Democracy and Morality: Religious and Secular Views

Democracy is a dominant principle and practice to legitimate political power in the modern world, and yet its relationship with other moral traditions is not well understood. some but not all commitments with it (feminism, Classical and Egalitarian variants of Liberalism).
Ethical theories, by their very nature, are universal theories, and tend to be suspicious of democratic legitimacy arguments – since ‘the people’ who are the source of democratic legitimacy might support some things that are contrary to justice, as described in the tradition. Yet, appeal to democracy remains one of the most powerful appeals to legitimize political power in the contemporary world. This volume is interested in the relationship between democracy and moral traditions whose origins either precede the democratic ideal of legitimacy (Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Natural Law) or developed in some sense along side the democratic ideal and share some of its commitments. This volume explores the relationship between these moral traditions and democracy, including the way in which the moral and religious perspectives have adapted in their encounter with democratic ideals, and have themselves modified democratic theory and practice.
This is a work in comparative ethics. The contributors each an expert in one of these traditions, show how that traditions has confronted democracy – and considers different dimensions in which the traditions have engaged with the tradition. To orient the engagement between democratic principles and the moral traditions, the contributors focus on various dimensions in which the two have engaged. The contributors consider their tradition’s views of participation, including eligibility for participation and opportunities to do so, including people with quite different world-views; the scope of democracy, as conceived by the tradition, including how the democratic ‘people’ interact or ought to interact with adherents of other traditions, and whether some of the pillars of moral tradition have themselves helped to inform democratic principles and practices in communities where the ethical tradition is dominant. For example, if there are traditions of consultation and of appropriate authority in a moral tradition, does this operate as a resource for democracy itself, and if so, has it changed the way democracy is practiced in these societies?
What emerges is a rich and nuanced tapestry that testifies to the interaction of moral traditions and democracy, and the various relationships between these traditions and democratic theory and practice.

Patti Lenard is Professor of Applied Ethics in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa. She is the author of Trust, Democracy and Multicultural Challenges (Penn State, 2012), How should democracies fight terrorism? (Polity Press, 2020), Debating Multiculturalism (with Peter Balint, Oxford University Press, 2022), and Ordinary Citizens, Extraordinary Actions, a case-study of St. Joseph’s Parish’s refugee outreach committee (with With Stéfanie Morris, Karina Juma, and Meredith Teretta, University of Ottawa Press, 2022), and Democracy and Exclusion (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). In Ottawa, she runs a small organization called Rainbow Haven, which sponsors, settles and advocates for LGBTQ refugees: https://www.facebook.com/rainbowhavenottawa/.


Margaret Moore is Professor in the Political Studies department at Queen’s University Canada. She is the author of four books, on justice, nationalism and territory. Her 2015 book A Political Theory of Territory was winner of the Canadian Philosophical Association Biennial Best Book Prize in 2017 and has been the subject of journal symposia and author-meets-critics roundtables and conferences. It offers a philosophical analysis of territory, which has been largely under-theorized in political theory, which has focused on the relationship between the state and citizens. She has also written numerous chapters and articles, in such journals as Journal of Political Philosophy,American Journal of Political Science,Political Theory, Ethics & International Affairs, Philosophical Studies and Political Studies and edited or co-edited three other books, one of which is a volume in comparative ethics (The Making and Unmaking of Boundaries).