OVERVIEW OF THE DILEMMA

The dilemma originates in John Rawls’ proposed path to stability for a liberal society comprised reasonable citizens who view their fellows as free, equal, and deserving of respect.Footnote ² Pluralism is inevitable and conflicts between citizens’ comprehensive doctrines are unavoidable. These conditions, paired with Kantian notions that government should respect the autonomy of citizens, lead to the assertion that resolutions to fundamental political questions are only legitimate if supported by public reasons that are accessible to all citizens and not solely dependent upon particular comprehensive doctrines. This creates a “duty of civility” to offer public reasons so that all may “think of themselves as if they were legislators” with regards to collectively binding laws (Rawls Reference Rawls1997, 769, 771).Footnote ³ Every citizen need not endorse every policy, but policies are to be justified by reasons that are public in that they are accessible to all reasonable citizens, regardless of their comprehensive doctrines (Rawls Reference Rawls1997, 771). By contrast, liberal legitimacy is threatened when laws are solely supported by the terms of particular comprehensive doctrines because not everyone can recognize the rationality of such laws or view themselves as their authors. It would be improper for the liberal state to abandon its neutrality, endorse a specific vision of the good life, and coerce citizen compliance with others’ belief systems. It is problematic if policies only justified by particular comprehensive doctrines democratically win out because majority rule “mutates into repression if the majority deploys religious arguments…and refuses to offer publicly accessible justifications that the outvoted minority, be it secular or of a different faith, can follow and evaluate in the light of shared standards” (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 134).

Operating within the Rawlsian tradition, Jürgen Habermas identifies two components of liberal legitimacy. First, the equal access principle allows citizens to see themselves as authors of the laws due to their equal ability to access the political system and participate in it (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 5). Second, there is an epistemic “dimension of deliberation that grounds the presumption of rationally acceptable outcomes” (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 5).Footnote ⁴ The equal access principle generates two guarantees that allow all citizens to view themselves as authors of the laws by which they are bound. First, there exists a Rawlsian duty of civility to justify collectively binding decisions with public reasons. Second, citizens are, theoretically, equally able to access the political deliberations which produce those collectively binding decisions. These guarantees are contradictory as the first, the duty of civility to provide public reasons, erects asymmetric barriers to access thereby violating the second, the equal access component. Not everyone can view themselves as authors of the laws if they face unequal barriers to accessing the system that produces those laws. This asymmetry disadvantages those who do not genuinely hold public reasons and encounter more difficulty observing the duty of civility and accessing the political system. Simultaneously, the second, the equality of access principle, leads to non-compliance with the duty of civility to offer public reasons. This endangers the notion of all citizens being able to recognize the justifications for collectively binding decisions and allows the possibility of laws and policies that are only justifiable by particular comprehensive doctrines. This would disadvantage citizens who do not adhere to those comprehensive doctrines and who are subjected to laws justified only by the belief systems of others.

Emphasizing the duty of civility to provide public reasons immediately gives rise to a normative objection to restricting religion (Waldron Reference Waldron1993; Reference Waldron2012; Wolterstorff and Audi Reference Wolterstorff and Audi1997; Eberle Reference Eberle2002; Weithman Reference Weithman2002; Stout Reference Stout2004). Nicolas Wolterstorff exemplifies this in writing, “I see no reason to suppose that the ethics of the citizen in a liberal democracy includes a restraint on the use of religious reasons in deciding and discussing political issues” (1997, 111–12). After all, “it belongs to the religious convictions of a good many religious people in our society that they ought to base their decisions concerning fundamental issues of justice on their religious convictions. They do not view it as an option whether or not to do it (Wolterstorff and Audi Reference Wolterstorff and Audi1997, 105). Habermas is influenced by this concern, acknowledging “the integral role that religion plays in the life of a person of faith” which “nurtures his or her entire life” (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 8). Religion informs the views, actions, and justifications of religious citizens in many areas of life; beliefs address matters beyond orthopraxy and metaphysics. Were religious beliefs confined to such matters, some of the tension between religion and liberalism may be alleviated. Liberalism promises freedom of religion while simultaneously restricting the role of religion and the role of those ill-equipped to provide public reasons for political decision-making. Religious citizens encounter more formidable barriers to access when asked to “justify their political statements independently of their religious convictions or worldview” (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 8). The liberal political sphere is one “whose results must remain free from any religious ‘contamination,’” yet censoring “the voices of religious citizens…is inconsistent with the spirit of a liberal constitution” (Habermas Reference Habermas, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013, 371).

The duty of civility also elicits objections regarding the cognitive burdens it generates (Wolterstorff and Audi Reference Wolterstorff and Audi1997; Eberle Reference Eberle2002; Weithman Reference Weithman2002). Habermas acknowledges that requiring all individuals to buttress their religious statements with their public reason equivalents imposes an “undue mental and psychological burden” (Reference Habermas2006, 9). It requires an “artificial division” within the mind that splits the individual into the private religious devotee and the public secular citizen (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 8). Asking religious citizens to make a “flimsy switchover” to a public persona whenever they engage in public debate gives rise to an asymmetric cognitive burden not born by secular citizens (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 8). There are several components to this objection; the first is that this division is impossible because “we cannot leap out of our perspectives” (Wolterstorff and Audi Reference Wolterstorff and Audi1997, 113). Habermas agrees that “any ‘ought’; implies a ‘can’” (Reference Habermas2006, 8). A second component is that it may create cognitive dissonance in religious individuals capable of “jeopardizing their existence as pious persons” or “endangering their religious mode of life” (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 8, 10). The final component arises from the asymmetric nature of the cognitive burdens created, which Habermas specifically attempts to offset with the ITP (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 11). Requiring public reasons, so the argument goes, disadvantages religious citizens who are required to speak the foreign tongue of public reason in support of their preferred policies. Secular citizens, by contrast, speak their native tongue and offer their genuinely held public reasons. The result is an asymmetric barrier to accessing the political system, which is problematic for liberal legitimacy.

An overlapping consensus forms when citizens support liberal positions for their own reasons as when a liberal Atheist, a liberal Christian, and a liberal Muslim adhere to different comprehensive doctrines yet agree on substantive policy positions (Rawls Reference Rawls1993, 133–37). An overlapping consensus creates stability around policy preferences but does not resolve principled disagreements regarding religion's proper role in political decision-making. Mediating this disagreement requires satisfying liberal legitimacy as fully as possible, given the seemingly irresolvable tension and asymmetric burdens stemming from the equal access principle. It requires equalizing barriers to access while maintaining the duty of civility which calls for public reasons. Thus, the asymmetry between what is asked of secular citizens and what is asked of religious citizens must be addressed. Habermas’ ITP is the most innovative recent attempt to resolve the matter.

Recognizing this tension, neither Habermas nor Rawls would banish religion from public deliberations entirely. Rawls provides, and Habermas relies upon, the due course proviso:

Religious citizens may support policies by offering their genuinely held reasons but should observe the “duty of civility” by offering public reasons in due course. Some citizens will inevitably find it more difficult to offer public reasons, even if granted the flexibility of “in due course,” than others depending upon the congruity of their genuinely held reasons to public reasons. Secular citizens genuinely holding public reasons may offer those reasons without additional effort. Meanwhile, religious citizens encounter asymmetric cognitive burdens and deliberative obligations when asked to step outside of their native worldviews and formulate supplementary public reasons that are not their own. This asymmetry and the fact that they are born disproportionately by religious citizens endangers the equal access component of liberal legitimacy.

THE ITP

Habermas charts a moderate course between restrictive positions, like Rawls’, and accommodating positions, like Wolterstorff's. He begins from the position that contemporary democracy requires that all citizens accept its “postsecular” nature and that “the exercise of political authority must be neutral toward competing world-views” (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 130). Secular and religious citizens alike must accept this (Habermas Reference Habermas2010a, 20–21). Supplementing religious reasons with “public justifications” for policies is an indispensable component of this (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 7). Yet, liberal societies “must not discourage religious persons and communities from also expressing themselves as such in the political arena, for it cannot be sure that secular society would not otherwise cut itself off from resources for the creation of meaning and identity” (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 131). Habermas’ ITP attempts to alleviate the problem of lost resources and the tension within liberal legitimacy by remedying the asymmetry plaguing the obligations and burdens placed upon citizens, which results in unequal barriers to access. Habermas distinguishes between the ethics of citizenship in informal public spheres and institutional obligations that attach in formal public spheres (Reference Habermas2006, 9–10).Footnote ⁵ Public reasons are not expected until we move past the “institutional threshold” dividing “the informal public sphere from parliaments, courts, ministries, and administrations” (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 9–10, Reference Habermas2008, 130). In the formal public sphere, officials are expected to justify and compose their decisions using only public reason (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 122). Candidates and political parties should also operate in terms of public reasons (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 128, footnote 32).

Habermas claims that the ITP results in cognitive burdens that “are by no means asymmetrically distributed” between religious and secular citizens (Reference Habermas2006, 18). Citizens in informal public spheres are engaging in a complimentary “learning process” (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 14). They are to undertake the “arduous work of hermeneutic self-reflection” (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 137). Religious citizens accept the authority of modern science, the right of other religious and secular worldviews to exist, the necessity of reflexively considering one's own faith, and that only public reasons are acceptable within formal public spheres (Habermas Reference Habermas2010a, 16). To offset the asymmetry of these concessions, secular citizens accept a burden by agreeing to “take religion seriously” (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 11). This means that secular citizens open themselves “to the possible truth content” of religious positions and “enter into dialogs from which religious reasons then might well emerge in the transformed guise of generally accessible arguments [public reasons]” (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 11). Habermas also hopes that the distinction between an ethics of citizenship and institutional obligations will offset the cognitive burden since religious citizens are not asked to “split their identity into a public and a private part the moment they participate in public discourses” (Reference Habermas2006, 9–10).

Religious citizens accept that the “rational content” of their reasons will be translated into “publicly accessible language” when it appears in the formal public sphere (Habermas Reference Habermas2010a, 22). At Habermas’ most extreme religious reasons are to be stricken from official records (Reference Habermas2008, 131). This publically accessible language is “secular” in that it transcends its religious roots (Butler et al. Reference Butler, Habermas, Taylor, West, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2011, 76). For Habermas, translation and transcendence are possible because secular and religious citizens share similar moral intuitions (Reference Habermas, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2011, 27; Reference Habermas2006, 15). The goal of translation is to “uncover” secular language with the same conceptual content as the religious position in question (Habermas Reference Habermas2006; Habermas and Taylor Reference Habermas, Taylor, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2011, 63–65). The similarity of moral intuitions arises from the shared heritage of philosophy and religion, in which philosophy was born of religion, while theology is indebted to Greek metaphysics (Habermas Reference Habermas, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2011, 27, Reference Habermas2008, 109–10). On this account, Hegel was correct in claiming that religions “belong to the history of reason itself” (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 6). Martin Luther King's speeches are exemplary in that those with no knowledge of Christianity understand them owing to a shared moral intuition to oppose injustice (Habermas and Taylor Reference Habermas, Taylor, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2011, 63–65).

Habermas’ translation occurs in compliance with Rawls’ proviso that religious reasons may be offered so long as they are supplemented with public reasons in due course (Reference Habermas2006, 6). The standard assumption was that the duty of offering public reasons fell upon the religious citizens who wanted their positions included in the public debate, although Rawls’ is not always clear on the location of the burden of translation (Reference Rawls1999, 592). Habermas argues that there is no obligation for each citizen to individually provide public reasons in support of their religious positions (Reference Habermas2006, 9). Rather, the activity that occurs in due course would be secular citizens cooperatively participating “in the efforts to translate relevant contributions from the religious language” into public reasons (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 113). Cooperative translation allows even those religious citizens incapable of translating their own reasons to understand themselves as participants in political deliberations owing to the presence of their translated positions (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 130). This cooperative involvement of secular citizens is necessary “if their religious fellow citizens are not to be encumbered with an asymmetrical burden” (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 11). The cooperative nature of the translation is presented as a way to offset the asymmetrical burdens faced by religious citizens when the duty of civility to provide public reasons is present.

Habermas provides a few examples of translations. He writes that Kant had the “goal of redeeming religious contents through translation” (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 228).Footnote ⁶ A related example is the Kantian notion that we must respect human dignity as a translation of the belief that humans are created in the image of God (Habermas and Ratzinger Reference Habermas and Ratzinger2006, 45). Marx's emancipated society as a translation of Kant's kingdom of God is offered as another example (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 231). Walter Benjamin's anamnestic solidarity is identified as a translation of the religious concept of the Last Judgment (Habermas and Ratzinger Reference Habermas and Ratzinger2006, 45; Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 241). The policy related example Habermas provides is German Christian groups translating “[s]o God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him” into “[a] gamete fertilized ex utero is a subject of human rights” (Reference Habermas2003, 109).Footnote ⁷ He also points out that Rawls’ political liberalism is itself an “outstanding example” of a translation that provides a philosophical version of ideals that originated in religion (Habermas Reference Habermas2010b, 443).

The ITP's effort to alleviate asymmetry progresses beyond prior approaches. Habermas is correct that obligations and burdens are unavoidable in the face of the public reason requirement, and he does increase the symmetry of what is asked of religious and secular citizens, and in so doing equalizes the barriers to access to some extent. Religious citizens conform to the liberal state by recognizing the necessity of public reasons. The dialog and assistance in the translation requirement impose a manufactured burden upon secular citizens thereby creating greater symmetry and equality (Habermas Reference Habermas2006, 14). There is, however, room for improvement by further increasing the symmetry between the burdens born by secular and religious citizens, thereby further equalizing barriers to access.

CRITIQUES

The debates surrounding liberalism and religion and the critiques of the various proposals offered are too numerous to comprehensively examine here. Three background critiques, which are contested elsewhere, are identified and set aside. These are that: (1) public reasons and religious reasons are not distinctly different types; (2) translation between religious and public reasons is not possible; and (3) the process Habermas identifies is something other than translation. These represent foundational positions on which public reason liberalism, ITP, and the RTP are built. We accept Habermas’ positions on each of these and build the RTP on the same premises as the ITP. An additional critique addresses the crucial shortcoming of the ITP, and prior approaches, namely the failure to achieve the greatest degree of symmetry possible, which Habermas identifies as a vital impetus for the project. This situates the RTP as a preferable approach since it goes farther than the ITP in creating a symmetrical distribution of burdens and in so doing equalizes barriers to access. Last, we turn to some practical issues with the ITP, which are alleviated by the RTP. These concerns deal with the risk of causing offense when translating another positions, a potential weakening of the independence of religious thought when translations are offered by non-believers, and a problem for individuals’ dignity and integrity when they are asked to aid in the translation of positions to which they object.

The first critique questions the validity of this distinction between public reasons and religious reasons (Cooke Reference Cooke2006; Reference Cooke2007; Reference Cooke, Calhoun, Van Antwerpen and Mendieta2013; Maclure and Taylor Reference Maclure and Taylor2011; Taylor Reference Taylor, Mendieta and Van Antwerpen2011; Dallmayr Reference Dallmayr2012; Dworkin Reference Dworkin2013; Walhof Reference Walhof2013; Sikka Reference Sikka2016). If religious reasons and secular reasons are not different in kind and neutrality requires acceptance of both in political deliberation, then the duty of civility to provide public reasons is no longer appropriate. Some also distinguish between authoritarian and non-authoritarian religious arguments, suggesting that we should be concerned about restricting the former, but not the later (Cooke Reference Cooke2006; Chambers Reference Chambers2010; Waldron Reference Waldron2012). Habermas worries that these critics problematically distort the line between secular and religious reasons (Reference Habermas, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013, 374). Moving forward we follow Habermas and Rawls in their belief that secular, philosophical views differ from religious ones. Secular views are committed to rational processes while religious views cannot escape the use of religious language and rationale relying upon “the sacred complex combining a specific interpretation of man in the world with the practice of communal worship—membership in a religious congregation” (Habermas Reference Habermas2002b, 74–75; Reference Habermas, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013, 375). On this view, public reason is an indispensable component of liberal legitimacy.

If public reasons and religious reasons are of different types, then a second critique pertains to whether or not translation is possible between the two (Habermas Reference Habermas2006; Lafont Reference Lafont2007; Reference Lafont2009; Reference Lafont, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013; Bergdahl Reference Bergdahl2009; Dallmayr Reference Dallmayr2012; Arfi Reference Arfi2015). For example, Maria Herrera Lima believes that religious and secular reasons are of different types but that religion's “revelation as sanctioned by ecclesiastical authorities” places it outside of “the language game of argumentation” (Reference Lima, Calhoun, Mendieta and Van Antwerpen2013, 70). Cristina Lafont is similarly pessimistic, believing that convergence depends upon mere “luck” (Reference Lafont2007, 240). The seriousness of the charge and the possibility of successful translation hinges upon Habermas’ optimism regarding “uncovering” commonly shared “moral insight” (Reference Habermas, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2011, 27; Reference Habermas, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2011, 63–65). As Simone Chambers summarizes the position, “[p]ostmetaphysical philosophy is well-placed to undertake this critical engagement because so much of its content is already the product of salvaging and translating” (Reference Chambers2007, 216). Though Sonia Sikka is critical of Habermas, she points out that religious principles must be based upon preexisting values unless we believe that God genuinely revealed them, which may lure us into a sort of Euthyphro dilemma (Reference Sikka2016, 97–98). Jeremy Waldron is optimistic about the possibility of understanding and translation due to a common heritage (Waldron Reference Waldron2012). Habermas clearly believes that translation is possible, see the aforementioned examples, and we follow him in this (Habermas Reference Habermas2003, 109; Reference Habermas2003; Reference Habermas2008, 209–47; Habermas and Ratzinger Reference Habermas and Ratzinger2006, 45, 228; Habermas and Taylor Reference Habermas, Taylor, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2011, 63). Some worry that Habermas fails to acknowledge the difficulty of translating some concepts (Cooke Reference Cooke2006; Reference Cooke2011; Harrington Reference Harrington2007; Lafont Reference Lafont2007; Reference Lafont2009; Ungureanu Reference Ungureanu2008; Boettcher Reference Boettcher2009; Invernizzi-Accetti Reference Invernizzi-Accetti2010; Baumeister Reference Baumeister2011; Aguirre Reference Aguirre2013). However, Habermas concedes an “opaque core” in religion, which postmetaphysical philosophy may never understand (Reference Habermas2008, 143). For example, “sin” has only been translated in “less than convincing” ways (Habermas Reference Habermas2003, 110). However, as Javier Aguirre notes “a failed case of translation,” or even a number of such cases, “is not enough to reject the possibility of translation itself” (Aguirre Reference Aguirre2013, 653).

The final background critique concerns whether Habermas’ process is something other than translation (Cooke Reference Cooke2006; Chambers Reference Chambers2007; Harrington Reference Harrington2007; Ungureanu Reference Ungureanu2008; Gordon Reference Gordon2013; Pensky Reference Pensky, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013; Walhof Reference Walhof2013; Wolterstorff Reference Wolterstorff, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013; Areshidze Reference Areshidze2017). Some critics claim that finding “different epistemic means” is nothing more than the discovery of an overlapping consensus (Cooke Reference Cooke2007, 228–29; Ungureanu Reference Ungureanu2008, 408; Lafont Reference Lafont2009, 134, Reference Lafont, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013, 237; Chambers Reference Chambers2010; Areshidze Reference Areshidze2017, 2, 8). For example, Sikka claims that Habermas process is not “translation,” but a practice of “isolating the intuitions and judgments” in religion that can persist independently of their theological justifications (Reference Sikka2016, 99). We, like Habermas, believe in the possibility of some process whereby religious citizens and secular citizens can communicate their positions to one another in mutually intelligible ways, regardless of whether the process conforms to the standards of literal linguistic translation or not.

The crucial critique, and our point of departure from Habermas, is that the burdens are still too asymmetrically distributed (Lafont Reference Lafont2007; Reference Lafont, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013; Yates Reference Yates2007; Boettcher Reference Boettcher2009; Bernstein Reference Bernstein, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013; Walhof Reference Walhof2013; Wolterstorff Reference Wolterstorff, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013; Areshidze Reference Areshidze2017, 5). The ITP fails to achieve its objectives and Habermas remains too close to Rawls, who he rejects for placing undue burdens on religious citizens. Habermas hopes to mitigate the asymmetry by delaying the burdens until individuals enter the formal public sphere. However, this merely shifts the location of the burdens (Ferrara Reference Ferrara2009; Lafont Reference Lafont2009; Reference Lafont, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013; Wolterstorff Reference Wolterstorff, Calhoun, Mendieta and VanAntwerpen2013). Maeve Cooke suggests that individuals might accept this shift in exchange “for the privilege of holding public office” (Reference Cooke2006, 196). However, even if this exchange were accepted, Habermas still only asks religious citizens to maintain a split between their private identities and their public identities (Yates Reference Yates2007, 888). Habermas attempts to offset this asymmetry with the burdens he places on secular citizens in asking that they open themselves to the possible truth content of religion in informal public spheres and to assist in the cooperative translation process in formal public spheres (Habermas Reference Habermas2006). These efforts fall short of the desired effect, as Jay Bernstein writes:

Thus, concerns about the asymmetry and the equalization of barriers to access persist. Habermas has made progress in this respect, but more can be done without endangering the public reason component of liberal legitimacy. Habermas himself acknowledges these concerns by questioning whether the ITP “imposes an asymmetrical burden on religious communities” (Reference Habermas2006, 14). He concedes that only religious citizens are asked to consider cognitive frameworks other than their own (Habermas Reference Habermas and Mendieta2005, 332).

Concerns about the unidirectional character of Habermas’ proposal are related to the asymmetry objections. As Giorgi Areshidze writes, shared “civic space” would ideally be created through a learning process with “terms that are less unidirectional than the ones that Habermas and Rawls propose” (Reference Areshidze2017, 12). Similarly, Cook points out that unidirectional input and removal of religion may impoverish the transformative nature of deliberation, which Habermas claims to champion (2007, 228). Deliberation entails the possibility of having to “modify, or give up…existing perceptions, interpretations, and evaluations, if the reasons on which they rest no longer prove sustainable” if one's position were perfected prior to engaging in deliberation then the purpose of deliberation is itself unclear and transformative experiences are less likely (Cooke Reference Cooke2007, 228–30). Positioning secular political theory to learn from religion is an important goal and one that Habermas values as it provides input into the creation of meaning and identity needed by secular society (Habermas Reference Habermas2008, 131). Specifically facilitating such learning is something beyond our immediate concern of alleviating the asymmetric burdens and barriers to access faced by religious citizens. Darren Walhof worries that Habermas’ process is flawed because it is “less about ensuring that religious citizens have full religious liberty and can recognize themselves as authors of the laws under which they live, and more about the mining of theological resources for public benefit” (Walhof Reference Walhof2013, 235). Creating a more inclusive public sphere, which equalizes the asymmetric burdens and barriers to access, and benefiting a secular society when it periodically requires fresh intellectual resources for the creation of meaning and identity are different goals. The RTP is explicitly concerned with the former and less so with the latter.

In addition to the theoretical objections to the ITP, there are some practical concerns surrounding secular citizens engaging religion in this way. First, ignorance of others’ religions may be problematic and there is a related risk of causing offense. Ignorance of others’ comprehensive doctrines is asymmetric in a certain sense. Presumably, religious citizens in a liberal democracy are somewhat familiar with liberal principles, while secular citizens are likely less familiar with specific religions. This leads to a greater likelihood of errors born of ignorance when secular citizens translate religious reasons than when religious citizens undertake the same process. Habermas’ cooperative component offsets this to some extent. However, if religious citizens need to be actively involved in the translation by constantly evaluating its consistency with their views, then this differs only slightly from asking them to perform the task themselves. The risk of causing offense accompanies the risk of mistranslating others’ beliefs. Again, this is more likely when secular citizens engage religion than when religious citizens engage public reason. Religious citizens’ missteps in utilizing public reason are unlikely to greatly offend secular citizens. The risk of secular citizens causing offense through incorrectly presuming to dictate the content of religious positions is considerably higher. These risks are mitigated by the nature of the interaction. Citizens are not looking for reasons to disagree with one another, to claim that a religion is incompatible with their own beliefs, that it is illiberal, or threatens human rights, etc. Instead, they are searching for commonalities in their beliefs. Looking for commonalities is less likely to offend, even if missteps occur than looking for reasons to critique or negate another's beliefs.

Second, secular citizens translating religious into public reason endangers the independence of religious thought. Just as liberalism protects the state and non-believers from religion, it also protects religion from undue interference from the state. Having secular citizens engage religious reasons means that secular translators might present the product of their translations as a religion's official policy positions. Non-believers are responsible for producing the representation of religious preferences in formal public spheres. Cooperation may, again, offset this, but if it is incumbent upon religious citizens to constantly check the translation, correct it, and ensure that they are being accurately represented, there is little difference between this and asking them to perform the translation themselves and the asymmetric burden is only minimally altered.

Finally, asking citizens to cooperatively translate other's positions could, in some instances, be detrimental to their dignity or integrity. It would be problematic when religious officials take a position contrary to a secular official's position and the secular official cooperatively assists in translating. This would not be true of every instance, but it would be true in some instances. The secular official is not just accepting the burden of assisting with translation, but also the additional burden of aiding and advancing a position with which they disagree by helping to transform it into a justification suitable and potentially determinative in the formal public sphere. This would violate the political integrity of secular officials and potentially their dignity depending upon the content of the position that they aid in translating. Asking officials to consider another's worldview is indeed a burden. Asking them to consider another's worldview and assist their political opponents in advancing positions to which they vehemently object is more onerous. In some instances, this could amount to a duty of civility to strengthen the opponent's case and work against one's own beliefs and interests through cooperatively translating that position. Asking officials to assist in making the case for a policy that they believe moves the polity in an incorrect direction is problematic.

THE RTP

This section presents the RTP, its rationale, and why reasonable citizens should accept it. Preliminarily, note that the RTP, like similar approaches, represents a duty of civility rather than a legal duty. The RTP is as follows:

1. A. The RTP applies when the following two conditions are satisfied:

   1. 1. There is disagreement between citizens subscribing to different comprehensive doctrines.

   2. 2. Public reasons do not arise from all parties sua sponte.

2. B. When the above conditions are satisfied, the RTP holds that:

   1. 1. Citizens may support their positions with their genuinely held reasons in informal public spheres.

   2. 2. In formal public spheres:

      1. i. Officials should, in due course, translate their genuinely held reasons for public reasons.

      2. ii. Officials who can most effortlessly translate their genuinely held reasons into public reasons should, in due course, translate those public reasons into non-public reasons consistent with the comprehensive doctrine subscribed to by some group of citizens with whom they disagree.

      3. iii. The presence of public reasons supporting a policy is a necessary and sufficient condition for its implementation.

The RTP is designed to counter the asymmetry found in the ITP. The RTP alleviates the asymmetry of obligations and burdens and equalizes the barriers to political access to the greatest extent possible while preserving the public reason requirement and the equal access principle inherent in liberal legitimacy. The RTP places obligations, burdens, and barriers upon more citizens, but in so doing, equalizes their distribution across citizens, regardless what type of comprehensive doctrine they adhere to.

(A)(1) holds that the RTP applies when there is disagreement among citizens with different comprehensive doctrines rather than an overlapping consensus. When an overlapping consensus emerges, it is likely public reasons will be present, even if not independently offered by all parties, and manufacturing them is not imperative since all are satisfied with the arrangement. When an overlapping consensus emerges, Habermasian translation could be presumed to be possible, since citizens from every comprehensive doctrine present express the same moral sentiment. (A)(2) indicates that not all parties are able to effortlessly supply public reasons supporting their positions. Were this the case, adherence to the duty of civility would be unproblematic. If these conditions are not met, then there is little need for provisos to mediate the role of religion in political deliberations.

Under (B)(1), citizens in informal public spheres are free to offer any reasons they wish with the knowledge that only public reasons will be determinative in formal public spheres. (B)(2) holds that additional deliberative obligations and cognitive burdens attach to those who voluntarily accept additional responsibilities in official roles in formal public spheres. We may hope that comprehensive doctrines undergo a transformative process prior to arriving in formal public spheres. However, Habermas uses explicit expectations for informal public spheres to offset the asymmetry born by religious citizens in formal public spheres. The RTP alleviates this need by achieving greater symmetry in the formal public sphere, leaving those who do not voluntarily accept official positions free to operate as they see fit.

The formal publics of (B)(2) consist of the official capacities of roles with the authority to make collectively binding policies. With this in mind, the RTP would apply primarily to governmental executives, legislators, judges, and candidates for such positions. The RTP would not apply to bureaucrats or civil servants who implement policy but do not create it or deliberate on its creation. Policy implementation does not require legitimation in the same manner as its creation.

(B)(2)(i), and (B)(2)(iii) represent the sine qua non of public reason liberalism. The RTP relies upon Rawls’ due course proviso, which offers some room to maneuver. The RTP retains the standard expectation that religious citizens will supply public reasons in due course as such reasons are crucial to liberal legitimacy. Habermas’ asking secular citizens to aid in the translation of religious reasons into public reasons does offset some of the asymmetries between citizens. However, it does not maximize the symmetry to the fullest extent possible and so does not go as far as possible to ensure the equality of access.

The due course proviso is silent on the status of public reasons that originate as such. Neither their translation nor their preservation is mandated. Given this silence, it has been presumed that public reasons need not be altered. However, if the goal is to maximize the symmetry of both cognitive burdens and deliberative obligations to ensure equal barriers to access, then more should be asked of those equipped to most easily offer public reasons. Thus, (B)(2)(ii) is a reversal of the standard translation process and the distinctive feature of the RTP. Habermas rightly believes that when public reasons do not naturally arise, the symmetry of what is asked of citizens should be maximized, but the ITP stops short of achieving the fullest possible symmetry. This is the goal of the RTP and the justification for it. Asking officials to supply public reasons in support of their positions imposes deliberative obligations and cognitive burdens which creates unequal barriers to accessing the political, system. The difficulty of overcoming these barriers varies with the ease of translating one's genuinely held beliefs into public reasons. The same deliberative obligations could apply to everyone; however, in practice, their application is asymmetric. The RTP asks all officials to undertake a similar level of deliberative work in fulfilling their obligations. Similarly, the public reason requirement is more or less cognitively burdensome depending upon ease of translation. Some are only slightly burdened, as their genuinely held reasons are tantamount to public reasons. Others encounter more significant burdens as their genuinely held reasons are further removed from public reasons. The RTP equalizes the cognitive burdens born by officials by asking all officials to consider perspectives other than their own. This results in the greatest possible symmetry of obligations and burdens, which equalizes the barriers to access to the greatest extent possible while maintaining the public reason component of liberal legitimacy.

(B)(2)(ii) also addresses the group to which the translation is oriented. The RTP intentionally leaves open the target of translation. The most likely candidates are the largest group with whom there exists a disagreement or a minority group that may be frequently excluded from political deliberations within a given society. The former target of translation appeals to the largest number of people involved in a disagreement and is most likely to result in a resolution. However, inclusiveness may be a consideration and minority comprehensive doctrines should not be excluded in order to prevent their stigmatization, marginalization, or discrimination against them. The RTP is not a signal that some comprehensive doctrines are deserving of inclusion and others are not. However, the scope of the duty of civility must be limited. Including all possible comprehensive doctrines would make any application nearly impossible and place greater burdens on citizens who genuinely hold public reasons, which contradicts the goal of equalizing burdens and barriers to access.

A final feature of (B)(2)(i) and (B)(2)(ii) is that secular and religious officials are responsible for the official policy positions supported by their belief systems, which mitigates the danger of official misrepresentation and protects the independence of religious thought. While secular officials translate their public reasons into religious reasons, this does not dictate the contents of a religion to its adherents or establish any official state recognized version of a doctrine. Nor does the translation decisively represent the views of believers in formal public spheres, which may be the case under the ITP. Rather, the translation is undertaken to ensure symmetry and equality. The public reasons produced by religious officials’ translations may more accurately represent the policy positions that believers would take than anything non-believers could produce under the ITP. Secular officials translating public reasons into religious reasons, less problematically, produces mere representations of possible viewpoints that could originate within a religion and they are non-determinative of policy since they are non-public. There is no similar concern over religious officials presenting public reasons as definitive representations of their religions’ positions despite these being public and potentially determinative of policy.

As is clear from (B)(2)(iii), an asymmetry of potential determinativeness will necessarily persist so long as religious reasons are restrained by the public reason requirement; this cannot be alleviated by the RTP, the ITP, or any similar approach. Under these conditions, religious citizens will be asymmetrically burdened because their genuinely held reasons are insufficient policy justifications in formal public spheres. Public reasons are necessary so long as liberal legitimacy is valued. If public reasons are required, then anyone who has difficulty supplying public reasons will encounter both cognitive burdens and deliberative obligations. Those who easily speak terms of public reason encounter these complications to a lesser extent. By asking secular officials to translate their public reasons into non-public reasons the RTP ensures that all officials, regardless their comprehensive doctrines, observe the same deliberative obligations, bear the same cognitive burdens, and face equal barriers to access.

All citizens should accept the RTP owing to the symmetry and equality it creates. The RTP is based on the equal access principle of democratic legitimacy, which allows all citizens to view themselves as the authors of the laws that apply to them. Everyone within a pluralistic liberal democracy should be equally able to access political deliberations, and equally able to advocate for their preferences. This necessitates the public reason requirement and the equalization of any barriers to accessing the political system. The RTP balances these two considerations. All reasonable citizens who accept the basic premises of public reason liberalism should accept the RTP and the symmetry that it generates because owing to a liberal commitment to equalizing barriers to access and the fact that the RTP creates the greatest symmetry possible. Furthermore, citizens share the belief that they should be able to acknowledge the validity of the reasons justifying collectively binding laws such that they can understand themselves as the authors of those laws. The legitimacy of laws is strengthened by the absence of asymmetric barriers like the ones faced by religious citizens under prior translation approaches. The RTP appeals to the interests of all citizens in seeing society's laws accepted and their legitimacy strengthened.

Beyond their shared belief in equality, religious and secular citizens have their own reasons for accepting the RTP. Religious citizens find themselves on more equal footing than in other approaches. The normative and split personality objections cannot be entirely alleviated unless the public reason requirement is abandoned. However, the RTP incorporates religion to the greatest extent possible and so should soften the normative objection. So too the split personality objection cannot be entirely resolved within public reason liberalism, and it may be an undesirable burden, but the RTP represents the least bad alternative in that it equalizes the burden across all officials. Due to the RTP's symmetry, religious citizens should be willing to translate their reasons into public reasons with the knowledge that their secular fellows will simultaneously undertake a similar task. Religious citizens should value being appealed to in their own terms, despite the fact that it originates in secular logic, rather than genuine faith, because it acknowledges that they are equals in a pluralistic liberal society. They should also value the fact that religious belief is considered in the policymaking process, even if this consideration takes a non-determinative form. Secular citizens should accept the RTP because, given the symmetry it achieves, the public reason requirement will be more palatable to religious citizens. Secular citizens have an interest in seeing the public reason requirement being more broadly and fully accepted and supported as it is the guarantor of their freedom from the beliefs of others. Thus, religious citizens will engage public reasons and secular citizens will engage religious reasons in a search for commonality pursuing Habermas’ ideal epistemic attitudes toward other cognitive frameworks (Reference Habermas2006). The goal of the engagement is not to defeat a political opponent, but to offer them reasons in their own terms for supporting policies. This orientation can offset some of the risks of offense that comes along with the translation. Of course, engaging one's political opponent in their own terms can bring added benefits like appearing more convincing to them. Indeed, many politicians already engage in this practice for political reasons.

The RTP also safeguards officials’ dignity and integrity by asking them to translate their own reasons, rather than reasons originating in the comprehensive doctrines of their potential opponents. The RTP does not ask officials to aid or advance positions that they find objectionable. Habermas asks individuals to not just accept burdens, but also potentially affronts to their dignity and integrity by asking them to aid in the translation of positions they find objectionable so that they may be used against them in formal public spheres. Under the RTP, no official would be asked to provide or advance policy positions with which they disagree. Furthermore, officials need not consider the potential truth of a claim that is abhorrent to their belief system, as may be required by the ITP. Translating one's reasons into the reasons of another's worldview is less damaging to one's integrity and dignity than searching one's own worldview for a way to support an objectionable position. Asking officials to actively assist an opponent and act against their own beliefs and interests, as would happen in at least some instances, is too onerous a request. A reflective deep-dive questioning one's genuinely held beliefs may be an enlightening exercise but is not expected under the RTP. This sort of reflexive examination may become necessary at certain points. For example, secular citizens may generate public reasons that cause religious citizens to reflexively consider or question their views or vice versa.

ILLUSTRATION

Consider an illustration of how the RTP might operate in deliberations regarding veiling, which is primarily practiced by Muslim women and involves a veil being worn over the face. Veiling has been controversial in some European nations, with France, Belgium, and the Netherlands banning the practice in public spaces. There is the possibility of what Andrew March calls a “Self-Governance Model,” in which Muslims “demand that internal Muslim affairs … be managed along shari’a lines” (Reference March2011b, 30; Reference March and Thunder2017, 148). This would allow Muslim communities to operate with relative independence and alleviate the need to integrate all aspects of life into the practices of the larger liberal community. This approach does not entail the claim that others must abide by shari’a (March Reference March and Thunder2017, 148 FN 7). Permitting some degree of autonomous community-based self-governance may resolve some difficulties, but not all. With veiling, and many other issues, public concerns are raised and simply allowing the practice to occur is an insufficient resolution. If veiling only occurred behind closed doors, then some public concerns would be alleviated. However, public space is precisely where veiling is desirable to its practitioners and a solution is required beyond leaving the personal affairs of Muslims to Muslims.

March also considers the possibility of relying on maqasid al shari’a (the purposes of the law) to establish an overlapping consensus, in which Muslims support liberal conclusions for reasons internal to Islam, and perhaps even develop a “thicker social contract” (March Reference March2011b, 32). Maqasid entails a “Complex Purposivism” allowing flexibility in the interpretation of Islamic doctrines so long as their central purpose, the “promotion and protection of five universal interests: life, religion, property, reason, and lineage” are not compromised (March Reference March2011b, 34, 33).Footnote ⁸ This may open a space of dialog between secular and Islamic doctrines that underscore the importance of these interests (March Reference March2011b, 37). It could open a path for Muslims to take the position that specific interpretations, requirements, or punishments are not strictly required to be a good and devout Muslim or to preserve the religion (March Reference March2011b, 50). Maqasid, as March presents it, is indeed a promising concept. However, the related process originates within Islam and would be practiced by Muslims, and while it may open a space for dialog, the issues of asymmetry remain. If maqasid alone were relied upon, Muslims’ positions could move closer to liberal positions and become more open to them, but secular citizens would not necessarily be making any efforts to appeal to Muslims. This would not alter the asymmetric distribution of burdens and religious citizens, in this case, Muslims would still encounter more formidable burdens than their secular counterparts.

In this context, the RTP is valuable because it incorporates a Muslim minority into the public debate by asking secular legislators to appeal to Muslims on their own terms and in so doing demonstrates that Islam is a valued, legitimate, and equal component of pluralistic liberal society, while alleviating the asymmetric cognitive burdens and deliberative obligations as well as the unequal barriers to access that arise in other approaches. Maqasid might aid in this process, making the secular citizens’ role in the process more likely to succeed. This inclusiveness would be particularly beneficial given that “most European countries still have difficulty viewing themselves as permanent immigrant societies or viewing the foreign-born and even the native second and third generations, as nationals, irrespective of their legal status” (Casanova Reference Casanova, Levey and Modood2009, 140). It would be equally valuable in the United States where Muslims have faced heightened discrimination, marginalization, and exclusion since the 9/11 attacks.

For the purposes of this admittedly simplistic illustration, Muslim citizens support the right to voluntarily engage in veiling, while some secular citizens oppose the practice. In informal public spheres, Muslims may offer whatever reasons they please in support of policies that permit veiling just as secular citizens are free to offer public or non-public reasons in opposition. Muslims might argue that their religion supports the practice. They could cite their tafsir (interpretations), usul al-fiqh (jurisprudence), and ijtihad (original efforts to resolve novel situations) regarding the Qur’an, the Hadith, the Sunnah, the Sira, and forms of Shari’a as support for their claims. These reasons are rooted in Islam, and so are non-public by definition. Secular citizens might offer public reasons like security concerns related to unidentifiable actors in public spaces, the specter of oppression of women by men, and the need to preserve the secular, neutral nature of the state.

When we move into the formal public sphere of the legislature, public reasons are needed to justify the policy. Again, for simplicity, Muslim legislators, or legislators whose constituencies contain Muslims, support policies permitting voluntary veiling and some secular legislators oppose them. The secular legislators again offer their concerns about security, oppression, and neutrality since these are public reasons recognizable to all, even if there is disagreement as to whether the veil represents a security concern or an oppressive practice. Muslim legislators’ reasons are now non-determinative since they are not authoritative to non-Muslims. The Muslim legislators could translate their non-public reasons into public reasons, perhaps asserting that the veil is an expression of faith and that there exists a freedom of conscience and freedom to exercise one's religious beliefs. There is some Islamic support for a public reason approach (An-Na'im Reference An-Na'im2008; Fadel Reference Fadel2008; March Reference March2011a; Reference March and Thunder2017). Also, as Fatima Mernissi emphasizes, there is value in engaging in jadal (courteous controversial reasoning) (Reference Mernissi2002). They could point out that they are not attempting to make the practice anything more than voluntary and have no plans to impose it or any other aspects of their faith upon others. This is the point at which prior translation approaches stop. The deliberative obligations and cognitive burdens have been born disproportionally by Muslim legislators, even if their secular counterparts assist them as is expected under the ITP. Solely relying on the potentials of maqasid would also stop at this point, having allowed the Muslim legislators to more easily find their way to such positions.

The RTP asks secular legislators to attempt to translate their security concerns, worries about oppression, and desire to preserve the secular state into reasons found within Islam. They are asked, just as Muslim legislators are, to attempt to understand the worldview of others. Much Islamophobia, misunderstanding, and discrimination arises as a result of ignorance or misrepresentations. However, secular legislators are not searching for what they disagree with in Islam, reasons for bigotry, or grounds for exclusion, but rather for positions with which they can agree. The following examples are not exhaustive and are merely presented as illustrations of what secular legislatures might produce when recognizing the RTP's duty of civility. They might first appeal to the universal purposes as revealed by maqasid al shari’a. An understanding of this process might make it easier to locate Islamic principles and reasons to support the positions adopted by secular legislators. Within Islam, secular legislators may find support for the value of human life and the need to protect it—security—in passages like the oft-referenced Qur’anic verse “… that if anyone slew a person—unless it is for murder or for spreading mischief in the land—it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if anyone saved a life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people” (5:32).Footnote ⁹ Support for the equality and the right of self-determination of women—anti-oppression—could be drawn from any number of places, like the Qur’an’s statement about the equality of men and women at creation: “from a single person, created, of like nature, his mate and from them scattered (like seeds) countless men and women—fear Allah through whom ye demand your mutual (rights)…” (4:1). The verse regarding the rights of men and women could also be drawn upon: “And women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable…” (2:228). The need to respect other belief systems could be supported by reference to non-compulsion passages in the Qur'an like “We showed him the way: whether he be grateful or ungrateful rests on his will” (76:3). Similarly, “if any be blind, it will be to his own harm: I am not here to watch over your doings” (6:104).