and

 Live Streaming on

 Philosophy and Public Issues Journal Website

One day launch workshop of the new series of *Philosophy and Public Issues*, an international journal of moral, political, legal and social philosophy edited by Sebastiano Maffettone (Lead Editor), Gianfranco Pellegrino (Executive Editor) and Michele Bocchiola (Managing Editor).

Chair: Sebastiano Maffettone (Luiss University of Rome)

Keynote Speaker: Jonathan Quong (University of Manchester)

Speakers: Elvio Baccarini (University of Rijeka), Ian Carter (University of Pavia), Ben Colburn (University of Glasgow), Stephen Holmes (New York University).

Venue: Aula Polivalente, Viale Romania 12, Rome.

Web-Venue: http://ppi.luiss.edz

The Symposium will begin at 10 am and will be broadcast live on the journal website. The new series of *Philosophy and Public Issues* will be presented.

Attendance is free.

For more information contact PPI Editors at editorppi@luiss.it.

“Methods in Political Theory”

Manchester Workshops in Political Theory
Tenth Annual Conference, 4-6 September 2013

Convenor: Jens Olesen (Oxford/LSE)

During the 1960s and 70s the methodological orthodoxy of enquiries into the study of political thought became the target of historical critique. Dissatisfied with analyses that masqueraded as historical theses, critics proposed alternative procedures they believed were more appropriate to interpretations of canonical texts. In reaction to the critique, political theorists turned inward, reflecting on the problem of how the canon should be reconstructed, thereby following in the footsteps of neighbouring disciplines such as philosophy and history, where hermeneutical issues had already been subjected to systematic investigation. Rather than trying to generate approaches distinctive to their enterprise, political theorists either ‘imported’ insights from the latter disciplines or expressed their aversion toward methodological debates.

This reluctance to talk about method has not changed much since. Indeed, some theorists consider methodological discussions as nothing but ‘continental’ charade. Aversion towards methodological debates is often based on the underlying assumption that we all know not only what we do, but also how we do it. Thus, questions of method are either bracketed out completely, or dealt with only in introductory chapters in order to engage with ‘more substantive’ issues. Yet method and substance are only analytically distinct: the way in which theorists choose to interpret a text is inextricably linked to the outcome of their analyses.

Abstracts of up to 500 words are requested for papers that aspire to discuss the term ‘method’ with reference to political theorizing, and/or to address one or more of the following approaches:

• ‘Methods’ of Textual Interpretation (for instance, Skinner, Strauss, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Derrida, Althusser)

• Genealogy (Nietzsche, Foucault)

• Conceptual history (Koselleck, Ball)

• Comparative Political Theory (Dallmayr, Godrej et al.)

• Gender Theory and Feminist ‘Interventions’ (Butler, Fraser)

• Critical Theory (Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas, Honneth)

• Deliberative democracy (Habermas, Benhabib) or Agonistic Pluralism (Mouffe, Honig, Connolly, Rancière)

• ‘Original Position’ (Rawls)

• Ideal vs. Non-Ideal Theory

• Studies of Ideology (Freeden, van Dijk)

• Marxian Political Theory

Please submit your abstract, along with your name and institutional affiliation to jens.olesen@politics.ox.ac.uk. Abstracts will be accepted on a rolling basis. The deadline for submissions is Friday 14 June 2013.

http://manceptworkshops2013.wordpress.com/

• Although attendance at the conference and participating as session chairs or commentators will be open to all members of the profession, paper presenters must be early-career philosophers – basically, anyone who doesn’t have tenure (e.g. graduate students, post-docs, VAP, TT Assistant Profs, independent scholars, etc.)

• Due to the kinds of travel-funding issues that early-career philosophers often face, several paper sessions (the exact number of which will be determined later) will be reserved for Skype presentations in which the author will be projected, and field audience questions, in real time over the internet.

• Although commentators and audience members are encouraged to present objections to papers, a guiding aim of the conference will beconstructive criticism, i.e. helping authors to improve problems (e.g. by not only raising objections, but offering and discussing possible solutions).

• Because successfully navigating the publishing world is one of the most difficult capacities for early-career philosophers to develop, and typical conference-length papers are too short (3,000 words) to publish, we will welcome submissions the length of any typical journal article (20-30 pages double-spaced) — the aim being to help early-career philosophers develop full-length papers into publishable quality. As a rule of thumb, the longer the paper, the higher the standards for acceptance to the conference. Extremely long papers are discouraged.

• In order to defray costs of attendance (once again out of concern for the needs of early-career scholars), there will be no registration fee, and consequently no official banquet, snacks, etc. Tampa is awesome, and there are many affordable places to meet, eat, and congregate around the university.

• We hope to stream all talks live via the internet and, if time permits, take some audience questions from internet viewers by email.

To submit a paper to present at the PCPC, please email the following to marvan@ut.edu by July 1, 2013: (1) a blinded (i.e. anonymized) paper, (2) a separate title page with the author’s name, contract information, and brief paper abstract, and (3) a statement concerning whether you intend to attend the conference in person or only via Skype. Decision emails indicating whether your paper has been accepted will be sent out around August 1, 2013. Finally, please bear the following in mind:

1. In order to ensure that the conference is well-attended, there will be relatively few Skype sessions — so the probability that your paper will be accepted is higher should you state in your submission email that you can attend in person.
2. Submission of a paper comprises a tacit agreement to serve as a commentator or session chair should your paper be accepted and you accept the invitation to present.

A MANCEPT Workshop in Political Theory, convened by Kalle Grill
4th – 6th September 2013, University of Manchester, UK

Background:

Paternalism continues to be an important topic in moral and political philosophy/theory. But what it is? Most agree that it involves some sort of interference with a person motivated and/or justified by her good.  However, Seana Shiffrin has denied that paternalism need to have this rationale, and proponents of libertarian paternalism typically deny that it need be interfering. It seems even the two most basic elements – interference and benevolence – may not be so basic. What is the most constructive strategy in light of this controversy? Do we keep the conceptual discussion going or can we somehow get around it or do without it?

Libertarian paternalism is a recent political program founded on behavioural research. We now know that what we prefer depends on the context and not only the content of a choice. So our wellbeing can be promoted not only by restricting the content of our choices – blocking or discouraging harmful options, but also by designing or changing the context of our choices – making good options more salient, appealing or otherwise more likely to be chosen. Libertarian paternalists say we should use choice context to promote wellbeing, without restricting content. Can this distinction be maintained? Is libertarian paternalism a coherent strategy? How are pro and con positions on libertarian paternalism related to pro and con positions on paternalism proper?

Suggested topics:

Papers may deal with the importance or lack of importance of the concept of paternalism and/or libertarian paternalism, with the proper or most useful definition of either concept, with the various components of either or both concepts – including benevolence, interference and consent, with choice content versus choice context, or with the normative significance of either or both concepts.

Conceptual investigation of either concept should ideally have some normative use and normative investigation of either concept should ideally be conceptually informed.

Format:

Two 3,5 hour sessions. Room for six papers. Papers/drafts circulated in advance two weeks prior to workshop. Please send an abstract/proposal of 300-700 words to kalle.grill@umu.se before (or on!) May 31st.

Università del Piemonte Orientale
20 May 2013, 11am, Aula Beretta, S. Andrea, Vercelli (Italy)

Speakers:

Michael Rosen (Harvard University)
Pratap Bhanu Mehta (Center for Policy Research, New Delhi)
Anna Elisabetta Galeotti (Università del Piemonte Orientale)
Enzo Rossi (University of South Wales)

Chair: Glyn Morgan (Syracuse University)

The symposium is part of Project Urbanitas (ESF Start-Up Advanced Grant).

Contact: enrico.biale@unipmn.it

Punishment book launch

Date: Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Time: 17:00-19:00

Place: Committee Room 3, the Houses of Parliament, London

Punishment is a topic of increasing importance for citizens and policymakers. Why should we punish criminals? What purposes should punishment serve? These questions and many others will be addressed in this roundtable discussion celebrating the launch of Punishmentby Thom Brooks. Panel members include:

Lord Parekh FBA (chair), Labour Peer and former Chair of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain

Frances Crook OBE, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform

Baroness Stern CBE, Crossbench Peer and former Director of NACRO

Thom Brooks, author of Punishmentand Reader in Law at Durham University

Attendance is free, but spaces are limited. Please register (subject heading “book launch”) to thom. brooks @durham.ac.uk

Further information about the event is here: http://thombrooks.info/index_files/Page948.htm

Further information about the book is here: http://thombrooks.info/index_files/Punishment.pdf

The Publisher’s website is here: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415431828/

Dissensus is the University of Liege (Belgium) peer-reviewed electronic journal in political philosophy. Papers are welcome, in English or French, and are to be sent to secretariat.dissensus@ulg.ac.be

Dissensus is available on http://popups.ulg.ac.be/dissensus/ and http://www.philopol.ulg.ac.be/dissensus.html

–
Dissensus, Revue de philosophie politique de l’ULg
Service de philosophie morale et politique
Université de Liège
Place du XX août, 7
B-4000 Liège
+32 4 366 58 47
secretariat.dissensus@ulg.ac.be

http://popups.ulg.ac.be/dissensus/

http://www.philopol.ulg.ac.be/dissensus.html

Theme: “Global Justice and the Theory and Practice of Development”

Expected date of publication: 2014

Edited by Julian Culp

Global justice is a nearly all-encompassing concept, which not only permits, but makes it mandatory, to reflect upon its importance in the most diverse areas of global politics – trade, migration and tax regulation, for instance. Unsurprisingly, then, most theorists of global justice have analyzed the import of their conception for the practice of development aid/cooperation. Additionally, some also have argued that justice represents the most relevant normative concept for spelling out as to how to understand development.

However, there are many lacunae in this field of research. The continuing criticisms that the existing theories of global distributive justice entail a parochial justification of the development practice and an insufficiently democratic understanding of development demand a revisiting of these theories. Moreover, very little scholarly attention has been devoted so far to the fact that the criteria that are employed to allocate official development assistance may lack a sound normative justification. In addition, new research in development economics on the question as to how to best explain global economic inequality promises to shed new light on moral questions regarding the proper kind of ascription of moral responsibilities for reducing this inequality. And finally, on a more practical level, few theorists of global justice made explicit contributions to the ongoing deliberations about the post-2015 development agenda.

The planned special issue of the journal Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric aims to contribute to filling the existing research gaps concerning the various linkages between global justice and the theory and practice of development. We invite particularly submissions that deal with questions such as the following:

• How, if at all, can a theory of global justice lay a non-parochial moral justificatory basis for certain forms of bi- and multilateral governmental and non-governmental development aid/cooperation?
• Which forms of development aid/cooperation exacerbate global injustices?
• What, if any, is the relevance of a conception of global justice for the justification of the criteria that should be employed for the allocation of official development assistance?
• Does recent research in development economics shed new light on central issues of global distributive justice, especially with regard to the question as to whether the global institutional order is harming the global poor?
• What are the dis-/advantages of conceiving a conception of development on the basis of a specific theory of global justice?
• From the point of view of global justice – which items should be included on the post-2015 development agenda?

For information on the manuscript presentation, please visit:

http://www.theglobaljusticenetwork.org/journal/manuscript-presentation

For information on the journal Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric , please visit:

http://www.theglobaljusticenetwork.org/journal

For queries please contact Julian Culp via culp@em.uni-frankfurt.de

The workshop convenors invite contributions from multiple perspectives and approaches that critically engage with agonistic political theory, and specifically encourage submissions which address the following topics:

(1) The historical origins of agonism and antagonism;

(2) Conceptual critique and contemporary developments of agonism;

and applications to

(3) democratic institutions; and

(4) political economy.

With regard to theory, the workshop invites papers that look at agonism’s conceptual and normative underpinnings, specifically the underlying concepts of conflict, power, and the political. In addition to this conceptual critique, the workshop aims to engage with appropriations of historical concepts by contemporary agonism, and the distinction of the latter from earlier thinkers such as Schmitt, Arendt, and Nietzsche. More specifically, possible themes include:

-       Agonistic concepts of the political, distinctions between politics and the political, and assumptions about the relation between contest and hostility;

-       Normative assumptions about the purpose of political engagement, the desirability of contestation, and the regulation of conflict in society;

-       Agonistic critiques of liberalism and the underlying goals to either modify existing institutions or replace them wholesale with non-liberal alternatives;

-       Historical manifestations of agon, their metaphysical and theological premises, and the institutional context of ancient practices of contestation.

With regard to praxis, the workshop invites contributions that engage with the agonistic theory of political institutions and the economic implications of agonism. As for political institutions, the focus is on how agonistic visions of radical democracy contrast with theories of deliberative democracy that equally stress the importance of participation and discursive contestation, and how agonistic goals such as enhanced inclusion play out in practice. As for the economic implications of agonism, the workshop aims at returning to the anti-capitalist leanings of its origin in critical theory in order to explore how agonistic political theory could better engage with the power implications of wealth inequalities, and the institutional means of redressing them. In this context, the workshop invites contributions that respond to problems such as:

-       Assumptions regarding the loci of difference-resolution in society and how they bear upon the application of agonism to political institutions;

-       The need for conclusive decision-making in light of urgent political problems and the apparent shortcomings of agonistic theory in this regard;

-       Agonistic alternatives to the prevailing hegemony in the international political economy and their implications for public policy formulation;

-       The apparent failure of agonistic theory to account for issues of redistribution and attempts to reconcile the latter with an agonistic politics of recognition.

Please email an abstract (up to 500 words) as an anonymised attachment to thepoliticsofagonism@gmail.com by 15th June 2013. Please include contact details in the body of the email. Further details about the workshop can be found at the workshop website under http://thepoliticsofagonism.wordpress.com/.

Convenors:

Annette Zimmermann (University of Oxford)

annette.zimmermann@politics.ox.ac.uk

Marius S. Ostrowski (University of Oxford)

marius.ostrowski@politics.ox.ac.uk

From now on, we accept submissions of articles and book reviews for our next issue (2013, second semester).

n. 2 contents:

Filosofía de la alteridad intercultural en América Latina
Álvaro B. Márquez-Fernández

El jardinero feliz: sobre populismo, democracia y espectros
Julián A. Melo

Terrorism, Hegel, Honneth
Sinkwan Cheng

Un análisis de las nociones de abundancia y esclavitud para reinterpretar el carácter universal de la teoría de la apropiación de John Locke
Joan Severo Chumbita

FILIPPI, ALBERTO (dir.), Argentina y Europa. Visiones españolas. Ensayos y documentos (1910-2010), Buenos Aires, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, 2011
Hugo E. Biagini

ROIG, ARTURO E.; Vermeren, Patrice; et. al. Repensando el siglo XIX desde América latina y Francia: Homenaje al filósofo Arturo A. Roig. Compilado por Marisa Muñoz y Patrice Vermeren. Buenos Aires: Colihue, 2009
Diego A. Fernández Peychaux

Issue n. 2

Keynote speakers:
Jean Cohen (Columbia University)
Robert Fine (University of Warwick)

In March 1963, The Viking Press published Hannah Arendt’s book “On Revolution”. Since then, the book has provoked a significant amount of controversy, yet at the same time it has been relatively neglected compared to Arendt’s other major works. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its publication, the present conference seeks to explore the legacy of “On Revolution”, assessing its relevance for contemporary social and political thought. We invite proposals for presentations that engage with the historical analyses, theoretical positions, and political conclusions of Arendt’s book. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
-  Revolutionary experiences and traditions
-  New beginning, foundation, event: Moments of extraordinary politics
-  Relations and tensions between the political and the social
-  Self-government, radical democracy, and the council system
-  Sovereignty, law, and constituent power

We welcome submissions of both complete papers and extended abstracts of around 500 words. They may be in English or in Spanish and must be prepared for blind review. They should be sent to coloquio_onrevolution@mail.udp.cl. The deadline is June 28, 2013. Notices of acceptance will be sent by July 15, 2013.

The conference is hosted by the Instituto de Humanidades and the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales e Historia of the Universidad Diego Portales. For additional information, please contact the organizers, Rodrigo Cordero Vega and Wolfhart Totschnig, at the email address above.

Convenors:
Peter Morriss (National University of Ireland – Galway)
Pamela Pansardi (University of Pavia)
Co-sponsored with IPSA Research Committee on Political Power (RC36).

The workshop aims at bringing together scholars interested in the definition of the concepts of power, domination and freedom, as well as in the analysis of their mutual relations.
In contemporary analytical political theory, very few studies have concentrated specifically on the study of power, and very little attention has been devoted to it in more general attempts to produce normative theories of society. However, the quite recent diffusion of Philip Pettit’s idea of ‘freedom as non-domination’ has belatedly – and partially – renewed the interest in the definition of power, in particular on the part of those scholars interested in defining the unfreedom-engendering implications of power. One of the aims of this panel is then to bring power back in the philosophical debate, and to discuss and analyze its role in normative political theory. Another is to think about freedom in relation to power rather than in isolation from it.

We welcome contributions on one of the following topics:
• the definition of power, freedom, domination;
• the relations (conceptual or substantive) between power and freedom;
• the unfreedom-engendering effects of power or domination;
• the differences between Liberal and Republican approaches to power and freedom.

If you are interested in taking part in the workshop, please send a 500-words abstract before May 31st to: pamela.pansardi@unipv.it and pete.morriss@nuigalway.ie. We warmly welcome earlier expressions of interest – with or without an abstract.

Conference website: http://manceptworkshops2013.wordpress.com/
Workshop website: http://manceptworkshops2013.wordpress.com/workshops-o-z/power-and-freedom/

Papers, in Word format, should be about 5000 words in length not including full citations and bibliography. A cover sheet should include author’s name and contact details, title of the paper, and an abstract.

Deadline for submission of papers: June 30 2013. Papers should be submitted by email to: info@associationforpoliticalthought.ac.uk.

The decision on the winning paper will be made by October 30 2013. The judges’ decision will be final.

For many advocates of global justice, one important strategy in fostering development is to address women’s specific development needs. One of the principal aims of this strategy is to improve the status of maternal and infant health, and thereby to improve the status of women more generally. Moreover, such improvements are considered central to the achievement of development goals, since improvements in women’s conditions are believed to translate into development gains for the whole community. For most scholars and practitioners working to eradicate poverty, this focus is unambiguously a good thing, since women (and their children) are among the most vulnerable members of their own communities, and are therefore most likely to suffer from the devastating effects of poverty more generally.

Yet the devastating effects of poverty can be compounded by the ways in which gender bias is so often focused on women’s bodies; the ways in which policy makers’ attempts to control women’s bodies, politically and culturally, serve to preserve their highly vulnerable positions in society. This focus often produces policies that unfairly burden women, including mandatory breastfeeding laws, population control measures, and so on. This special issue of Global Justice: Theory, Practice and Rhetoric focuses on the ways in which women, and their bodies, are the target of deliberate attempts to sustain women’s inferior position and attempts to improve their status, which may nevertheless have unintended negative consequences or be unfairly burdensome.

We especially welcome papers that combine normative and empirical elements, as well as papers that both critique and defend this approach to global poverty eradication. We welcome particularly submissions that deal with questions such as the following:

• How do cultural and institutional forms of gender inequality stand in the way of global poverty eradication? Can cultural and institutional forms of gender inequality be harnessed to serve the cause of global poverty eradication?

• In what ways do cultural/religious/institutional practices that focus on women’s bodies stand in the way of (or serve) global poverty eradication? How should we think about these practices from a normative perspective? Examples might include (but are not limited to) sex-selective abortion, female genital mutilation, international surrogacy arrangements, international adoption, and so on. In what ways do women’s bodies become the vehicle for global poverty eradication? Are these justified? Do they restrict or support women’s agency more generally?

• In what ways does discrimination in health care provision serve to perpetuate women’s vulnerable status in developing and developed states? What is the relevance, for global poverty eradication, of the fact that women’s health outcomes and health access, in most developing states, are lower than men’s? Which policies seem suitable to address this issue?

• From a moral/normative perspective, how should we think about policies that target women’s (and children’s) bodies in the name of global poverty eradication? Examples might include making breastfeeding mandatory (as has been done in Indonesia), drug distribution policies aimed specifically at women, policies aimed at controlling population growth, and conditional cash-transfers to women (contingent on their making sure children stay in school, are vaccinated etc.).

• What are the advantages/disadvantages, from a normative perspective, of targeting women in development policies to eradicate global poverty?

• Should we abandon the focus on women and focus instead on “gender” in our discussions of global poverty eradication? Does a focus on women steer us away from challenges to eradicating poverty that can be overcome only with a more expansive focus on gender?

Deadline for submission: November 30, 2013

For questions or expressions of interest, please contact Patti Tamara Lenard, patti.lenard@uottawa.ca.

For information on the manuscript presentation, please visit:

http://www.theglobaljusticenetwork.org/journal/manuscript-presentation

For information on the journal Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric, please visit:

http://www.theglobaljusticenetwork.org/journal

http://profs-polisci.mcgill.ca/abizadeh/GRIPP-2013-Workshop.htm

The workshop will be held at McGill University on 2013-05-14.

For details of the MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory 2013 please visit http://manceptworkshops2013.wordpress.com.

Marcus Arvan, University of Tampa

Simone Chambers raises several good questions, but I focus on two. First, Chambers claims that the loss that comes from banning hateful viewpoints falls well short of the Invasive State. Canada, for instance, has laws banning hate speech, but they are seldom used. So, why worry about largely dormant restrictions on hate speech?

I think it is important to appeal on this point to an intuition that is often brought out most clearly by republican theorists such as Phillip Pettit. Our autonomy may be restricted, not only by actual instances of punishment, but also by the perceived threat of it (or what Pettit calls possible acts of domination). Part of the worry here is the familiar one about the possible chilling effects of threatened punishment. I might not be speaking out of fear of being punished.

But apart from the chilling effects, I think laws have to be judged as if they were invoked. Consider, for instance, a law that gave the death penalty for parking violations. It might be that no one would be so foolish to test that law because the risk of punishment was too high. But I take it that it would still be a unjust law, because the punishment would be disproportionate to the crime. The law would still be unjust even if no one violated it, and the punishment were never imposed.

Second, Chambers wonders about my “means based limit” on democratic persuasion. According to this limit, democratic persuasion should not be pursued through bans or threats that amount to coercion. She suggests that my willingness to use state spending and tax deductible status as a means of democratic persuasion (as we will discuss in reference to chapter 4) seems tantamount to coercion.

In response, Peter Stone suggests that the liberal tradition has always drawn the line at coercion, and that I am following in the footsteps of past versions of liberalism. I want to bring out the liberal principle behind the notion that democratic persuasion can use the state’s spending power but not its coercive power to ban behavior. Namely, spending incentives leave a choice for individuals to reject the incentive or the benefit, without having to face the drastic restriction on their freedom of imprisonment. Coercive bans do not leave this choice open to citizens. They demand a particular outcome or point of view for citizens to remain free of imprisonment. On my view, it is the ability to reject a financial incentive that honors the idea of autonomy. It leaves a decision up to the individuals. Coercive bans do no such thing and thus are not autonomy protecting. As the Bob Jones case showed, a group can have the financial benefits of tax privileges discontinued, and still continue to exist and exercise their rights to dissent from the endorsement of democratic values.

Response to Rubinstein and Pevnick

Those who tend to fear the Invasive State more than the Hateful Society will be concerned that democratic persuasion is too robust in its condemnation of some viewpoints. Jennifer Rubinstein has the opposite worry. In contrast to Chambers, Rubenstein claims that it is too weak in its use of persuasive power. Rubinstein suggests there is a risk of reinforcing equally problematic but more subtle forms of racism and misogyny if democratic persuasion is only used in the most egregious cases of rejection of the ideal of free and equal citizenship. After all, institutional racism is no less dangerous than outright racism to the ideal of free an equal citizenship.

I note first that my examples go beyond the most obvious cases of organizations that reject the ideal of free and equal citizenship. The proposal to revoke nonprofit status for the Boy Scouts of America is likely to be quite controversial. I also include in democratic persuasion the step of denying tax privileges and public benefits to discriminatory groups. For instance, the state may refuse to rent public store fronts to a discriminatory group.

But when it comes to the topic of this chapter, namely the use of state spending and non-profit status to criticize hateful and discriminatory viewpoints, there is a need for a clear guide that can be codified into law. Institutional racism and sexism are so prevalent, however, that a rule that targeted it might exclude any institution from nonprofit status.

The substance and means based limits do not mean the government cannot speak out against more subtle forms of racism sexism and homophobia. Indeed, when it speaks generally it should encourage a self examination of the kind I discuss in chapter two. Reflective revision is precisely the process of looking for our own, perhaps hidden, forms of racism and sexism. But encouraging reflective revision is a way of recognizing the subtlety of institutional racism and its prevalence. Using the stronger means I discuss in chapter 4 I think would fail to recognize this subtlety.

My argument for a clear legally modifiable standard for revoking 501c3 status also helps to answer Ryan Pevnick’s worry about the abuse of state power in pursuit of democratic persuasion. Currently, the tax privileges of 501c3 status hinges on an overly broad discretion by the IRS about what is and what is not a “charitable” purpose that confers a public benefit. My proposal is to clarify the meaning of what qualifies as a “charitable” organization to exclude certain hateful viewpoints. Clarifying the standard, in fact, would allow less discretion to the IRS and other administrative agencies . Pevnick’s worry about the abuse of state power apply more to the current understanding of 501c3 status, and less to my theory of democratic persuasion, which has a clearer and less arbitrary understanding of what charitable organizations can receive tax privileges.

Response to Vallier, Schwartzman and Stiltz

The exchange between Kevin Vallier and Micah Schwartzman focuses on my account of transformation and religious freedom. Vallier suggests that my account of transformation commits me to a state role in making theological judgments. If I think that the state should criticize religious groups, even churches that reject the ideal of free and equal citizenship, does that make the state a theologian?

Schwartzman disagrees, replying that I am merely defending a set of democratic values that might or might not conflict with theological values. That is not engaging in theology, although it might impact theological institutors, notably churches like Westboro.

Not surprisingly I agree with Schwartzman. My aim is to have the state promote a set of democratic values, and not to make theological judgments. I am seeking to defend the reasons for rights, including the reasons that undergird the right to free exercise of religious. That right is based on an ideal of free and equal citizenship. To defend religion we must defend these values even in the face of religious opposition. This means engaging in judgment about the meaning of religious freedom, but that is not theological judgment.

But I do think Kevin is correct that some religious groups will find that democratic persuasion impinges on their theological commitments. Some religious groups have no trouble seeing how their theology leads them to endorse an ideal of free and equal citizenship. But others, such as the Westboro Church, will find their theological commitments at odds with the state’s promotion of the ideal of free and equal citizenship. Their central commitment as they see it, namely that God hates gays, is at odds with the ideal of equality for gays under law. To the extent that the government promotes an ideal of equality, it inevitably criticizes homophobia that is grounded in Westboro’s view of theology.

I do not think I could say here either that these are merely unintended or unforeseeable effects of democratic persuasion. I take Vallier’s point to be that we know these effects will happen. But recognizing that democratic persuasion might impact theological viewpoints is not the same as saying that it is itself theological or engages in theology. The state is not endorsing a belief in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or any religion at all. Rather, the state is promoting a set of political, democratic values even when they conflict with other values, including those grounded in some theologies.

Relatedly Anna Stiltz also worries that democratic persuasion might undermine theological authority. Ultimately she says my view requires that religious groups accept a grounding of political authority as being secular and not religious. She worries that might have too great a theological impact.

In responding to this related concern, I think it is important to remind the reader of the many instances in which there is not such a conflict. Many religions accept the ideal of equality under law for various statuses. Indeed every major religion currently has variants that accept these values at least as a matter of law. This shows that there is no instance of these values being at odds with religion wholesale.

But what about the impact on those religions that are at odds with these values? As Annie makes clear they can simply opt out of democratic persuasion by refusing non-profit status and government funding. But am I saying they cannot be good citizens?

I think that goes too far. Citizenship is multifaceted and has many dynamics. Members of these groups might be good citizens in paying taxes, obeying the law, and performing national service. I think though, that we should acknowledge that as far as they reject free and equal citizenship, they do not endorse the highest ideal of democratic citizenship, and they are denying the respect that is owed to their fellow citizens as free and equal.