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Political Science

Columbia Law School

Political philosophy

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Religion And American Political Judgments, Kent Greenawalt Jan 2001

Religion And American Political Judgments, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

This Article addresses the extent to which officials and citizens should rely directly on their religious convictions to reach political judgments and make political arguments. Reviewing opposing "exclusive" and "inclusive" positions, this Article suggests that officials generally should not articulate arguments in religious terms. Many officials should have a greater freedom to rely on religious bases of judgments, and private citizens should not regard themselves as constrained in the manner of officials. This approach, defended initially from the perspective of detached political philosophy, fits comfortably with a variety of overarching religious views. The constraints it suggests should be regarded as …


Three Limitations Of Deliberative Democracy: Identity Politics, Bad Faith, And Indeterminancy, William H. Simon Jan 1999

Three Limitations Of Deliberative Democracy: Identity Politics, Bad Faith, And Indeterminancy, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

In Democracy and Disagreement, Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson elaborate a liberal political style designed to complement the substantive liberalism they and others have developed in recent years. The style they portray is deliberative, and its essence is the appeal to principle.


Religious Expression In The Public Square – The Building Blocks For An Intermediate Position, Kent Greenawalt Jan 1996

Religious Expression In The Public Square – The Building Blocks For An Intermediate Position, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

The problem of religious expression in the public square is not primarily legal in a narrow sense. We are not talking about whether people are allowed to voice certain kinds of opinions or to vote on certain kinds of grounds. The problem is about how citizens and officials in liberal democracies should act. My own position on this problem is an intermediate one, in a sense I shall shortly explain. Its plausibility depends on some sense of the strengths and weaknesses of positions at each end of the spectrum. I shall begin with a thumbnail sketch of these.