Benjamin Hertzberg's Chains of Persuasion is a thoughtful and very interesting intervention into the discussion of the appropriate relation between religion and liberal democracy. The book is marked by a number of fruitful conceptual innovations and interesting discussion of numerous illustrative examples that serve to flesh out the meaning of the concepts. Perhaps most importantly, it is marked by an even-handed and even-tempered discussion of religion and politics by an author who is knowledgeable about contemporary political theory, social science, and the practice of religion. Many works discussing the “religion/liberal democracy” relation can immediately be sorted into more or less exclusive and opposed categories: that of “how can we manage the danger of religion” or that of “how can we avoid the oppression of the liberal state.” Those looking for a fellow traveler on either side of this divide will be frustrated by Herzberg's book, but those sensing that the division is too stark and too simple and wanting to learn how to think more deeply about a terribly complicated mixture of issues will be rewarded through engaging the book.
Hertzberg defines his project as “developing a new framework for evaluating the proper role of religion in liberal democratic politics” (11). Doing so is different than articulating an answer to the question of the proper role of religion in liberal democratic politics. Answers to that question constitute the most widely discussed works in the contemporary literature. John Rawls's ideas of political liberalism and public reason are at the center of this literature. Hertzberg's aim is not to intervene substantively in this debate, but rather to define a new way of thinking about the criteria of judgment that should be utilized to evaluate contributions to the debate. It is a manual for umpires about how to judge, not a manual of strategy for the players.
Hertzberg's primary objection to the reigning understanding of the proper framework for judging the role of religion in liberal democracy is that it relies on too narrow a conception of both “religion” and “democracy,” and thus fails to take into account all that needs to be considered when evaluating the issue. Following a number of works in the “critical theory of religion,” Hertzberg argues that a narrowly “Protestant” understanding of religion, one that over-emphasizes the significance of belief and doctrine (as opposed to practice and ritual), is too often employed in the contemporary mainstream literature. Rawls's treatment of religion as a “comprehensive doctrine” is taken as illustrative of this tendency. Hertzberg's alternative is to treat “religion” as a more or less ordinary set of practices in which human beings engage and to direct evaluative judgment (from the point of view of democracy) not simply to the “value correspondence” between the substance of religious and political values but to the practical and performative dimensions of religion and how they relate to the needs of democracy. So, for example, one might notice the opportunities for debate and reflection generated by the pluralism of legal interpretations within Islamic law (potentially positive from the point of view of democratic skills) rather than immediately focus upon the substantive value correspondence between (some version of) Islam and the values of democracy.
Similarly, Hertzberg suggests that we expand and widen the conception of “democracy” that we employ when thinking about “religion and democracy.” He proposes what he calls a “way of life” conception of democracy. The idea is that rather than focusing only upon the political institutions or value commitments of democracy, the analyst must examine the “citizens’ practices, social norms, cultures, and the ways in which they and their associations relate to each other outside of formal governmental institutions in what moderns have come to call ‘civil society’” (12). Thus, both democracy and religion are said to be best understood as “regimes.” Hertzberg's rhetorical emphasis is upon the point that his regime conceptions of religion and democracy are broader and more capacious than what he takes to be the standard conceptions employed in the literature. Consequently, the outer limits of the regime concepts are not defined precisely. I did not find this to be a serious problem with his account, but one can see how boundary issues might arise with attempts to apply the framework to a given practical situation. Hertzberg's view is that, ultimately, religion and democracy cannot be clearly distinguished from each other.
Hertzberg spends the bulk of the book applying these concepts to four sites where the relation of religion and democracy is conceived and discussed: (1) the issue of liberal political legitimacy and public reason, (2) the conception of deliberation that is appropriate to democracy, (3) the issue of the instrumental purposes that are served by democracy and how religion might relate to these, and (4) the “virtue theory” that is required by democracy, that is, an account of the virtues that citizens must develop and practice and how religion can relate to those excellences. Each of the sites has an interesting scholarly literature on its own, and part of the value of Hertzberg's book derives from his ability both to insightfully discuss each area on its own and to impress upon the reader the necessity of seeing the relations between the areas. Hertzberg concludes with an interesting account of the place of Muslims and Mormons in American democracy. He applies the framework developed throughout the book to these two religious groups, with, to my mind, thought-provoking results.
The concept of “chains of persuasion” is Hertzberg's novel way of challenging the view that the employment of religious reasons in political argument should be regulated, controlled, or perhaps even prevented. That view argues for the control of religious reasoning out of concern that the religious differences characteristic of a free society will undermine political consensus or stability if they come to be used as the grounds of political argument and justification. Arguments appealing to (a particular) religious truth will fall on deaf ears when directed at those who do not share that religious commitment, let alone those without religious commitment. The ideal of open and reasoned mutual deliberation can thus seem threatened by religious argument in politics. Hertzberg argues that this view is flawed, at least partly because it presupposes a “dyadic” model of deliberation as opposed to a “systemic” model (76). The contrast is that the systemic model views “deliberation” as a process that takes place over time in “different but interconnected forums ranging from formal institutions to civic groups, to conversations in homes and neighborhoods” (76). The dyadic model, on the other hand, emphasizes the exchange of reasons and arguments between citizens in direct communication. A direct religious claim that might fall flat as a persuasive reason in a dyadic communication between two citizens could nevertheless function as an element of an act of reasonable citizenship (a “link” in a “chain” of persuasion) if viewed as one moment in a larger process of communication occurring over time. So, for example, Hertzberg imagines “Carol,” an integralist Catholic citizen, invoking a religious reason for a political claim in a discussion setting. The non-Catholics among the listeners are unmoved by such an appeal. But suppose there are other, presumably non-integralist, Catholics (Hertzberg describes them as “loosely identifying” with Catholicism) among the listeners, and some of them are persuaded by Carol's arguments. Then, as Hertzberg writes, “some of those citizens may be able to articulate a different argument for the same (i.e. Carol's) conclusion that appeals to alternative values and norms that are not Catholic or not exclusive to Catholicism. . . . Citizens who do not share any of the norms or values to which Carol appealed may, at some point in the future, be persuaded by the argument that one of these looser affiliates makes. . . . Carol, the integralist Catholic, does not directly persuade the non-Catholic; rather her arguments directly persuade the loosely affiliated Catholic who then persuades the non-Catholic” (80–81).
The possibility of such chains of persuasion provides the rationale for Hertzberg's rejection of restrictions on religious contributions to democratic deliberation advocated by doctrines of public reason. Many writers who share Hertzberg's view about this criticize such restrictions through appeal to the value of the integrity of the religious citizen, who would be (allegedly) required to compromise her fundamental value commitments by such strictures. Hertzberg's pathway to opposing restrictions is interestingly different. I think that Hertzberg is correct to identify the phenomenon of chains of persuasion, and to highlight how it can change our angle of perception on the issue of public reason restrictions on religious argument. On the other hand, the logical possibility of such chains is just that; in different societies, such chains will occur to a greater or lesser actual degree, and the empirical frequency will matter in our all things considered evaluation of the role of religion in democratic politics.
The fact that Hertzberg rejects restrictions on religious contributions to democratic deliberation might lead one to suppose that he is a critic of the public reason approach generally, but this is not so. His view is that “[r]eligious arguments are a perfectly permissible contribution to democratic discussions; however, they cannot justify legitimate law” (14). The idea is that only “public” reasons, derived from the civic (not religious) status of citizens, can justify legitimate law in a democracy because only such reasons are consistent with the free and equal status of citizens. That is standard public reason doctrine. The rejection of restrictions on religious contributions to discussion is made possible by the appeal to the chains of persuasion idea, in the sense that by the time an (originally) religious appeal goes through the laundering process of dynamic discussion in different forums, it may come to inspire and inform a genuinely public reason that can rightfully constitute a democratic legitimation. This theoretical split, that of affirming the public reason idea of political legitimacy while rejecting its standard commitment to restrictions on religious politics, is one of the many novel features of Hertzberg's account. It is an attempt to work out a moderate middle way between liberals and religious critics when it comes to thinking about the role of religion in liberal-democracy. Though different in important ways, it reminded me of the position articulated by Christopher Eberle in Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), itself an important contribution to the discussion. Hertzberg's book is a worthy companion to it, and essential (and rewarding) reading for any theorist concerned with the complex of issues surrounding the relationship between religion and liberal democracy.
