 Elsewhere I have attempted to defend the idea of public reason by respond-ing to all three of the aforementioned varieties of criticism. See JamesBoettcher, Public Reason and Religion, in The Legacy of John Rawls, ed.Thom Brooks and Fabian Freyenhagen (London: Continuum, 2007[2005]),pp. 12451; Weithman and Rawls on Liberal Democratic Decision-Making,Review Journal of Political Philosophy 4 (2006): 3653; and Respect,

Recognition, and Public Reason, especially pp. 2438.20 Habermas attempt to avoid the second and third criticisms is examined byMelissa Yates, Rawls and Habermas on Religion in the Public Sphere,Philosophy & Social Criticism 33(7) (2007): 88091.

21 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, trans. W. Rehg (Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 1996), p. 107.

22 ibid., p. 110.23 Habermas, Religion in the Public Sphere, p. 5.24 ibid., p. 12.25 See Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, ch. 4 and Jrgen Habermas,

Justification and Application, trans. C. Cronin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,1995).26 Habermas, Reply to Symposium Participants, Benjamin N. Cardozo School

of Law, Cardozo Law Review 17(45) (1996): 1477557 (1489).27 ibid., p. 1490.28 See also the critical discussion by Thomas McCarthy, Legitimacy and

Diversity: Dialectical Reflections on Analytical Distinctions, Cardozo LawReview 17(45) (March 1996): 1083125.

29 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, p. 274.30 Habermas, Religion in the Public Sphere, p. 9.31 ibid., p. 10.32 ibid., p. 14.33 A similar approach is taken by Kent Greenawalt, Private Consciences and

Public Reasons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).34 Rawls, Political Liberalism, pp. 21320 and 4415.35 ibid., pp. 4445 (original emphasis).36 I follow Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagree-

ment(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 131.37 This definition of accountability is based on the influential work of Hanna

Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1967), p. 57.

38 Gutmann and Thompson use the term moral constituents to refer tocitizens in other states and other nations, groups of disadvantaged citizens,and citizens yet to be born. See Democracy and Disagreement, pp. 1445.

39 For examples of these procedures, see ibid., pp. 1424, and Iris Marion

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Young, Inclusion and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press,2000), p. 132.

40 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, pp. 186 (emphasis removed) and 487.

41 I note that the requirement is formulated here in terms of Habermasdiscourse theory. Rawls distinguishes public reasons from secular reasons,associating the latter with secular comprehensive doctrines.

42 ibid., p. 298.43 ibid., pp. 358 and 487.44 Greenawalt, Private Consciences and Public Reasons, p. 151. It is worth

noting that Greenawalts own position is that public reason requirementsapply more stringently to officials than ordinary citizens and, amongofficials, more stringently to judges than legislators and other officials.

45 Habermas, Faith and Knowledge, p. 114.

46 See also Habermas, The Debate on the Ethical Self-Understanding of theSpecies, in The Future of Human Nature, pp. 17100.47 As Simone Chambers puts it, the story of God creating us communicates

the vast distance that must exist between creator and creature, a distancethat does not exist between humans. Simone Chambers, How ReligionSpeaks to the Agnostic: Habermas on the Persistent Value of Religion,Constellations 14(2) (2007): 21023 (218).

48 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 462.49 Of course, it may be the case that some religious reasons and other non-

public reasons are also accessible in this sense, though I leave aside this

point in order to examine the notion of secular reasoning.50 Robert Audi, Religious Commitment and Secular Reason (New York:Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 89.

51 The difference between the two positions is this: Rawls explicitly classifiesreasons drawn directly from secular comprehensive doctrines as non-publicreasons. Thus it is inappropriate to rely solely and directly on these reasonsin arranging the fundamental terms of political cooperation. It is unclear,however, whether Habermas also thinks that it is inappropriate (forpolitical officials) to rely solely and directly on these reasons in arrangingthe fundamental terms of political cooperation. Insofar as these reasons areaccessible, then they would appear to serve as sufficient political justifica-tions for Habermas, since they are already by definition secular reasons.

52 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 453.53 ibid., p. 454.54 See also the instructive analysis of sincerity in David Reidy, Rawlss Wide

View of Public Reason: Not Wide Enough, Res Publica 6 (2000): 4972.55 This last point deserves more attention than I am able to give to it here.

See my Public Reason and Religion, pp. 1434. See also Reidy, RawlssWide View, especially pp. 6372.

56 As voters, citizens must consider the restraint requirement insofar as theyare directly involved in decision-making or evaluating an officials (or acandidates) record or position on fundamental political questions. Therestraint requirement is also limited by the Rawlsian proviso, since citizenswho satisfy the proviso are always free to introduce their religious viewsinto the public political forum.

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Cristina Lafont seems to assume a much wider scope for the Rawlsianrestraint requirement, interpreting it as restricting discussion among citizensin the informal public sphere, or what Rawls calls the background culture.

But this restriction does not necessarily follow from the fact that citizensin the background culture must sometimes deliberate as if they were legis-lators in voting or evaluating political officials. On this point, and for acritical discussion of both the Rawlsian and Habermasian approaches toreligion and politics, see Cristina Lafont, Religion in the Public Sphere:Remarks on Habermass Conception of Public Deliberation in PostsecularSocieties, Constellations 149(2) (2007): 23959.

57 Habermas, Religion in the Public Sphere, p. 15.58 In defining philosophical naturalism I follow Robert Audi, Religion,

Science, and Philosophical Naturalism, in Knowledge and Belief: Proceed-

ings of the Twenty-Sixth International Wittgenstein Symposium (Vienna:Hlder-Pichler-Tempsky, 2004), pp. 37785 (3789).59 Kai Nielsen, Naturalism and Religion (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,

2001), p. 29.60 See Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin,

2006).61 Audi, Religion, Science, and Philosophical Naturalism, p. 377.62 As Burton Dreben observes, commenting on political liberalism, it is part

of public reason to use anything that is normally accepted in science. Thatis common sense. Scientism, however, is a comprehensive doctrine. It might

be a secular comprehensive doctrine, but it is still a comprehensive doctrine.See Burton Dreben, On Rawls and Political Liberalism, in Samuel Freeman(ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Rawls (New York: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2003), pp. 31646 (345).

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