Customer comments on this selection.
 Poor excuse for a debate
This book is supposed to be part of a series of texts that provide a point counterpoint format, parallelling something of a debate on some interesting subject. "Religion in the Public Square" is not a debate, however, but two parallel essays with reflective commentaries on each by the opposing author. Ironically, each of the essays describes largely the SAME position (that of the ideal of liberal democracy, which protects religious liberties and the neutrality of the state with respect to religion) but they have only subtle philosophical differences. For example, Wolterstorff thinks that any reasons whatever should be allowed in public discourse so long as they are persuasive to the people hearing them, and Audi thinks that the reasons given should have constituted a significant part of the basis for why the person employing those reasons accepts them himself. Hardly the basis for an interesting discussion, one might say.
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br /Unfortunately, neither author writes their essays in an argumentative format nor do they even have the other author in mind when they write their essays. Thus, they often repeat the same concepts using different language and different terminology, which only adds to the confusion of the book.
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br /The first author, Robert Audi, presents his arguments with little or no structure in an almost stream of conscience format. Although he ultimately has important arguments lurking about, they get lost amongst his many useless, technical distinctions that he forgets about as soon as he raises them (as if they were important distinctions for their own sake). If the book was a debate, he would be making points and repeating them without telling us why they are important in the larger context of the debate. In his commentary on Wolterstorff, he writes sentences like, "I propose that conscientious citizens have a prima facie obligation to have and be willing to offer at least one secular reason that is evidentially adequate and motivationally sufficient" (123), as if it was obvious why it was important to note that the obligation was "prima facie" or that it was clear for whom these so-called "secular reasons" should be motivational. Moreover, when Audi writes this sentence, his opponent (Wolterstorff) has already criticized the coherence of a "secular reason" as ultimately meaningless, and yet Audi insists on using it in an unqualified and ambiguous way. Such lazy language is simply unacceptable, but unavoidable in the a book of this scope. For unfamiliar readers, Audi's complete text on this subject "Religious Commitment and Secular Reason" will be indispensable for understanding his ideas.
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br /Wolterstorff by contrast provides a more clear although less convincing argument for allowing religious language in the public square. Although his arguments are subtle, profoundly post modern, and surprisingly anti-foundationalist, much of his analysis is unfortunately over-theoretical and uninteresting from a practical standpoint. His criticisms of the "independent source" of Rawls and Locke may interest professors of jurisprudence, but not an undergraduate with a merely passing interest on the subject.
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br /In the end, neither author more than glosses on any of the interesting subjects that should have been the focus of this debate such as abortion or school prayer (this book was written before stem cell research was an issue). The whole discussion stays at the level of vague abstractions and hypothetical political theories, never so much as touching on the real problems with religious reasoning in the public square (such as the Catholic Church's perpetuation of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa through its condemnation of condom use in that region, or religious arguments against homosexual marriage).
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br /Finally, it is sadly not obvious that either author is aware of any religion besides Christianity or (in passing) Judaism. Ironically, Audi, who was apparently blind to the fact that no religion besides Christianity or Judaism has been mentioned, writes of Wolterstorff's essay that it is "sensitive to a variety of religious perspectives" (121). The book gets one star for being unintentionally humorous.
 Religious convictions as a basis for political action
This book is appropriate for an upper level philosophy seminar in the major, and will also be of interest to graduate students in political science and law. The debate between Audi and Wolterstorff is not really about the entire multifaceted topic of the "separation of church and state" in the United States (a lot of which concerns the scope of freedom of religious practice and strict limitations on public funding of religious causes). The debate is actually about a much more focused topic central to democratic theory: in a nation governed by a legitimate democratic process of law and policy formation through open debate and voting, what sort of considerations is it morally legitimate for citizens invoke in deciding what laws and policies to support, and appealing to others to share their views? (Thus the question is about moral norms of citizenship, not legal norms governing actual democratic processes). In Rawlsian lingo, this is a question about the content of "public reason." Audi believes citizens in a democracy ought not invoke religious beliefs, whereas Wolterstorff thinks such beliefs are on the same epistemic footing as all other considerations on which citizens must draw in making rational judgments about the common good of their society. Other authors who have contributed to this debate include Michael Perry, John Rawls, Phillip Quinn, and the authors featured in Paul Weithman's collection. The biggest drawback of all this literature, including this book, is that the interlocutors on both sides are unfamiliar with the growing body of work on the deliberative theory of democracy coming out of the republican tradition in jurisprudence and out of discourse ethics in continental philosophy. So they to not address the implications of deliberative models of democracy for the issue of appeal to religious convictions in political action.
AOID THIS BOOK IF YOU CAN!
I was forced to read this for a college course. It is harder to read than it needs to be, and the book could actually be half as long as it is. There have GOT to be better books than this one on the same subject.
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