CURRENT RESEARCH
Dissertation: The Power of Reason and the Possibility of Religious Freedom in Late Secular Liberalism
Committee: Sarah Song (chair), Kathryn Abrams, David Lieberman, Anton Kaes
My dissertation interrogates how political theorists and legal actors use discourses of reason to regulate the public life of religion in late secular liberalism. I combine critical methodologies with archival research and community-based interviews in order to bring into sharp relief the distinctive political, phenomenological, and ethical conditions under which the language of reason retains the power to affect an individual's experience of and relationship to her faith. This power, I argue, drastically undermines the claims of the liberal state to secure religious freedom for its citizens.
Three distinct questions guide my research. I ask: First, how (and to what extent) are discourses of reason complicit in the construction and maintenance of secular liberalism? Second, what impact do these discourses have on not only the material and metaphysical freedom of religious individuals to carry out the mandates of their faiths, but also on such individuals' ability to advocate for politico-legal change on the basis of their beliefs? Third, is it possible to harness the positive elements of the semantic potential of reason - such as the drive towards a transcendent moral or ethical good, or the hope for respectful interpersonal speech in diverse societies - without also taking on the problematic aspects of its discursive relation to the liberal state? In answering these questions, I seek to bridge the methodological divide between critical theory and normative legal scholarship; moreover, I aim to provide an interdisciplinary account of how the affective power of reason can be rehabilitated in order to ameliorate the spiritual, political, and legal disenfranchisement of religious individuals and, in doing so, broaden the scope of what it means to realize the promise of religious freedom in liberal democracies.
The first two substantive chapters of my dissertation elucidate what constitutes the concept of "reason" in relation to "religion." They demonstrate not only how the secular liberal state emerged alongside the political constitution of the rational citizen, but also how reason latently - albeit powerfully and oftentimes adversely - affects the practice of religion in contemporary society. After an introduction (Chapter One) that sketches the theoretical and empirical problems with which this dissertation engages, Chapter Two examines the use of reason by John Locke, the initial proponent of a secular divide between public life and private belief. I argue that as Locke sought to quell the religious warfare of the seventeenth century, he advanced a vision of political life predicated on Protestantism: freedom could only be secured if religion was privately practiced and reverently oriented towards developing an inward connection with God. In this manner, religious individuals emerged as reasoned citizens through the process of recognizing, and then internalizing, the benefits that privatized religious belief bestowed upon the members of liberal states. I conclude that Locke's use of reason worked to subordinate religious freedom to political freedom.
Chapter Three suggests that when contemporary scholars like Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls call upon the language of reason to expand the concept of what constitutes acceptable public religious conduct in secular liberal states, they nonetheless reproduce the deeply Protestant - and deeply private - vision of reasonably practiced religion seen in Chapter Two. Although these scholars strive to carve out a meaningful and valued space for religious expression, they proscribe the full participation of devout citizens in the law- and policy-making processes of liberal democratic states. They do so by mandating that religiously-motivated speech be "cooperatively" translated to align with secular understandings of "the public good." I argue that such acts of translation represent a power-laden discursive phenomenon that entails both the willful forgetting and latent reproduction of the religious subordination that, historically, marked the rise of secular liberalism.
The next two chapters demonstrate how the theoretical tensions elucidated in the first two chapters make themselves manifest in the legal regulation of contemporary religious practices; they also seek to articulate how such regulation identifies liminal spaces within which devout individuals can resist the power of reason and proactively expand the politico-legal boundaries of religious freedom. Chapter Four focuses on the experiences of two members of the Native American Church who unsuccessfully sought legal accommodation for the consumption of peyote while employed at a drug rehabilitation facility (Employment Division v. Smith). Political theorists and legal actors often portray this case as a failure of religious freedom insofar as the decision limited the physical conduct of the plaintiffs; in doing so, however, they overlook how the very process of seeking accommodation - such as submitting to "tests of religious sincerity" to determine the "rational basis of religious need" (Civil Rights Act of 1964) - altered the metaphysical relationship of the plaintiffs to their faiths. By drawing from depositions, interviews, and personal correspondence, I suggest that the adjudicatory force of reason in regulating religion constrains religious freedom by neglecting the spiritual well-being of the liberal state's faithful citizens. I conclude by articulating a framework for a more expansive vision of religious freedom - a vision that entails rehabilitating the role of reason within law- and policy-making processes.
In contrast to Chapter Four, Chapter Five examines the potential pitfalls of using reason to expand the legal and political definition of religious freedom. It argues that after Employment Division v. Smith, laws were promulgated that expanded the protection of religious expression – but that such laws may compromise the liberty of persons of other (or of no) faiths. The argument I present in this chapter is drawn from current religious freedom arguments pertaining to the denial of service to same-sex couples. By looking at how both plaintiffs and defendants simultaneously call upon reason to support their legal arguments, I determine that securing religious freedom – as it stands now – rests on the performance of a certain type of “rational behavior” that we initially saw idealized in Chapters Two and Three. In order to balance the expansion of religious freedom against the liberties of secular and communal well-being, I argue that some notion of harm must be built into the legal rehabilitation of reason.
The final chapter, Chapter Six, further explores the liminal spaces between the dictates of secular liberalism and the mandates of religious expression within which individual resistance to the power of reason can occur. While the rhetoric of reason may never be fully immune to its impulse to subordinate the material and metaphysical lives of religious citizens to the ideals of the secular liberal state, reconstructing what counts as “reasonable” – particularly when an individual petitions for the full legal accommodation of their beliefs – lays the groundwork for extending to faithful citizens a more substantial role in crafting the laws, policies, and norms that govern their daily lives. In other words, religious freedom can be attained by exposing, and then subverting, the constitutive power of reason.
Committee: Sarah Song (chair), Kathryn Abrams, David Lieberman, Anton Kaes
My dissertation interrogates how political theorists and legal actors use discourses of reason to regulate the public life of religion in late secular liberalism. I combine critical methodologies with archival research and community-based interviews in order to bring into sharp relief the distinctive political, phenomenological, and ethical conditions under which the language of reason retains the power to affect an individual's experience of and relationship to her faith. This power, I argue, drastically undermines the claims of the liberal state to secure religious freedom for its citizens.
Three distinct questions guide my research. I ask: First, how (and to what extent) are discourses of reason complicit in the construction and maintenance of secular liberalism? Second, what impact do these discourses have on not only the material and metaphysical freedom of religious individuals to carry out the mandates of their faiths, but also on such individuals' ability to advocate for politico-legal change on the basis of their beliefs? Third, is it possible to harness the positive elements of the semantic potential of reason - such as the drive towards a transcendent moral or ethical good, or the hope for respectful interpersonal speech in diverse societies - without also taking on the problematic aspects of its discursive relation to the liberal state? In answering these questions, I seek to bridge the methodological divide between critical theory and normative legal scholarship; moreover, I aim to provide an interdisciplinary account of how the affective power of reason can be rehabilitated in order to ameliorate the spiritual, political, and legal disenfranchisement of religious individuals and, in doing so, broaden the scope of what it means to realize the promise of religious freedom in liberal democracies.
The first two substantive chapters of my dissertation elucidate what constitutes the concept of "reason" in relation to "religion." They demonstrate not only how the secular liberal state emerged alongside the political constitution of the rational citizen, but also how reason latently - albeit powerfully and oftentimes adversely - affects the practice of religion in contemporary society. After an introduction (Chapter One) that sketches the theoretical and empirical problems with which this dissertation engages, Chapter Two examines the use of reason by John Locke, the initial proponent of a secular divide between public life and private belief. I argue that as Locke sought to quell the religious warfare of the seventeenth century, he advanced a vision of political life predicated on Protestantism: freedom could only be secured if religion was privately practiced and reverently oriented towards developing an inward connection with God. In this manner, religious individuals emerged as reasoned citizens through the process of recognizing, and then internalizing, the benefits that privatized religious belief bestowed upon the members of liberal states. I conclude that Locke's use of reason worked to subordinate religious freedom to political freedom.
Chapter Three suggests that when contemporary scholars like Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls call upon the language of reason to expand the concept of what constitutes acceptable public religious conduct in secular liberal states, they nonetheless reproduce the deeply Protestant - and deeply private - vision of reasonably practiced religion seen in Chapter Two. Although these scholars strive to carve out a meaningful and valued space for religious expression, they proscribe the full participation of devout citizens in the law- and policy-making processes of liberal democratic states. They do so by mandating that religiously-motivated speech be "cooperatively" translated to align with secular understandings of "the public good." I argue that such acts of translation represent a power-laden discursive phenomenon that entails both the willful forgetting and latent reproduction of the religious subordination that, historically, marked the rise of secular liberalism.
The next two chapters demonstrate how the theoretical tensions elucidated in the first two chapters make themselves manifest in the legal regulation of contemporary religious practices; they also seek to articulate how such regulation identifies liminal spaces within which devout individuals can resist the power of reason and proactively expand the politico-legal boundaries of religious freedom. Chapter Four focuses on the experiences of two members of the Native American Church who unsuccessfully sought legal accommodation for the consumption of peyote while employed at a drug rehabilitation facility (Employment Division v. Smith). Political theorists and legal actors often portray this case as a failure of religious freedom insofar as the decision limited the physical conduct of the plaintiffs; in doing so, however, they overlook how the very process of seeking accommodation - such as submitting to "tests of religious sincerity" to determine the "rational basis of religious need" (Civil Rights Act of 1964) - altered the metaphysical relationship of the plaintiffs to their faiths. By drawing from depositions, interviews, and personal correspondence, I suggest that the adjudicatory force of reason in regulating religion constrains religious freedom by neglecting the spiritual well-being of the liberal state's faithful citizens. I conclude by articulating a framework for a more expansive vision of religious freedom - a vision that entails rehabilitating the role of reason within law- and policy-making processes.
In contrast to Chapter Four, Chapter Five examines the potential pitfalls of using reason to expand the legal and political definition of religious freedom. It argues that after Employment Division v. Smith, laws were promulgated that expanded the protection of religious expression – but that such laws may compromise the liberty of persons of other (or of no) faiths. The argument I present in this chapter is drawn from current religious freedom arguments pertaining to the denial of service to same-sex couples. By looking at how both plaintiffs and defendants simultaneously call upon reason to support their legal arguments, I determine that securing religious freedom – as it stands now – rests on the performance of a certain type of “rational behavior” that we initially saw idealized in Chapters Two and Three. In order to balance the expansion of religious freedom against the liberties of secular and communal well-being, I argue that some notion of harm must be built into the legal rehabilitation of reason.
The final chapter, Chapter Six, further explores the liminal spaces between the dictates of secular liberalism and the mandates of religious expression within which individual resistance to the power of reason can occur. While the rhetoric of reason may never be fully immune to its impulse to subordinate the material and metaphysical lives of religious citizens to the ideals of the secular liberal state, reconstructing what counts as “reasonable” – particularly when an individual petitions for the full legal accommodation of their beliefs – lays the groundwork for extending to faithful citizens a more substantial role in crafting the laws, policies, and norms that govern their daily lives. In other words, religious freedom can be attained by exposing, and then subverting, the constitutive power of reason.
FUTURE RESEARCH
My dissertation concludes by considering whether the language of reason itself can be reclaimed and redeployed by religious individuals when encountering legal or political resistance to religious accommodation – whether, in other words, a liminal legal space exists within which religious individuals can push back against secular conceptions regarding the proper public pursuit of “the good.” My next project continues this line of research by interrogating how the language of economic rationality affords faithful individuals the ability to articulate a mind-body coherence that traditional First Amendment jurisprudence does not. The presence and persuasiveness of this coherence, I argue, has prompted courts to carve out a protected space for religious expression within the economic marketplace (see, for example, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby). Yet by linking religious practices to capitalist endeavors, religions and their practitioners have been transformed into fungible commodities – the effect of which is to negate the differences in spiritual commitments that persist among religious individuals and to promulgate within the law a specific set of Evangelical values. By connecting critiques of economic rationality from thinkers like Michel Foucault and Karl Marx to Supreme Court jurisprudence, this next project aims to elucidate the effects that neoliberal interpretations of faith have on democratic virtues and ideals.