Political liberalism and religious discourses: An evaluation of the asymmetry objection

Abstract

John Rawls’ Political Liberalism (2005) addresses the question of enduring plurality of conflicting worldviews within societies under democratic regimes. As a theory of justification, political liberalism excludes religious reasons from public reason’s scope and content. The asymmetry objection disputes political liberalism by claiming that (1) burdens of justification are distributed unevenly between non-religious and religious citizens, (2) political liberalism favors liberal comprehensive doctrines over non-liberal comprehensive doctrines, and (3) the asymmetric treatment towards disagreements about the good life and the political conception of justice proves that political liberalism is not internally coherent. By expounding on the existing responses to the objection, this thesis asks: Can Political Liberalism sufficiently rebut the asymmetry objection? Can religious discourses be permissible for justifying constitutional norms and their interpretations as laws? In this thesis, possibilities of overcoming the asymmetry objection are shown through expanding and interpreting responses in the literature. This evaluation of the asymmetry objection leads to a particular reading of Political Liberalism as a non-comprehensive Kantian moral political doctrine.