Balkinization: Charles Taylor's neutrality

Charles Taylor's neutrality

Andrew Koppelman

The distinguished philosopher (and, full disclosure, my Northwestern University colleague) Charles Taylor argues in a recent blog post on “The Immanent Frame” that, in a pluralistic society, “there are zones of a secular state in which the language used has to be neutral.” This is a strange claim, in light of an analysis he has offered elsewhere. Here I’d like to offer an interpretation of how this claim can make sense coming from him, of all people.

In a marvelous and too-little-known essay, Modes of Secularism, in Secularism and Its Critics (Rajeev Bhargava, ed., 1998), Taylor observes that there are three different strategies by which modern political philosophy has tried to cope with religious diversity. One, the “common ground strategy,” seeks to establish political ethics on the basis of premises shared across different confessional allegiances: what all Christians, or even all theists, believe. The difficulty with this approach is that as pluralism grows, the common ground shrinks. The universal sentiments of Christendom aren’t as universal as they once seemed. A second understanding, the “independent political ethic” strategy, seeks to abstract away from all our disagreements to something that is independent of them. The aim is to infer, from certain fundamental preconditions of modern political life, conclusions about how political life should be organized. Pluralism has also created a problem for this approach: we may want to ignore God only for political purposes, but if there are real live atheists in the society, then the state, by endorsing an ethic that is independent of religion, may appear to be taking their side on fundamental issues. The difficulties of both of these approaches, Taylor thinks, create the case for “overlapping consensus,” which does not seek any agreement about foundations, but only acceptance of certain political principles.

Taylor borrows the term “overlapping consensus” from John Rawls, but by it he means something considerably shallower, and therefore less necessarily committed to neutrality toward contested ideas of the good. Taylor thinks that “Rawls still tries to hold on to too much of the older independent ethic.” Rawls expects citizens not only to endorse a set of political principles, but also to accept a doctrine of political constructivism and just terms of cooperation. This, Taylor thinks, is too much to ask. As a schedule of rights, political liberalism for Taylor may suggest an independent political ethic. But any schedule of principles will need interpretation, and interpreters inevitably will do this in light of their comprehensive moral views. To that extent, they will inevitably partake of the common ground strategy.

Taylor’s analysis implies that absolute neutrality is unattainable. Any state position will rely on some common ground, and no common ground is universal.

The answer to this puzzle, I think, is to note that there exist a large variety of possible modes of neutrality. The absolute neutrality toward all conceptions of the good proposed by Ronald Dworkin and Bruce Ackerman are only one available flavor of neutrality.

The range of possible justifications for any version of neutrality is broad. The following is a crude taxonomy of typical strategies of argument. It probably does not exhaust the possibilities, and arguments for neutrality typically rely on more than one of these moves.

One strategy is the argument from moral pluralism, which holds that there are many good ways of life and that the state should not prefer any of these to any other. Another is the argument from futility, which holds that some perfectionist projects are doomed to failure. The argument from incompetence holds that the state should be neutral about things that it is likely to get wrong. The argument from civil peace proposes that some issues be removed from the political agenda in order to avoid destructive controversy. Finally, the argument from dignity argues that some political projects fail to properly respect citizens’ capacity for free choice.

Different formulations of these arguments have persuaded different people. Everyone probably accepts most of these five arguments for neutrality, at least in some form, as applied to some question. Conceptual analysis cannot, of course, say whether or in what form you ought to accept them. There is probably an infinite number of ways in which any of them could be formulated, and an infinite number of ways in which those formulations could be combined. Shifting from any formulation of each rationale to a slightly different one will probably yield a slightly different prescription for neutrality. Neutrality is not a fixed point, but a multidimensional space of possible positions. I develop this argument in an essay, The Fluidity of Neutrality, available here.

This is broadly consistent with the picture Taylor paints. Since obviously many of these argumentative moves toward neutrality are consistent with his claims – his book, A Secular Age, can be read as an extended argument from moral pluralism, here mediating between religiosity and secularism – there is a kind of neutrality appropriate for us. But its outlines are not definite, and will always be an object of negotiation. Taylor’s neutrality is not that of Dworkin and Ackerman. But for just that reason, it is more persuasive than theirs.

Posted 8:17 PM by Andrew Koppelman [link]

Comments:

I went to the dentist to put the finishing touches on a root canal. Before he began to work he crossed himself. I hadn't noticed him do it before but I guess I hadn't been paying attention. I asked him why. "I do it all the time" he said, '"just to remind myself that there is something out there greater than I am. It keeps me humble"
I laughed. "I'm an atheist. I think of history the same way." He paused, nodded, and smiled.

We understood each other.

I'm sick of being lectured on the necessity of religion. As sick as I am of supposed ["new"] atheists who replace the god made of stories and textual interpretation with the god of reason and the teleology of facts. Science is the endless search for facts: a more useful variant of mountain climbing but otherwise just as "meaning-less"

Religion is storytelling. But without it we still live by stories and our faith in stories. "I love you" "Trust me" "I'll be right back." The best rebuttal of technocratic liberalism is Alexander Portnoy. The disenchantment of the world? Never happened and never will. We spend billions of dollars watching shadow plays, in movie theaters and living rooms. We live by half truths and elisions. Have you ever actually been in a courtroom? Have you ever been to Queens NY? Do you know what happens when a secular Jew married to a neo-pagan has to make dinner for his children and guests when the 10 year old son's friend is Muslim and his 9 year old daughter's friend is Hindu? He makes chicken. And at night before he goes to bed if he's not fucking his wife, he watches HBO or reads fiction. He loves Philip Roth. He laughs and cringes. Life goes on.

Liberal spokesmen in this country are aghast at what they see in the Bush administration as the worst of incompetent American exceptionalism. But what other than competence separates liberals' foreign policy proposals from those of the Bush Administration? Not much. The rest of the world still sees Americans for what they are more than Americans do.

"History is like foreign travel. It broadens the mind, but it does not deepen it." Mark Lilla may want to blame Vico, but our once fresh modern hell begins with Descartes. Vico's mistake was to want to make a science of history. His sin was envy.

On religion in the jury room: describing revelation won't convince anybody. Describing in the common language what it teaches, might. The expression of loyalty to what ties you to one another in a community over what separates you is what matters, nothing more or less. Religion is a means to an end. On its own it's just a story.
I live in a community of communities. People get along fine. But hanging out in a bar chatting with a cute Irish-Bulgarian bartender the subject comes of the influx of american manhattanites and NYU students. "Will they take over?"
"I hope not" she says "I like the diversity."

What disgusts me is that so many of the readers of this blog will never understand what so many many more who will never read it take for granted. And it's not their mistake, it's yours.

# posted by

D. Ghirlandaio : 11:40 PM

I wish I could turn back the clock. I'd find you sooner and love you longer.
Agen Judi Online Terpercaya

# posted by

Unknown : 4:52 PM