Religious Argument as an Argument from Authority
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Ratio Publica |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | Plný text |
| Keywords | authority; law; natural law; political liberalism; religious argument |
| Description | Assessment of the legitimacy of religious conviction in political deliberation requires a closer inspection of the different forms in which religious arguments appear. This article argues that even if the fundamental premises of liberal critics of religious arguments are correct, the only type of religious argument that can be considered as inherently incompatible with public justification has to contain explicitly religious content and has to be formulated as an argument from authority. This conclusion can be confirmed, on different grounds, by a rival, natural law tradition. The natural law tradition stipulates that the law is an ordinance of reason and should therefore be justified in a way that would allow reasonable citizens to affirm its reasonableness and obey it because of that. Argument from religious authority can therefore be judged impermissible even when religion is not treated with indifference, but as a constitutive aspect of human flourishing. On the other hand, by formulating the problem in terms of authority this debate raises the question of the status of non-political authority in political deliberation. The fundamental importance of non-political communities and the structures of authority they create to coordinate themselves invites a deeper inquiry into whether non-political authorities should play a more essential role in political deliberation and justification. |
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