Equal liberty, nonestablishment, and religious freedom

Legal Theory 20 (1):52-77 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Egalitarian theories of religious freedom deny that religion is entitled to special treatment in law above and beyond that granted to comparable beliefs and practices. The most detailed and influential defense of such an approach is Christopher Eisgruber and Lawrence Sager's Religious Freedom and the Constitution (2007). In this essay I develop, elucidate, and show the limits of the strategy adopted by Eisgruber and Sager. The strategy requires that religion be analogized with other beliefs and practices according to a robust metric of comparison. I argue that Eisgruber and Sager fail to develop a consistent and coherent metric and I further suggest that this failure is symptomatic of the broader difficulty encountered by liberal theory in fitting the concept of religious freedom into a broadly egalitarian framework

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,219

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Equality, Freedom, and Religion.Roger Trigg - 2012 - Oxford University Press.
Marcuse and freedom.Peter Lind - 1985 - New York: St. Martin's Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-03-25

Downloads
56 (#274,303)

6 months
9 (#250,037)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Cecile Laborde
University College London

Citations of this work

Freedom of Religion, Inc.: Whose Sovereignty?Jean L. Cohen - 2015 - Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 44 (3):169-210.
Why Tolerate Conscience?François Boucher & Cécile Laborde - 2016 - Criminal Law and Philosophy 10 (3):493-514.
The politics of religious freedom.Jon Mahoney - 2017 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 43 (6):551-570.
Accommodating Religion and Shifting Burdens.Peter Jones - 2016 - Criminal Law and Philosophy 10 (3):515-536.
Laborde, liberalism, and religion.Aurélia Bardon & Jeffrey W. Howard - 2020 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 23 (1):1-8.

View all 9 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Cultural exemptions, expensive tastes, and equal opportunities.Jonathan Quong - 2006 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 23 (1):53–71.
Political Liberalism and Religion: On Separation and Establishment.Cécile Laborde - 2011 - Journal of Political Philosophy 21 (1):67-86.
Bearing the consequences of belief.Peter Jones - 1994 - Journal of Political Philosophy 2 (1):24–43.
On Noncoercive Establishment.Daniel Brudney - 2005 - Political Theory 33 (6):812-839.

Add more references