Representing Religion in the

Public Sphere: A Moral

Theory of Multicultural
Engagement
Tarcisio Amorim Carvalho
(University College Dublin)
Multiculturalism and Common Values

Angela Merkel (2010) and David Cameron

(2011) - Failure of Multiculturalism

Kenan Malik (2015)

- Minority groups were treated as
homogeneous wholes
- Universal Progressive (Liberal) Values
 Questions
How is it possible to understand such a requirement for
compliance once the origin and character of these
values are put into question?

What are the sources of societal values? Should they be

only secular?

Given that political autonomy is a core liberal principle

how can one take account of individuals distinct
values in multicultural societies?
 A new approach to communicative
rationality

Cognitive instrumental rationality -> communicative

rationality

Legitimacy: legal norms and constitutional principles

derive from the normative contents of discursive acts -
empirical acquiescence (sanctions and rewards)
 Pragmatism

Ernst Tugendhat

Compromise of interests X moral

consensus
Fails to justify the superiority of reflexive
modes of justification for collective action
 Classical Liberalism

Rawls Original Position X Perspective of

real-life argumentation
 Contextualism

Ethnocentrism X Expansion of interpretive

horizons
 Why Translation?

- Ideal character of semantic generality

(common [translatable] language):
Narrative X Argument
Alasdair MacIntyre

() every tradition is embodied in some particular

set of utterances and actions and thereby in all the
particularities of some specific language and
culture (Whose Justice, Which Rationality?, 1998:
371)

Learn as a second language

 Religious reasons and political
justification
Religion in the Public Sphere (2006)

Wild X Formal Public

()a rule that cannot be justified in an
impartial manner is illegitimate as it reflects
the fact that one party forces its will on
another (Habermas, 2006: 5).
 Secular foundations of legal-political validity impairs the
conditions of political autonomy of religious citizens

Effective processes of deliberation should allow for different,

unexpected and unfamiliar arguments, the confrontation of
which would result not in conversion to the other persons
perspective, but in the production of a new perspective that
is different to either of the existing ones (Cooke, 2007: 230).

Critique of reason
Tariq Modood From protection to the
person to protection of feelings and beliefs

Bhikhu Parekh Operative Values - Polygamy

(Polygyny) and Arranged Marriage
 Conclusion

Legitimacy :
-Dialogical evaluation of validity claims
(reason and tradition)
- Rethinking the postmetaphysical
foundations of democracy
- Common values Engagement and
challenge for a moral consensus