Religious Convictions and Political Choice - Hardcover

Greenawalt, Kent

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195049136 ISBN 13: 9780195049138

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1987

Synopsis

How far may Americans properly rely on their religious beliefs when they make and defend political decisions? For example, are ordinary citizens or legislators doing something wrong when they consciously allow their decisions respecting abortion laws to be determined by their religious views? Despite its intense contemporary relevance, the full dimensions of this issue have until now not been thoroughly examined. Religious Convictions and Political Choice represents the first attempt to fill this gap. Beginning with an account of the basic premises of our liberal democracy, Greenawalt moves to a comparison between rational secular grounds of decision and grounds based on religious convictions. He discusses particular issues such as animal rights and abortion, showing how religious convictions can bear on an individual's decisions about them, and inquires whether reliance on such convictions is compatible with liberal democratic premises. In conclusion, he argues that citizens cannot be expected to rely exclusively on rational, secular grounds.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

In Religious Convictions and Political Choice, Kent Greenawalt challenges the theories of such political thinkers as John Rawls and Bruce Ackerman, who argue that citizens and officials in a liberal democracy should eschew religiously based premises in developing political judgments and limit themselves to secular conceptions of justice and publicly accessible methods of determining facts. Beginning with an account of the basic premises of our political system, Religious Convictions and Political Choice examines the full dimensions of this issue of intense contemporary relevance, and compels a fundamental reexamination of the place of religion in the political life of a liberal democracy.

About the Author:

Kent Greenawalt is at Columbia University Law School.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0195049136
• ISBN 13: 9780195049138
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 278