Freedom to believe Justice and religious freedom in the liberal society

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to respond to three fundamental questions: 1) Which are the reasons that support the separation between the liberal State and the churches?; 2) In which sense does this separation allow or strengthen the agency capability between people?; 3) Which connections may be preserved between religious language and political language in spite of the separation between the liberal State and the churches? Our exposition will appeal to Martha Nussbaum’s treatment of the «practical reason» (the agency) as well as to the idea of «stipulation» developed by John Rawls during the last stage of his work. The author endeavors to demonstrate in what sense the separation between the liberal State and the churches seeks to guarantee the right of conscience of individuals, without meaning that this will condemn the religious issues or vision of the world affairs to the private sphere; its place of discussion is not the State but the civil society. A few important claims referring to matters of rights or common good arise from speeches with a partially religious foundation (Martin Luther King Jr’s message at the Lincoln Memorial, for example), but for the purpose of including the liberties and rights of all citizens, it relinquishes its particularity to acquire a «public resonance». Inside the local communities, the religious language preserves its private dimension. This double resonance is compatible with the pluralism required by a democratic society.