Brian Leiter
speaker
530 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2009
last heard Sep 2010
Brian Leiter’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Because, you know, a lot of the things that religious traditions require aren't obviously within the domain of morality understood in, you know, f outside that particular sectarian tradition, right?
So wearing certain kind of clothes, right?
Or um
you know, dressing in a certain way and so on.
Um but yes, so I argue that there are lots of familiar arguments from the the moral and political philosophical traditions for liberty of conscience.
I take two sort of simple ones that I I hope are reasonably uncontroversial.
The early Rawls' argument about what kinds of principles of justice people would choose in an original position, and he thinks they would choose principles that protect liberty of conscience.
There's a contractarian argument, but there are also uh straightforward utilitarian arguments for why you might think protecting liberty of conscience is a good thing.
And then what I try to argue is that those particular moral arguments, either the Rawlsian or the utilitarian style arguments, wouldn't single out religious conscience, right, as having special moral weight.
They give us a moral reason for thinking the law should protect liberty of conscience.
They give no
No moral reason for thinking religious conscience is better than than any other kind of conscience.
So in a nutshell, the best moral arguments for toleration, whether the Rawlsine of the Rawlsine kind of the utilitarian kind, are not going to single out religion understood in the terms that that we've been discussing.
Right.
Yeah, so toleration, and I think this is part of what concerns Nussbaum, toleration does have a slightly, by necessity I think, pejorative connotation to it.
Okay?
That is what's distinctive of the attitude of toleration is that you disapprove of some beliefs or practices, but you put up with them.
And you put up with them not simply because you can't get away with stamping them out.
You put up with them because you think there are other moral reasons that you ought to put up with them.
And those would be the moral reasons for toleration, whether of the Rawlsian or or utilitarian kind.
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