Religious Commitment and Secular Reason - Hardcover

Audi, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521772605 ISBN 13: 9780521772600

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Many religious people are alarmed about features of the current age--violence in the media, a pervasive hedonism, a marginalization of religion, and widespread abortion. These concerns influence politics, but just as there should be a separation between church and state, so should there be a balance between religious commitments and secular arguments calling for social reforms. Robert Audi offers a principle of secular rationale, which does not exclude religious grounds for action but which rules out restricting freedom except on grounds that any rational citizen would accept. This book describes the essential commitments of free democracy, explains how religious and secular moral considerations can be integrated to facilitate cooperation in a world of religious pluralism, and proposes ideals of civic virtue that express the mutual respect on which democracy depends.

About this title

Book Description

Robert Audi offers a principle of secular rationale, which does not exclude religious grounds for action but which rules out restricting freedom except on grounds that any rational citizen would accept. The book describes the essential commitments of free democracy, explains how religious and secular moral considerations can be integrated to facilitate co-operation in a world of religious pluralism, and proposes ideals of civic virtue that express the mutual respect on which democracy depends. Audi offers a balanced and sophisticated treatment of the relations between religion and politics in a modern, secular society.

Review

"Helpful and thorough...provocative..." Journal of International Migration and Integration

"Audi's account of church-state separation, joined with an attempted integration of religious commitment and secular morality, is among the best of the current descriptions of the place of religious convictions within pluralistic democracies." Religious Studies Review

"This is one of the best books on religion and politics in current literature." Philosophia Christi, Brendan Sweetman, Rockhurst University

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521772605
• ISBN 13: 9780521772600
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272