A School for Conscience
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process and the social contract expressed in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. King sought to envision a just and inclusive social order, the “beloved community” (as he called it).While the contractarian vision admits that high ideals can enter the poli-
tical arena, there is also the constant insistence on the neutrality of the State towards those commitments. The political process that political purpose cannot and ought not define the years, public debate in the United States about gay marriage, prayer in content of ideals. In recent validates ideals for
schools, and the public posting of the Ten Commandments in state and fed-eral court houses, bespeak the power of this vision and its ostensive neutral-ity on comprehensive commitments. Little wonder, then, that versions of the liberal account of the relation of morality and politics were in open and
rancorous conflict with those dedicated to articulating the moral substance of the social order.is a loss of the means to express commitments necessary to sustain political As we have seen, the main problem facing advocates of “moral substance”
stability and form national identity. Among religious folks this same chal-lenge takes the form of trying to reclaim “orthodoxy,” or the story of Jesus, or (among Muslims) the desire to have the dominance of life. For the social contract model, the main problem is related and yet dif-Sharia in political
ferent. Given the ostensive neutrality of the State about religious and moral commitments, the worry is that this position forces citizens into social duplicity. The identity of citizens is torn asunder wherein their personal moral and religious convictions, including how they justify those beliefs, are
barred from impinging on the political process. Political action which is, obviously, motivated by a host of ideals, values, norms, and interests becomes unexplainable or profoundly deceptive. This has the effect of instigating a break within persons’ identities. It is hardly surprising that various forms of
“identity politics” (women’s rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, etc.) are rife among those dedicated to the social contract resolution of the relation of religion, morality, and politics.The idea of the social contract holds real insight, but also problems. By 13
prying apart the question of the their show to be true, their religious and moral convictions on grounds different from those convictions. This entails two troubling claims: (1) that the stand-content, the contractarian outlook seems to require that citizens validate, validity of substantive commitments from
point for the validation of convictions is itself sible, in principle, to properly validated, since it is the whole bundle of convictions that must orient action. These demands seem humanly impossible to meet. They give suspend belief in one’s various convictions until they are neutral, and (2) that it is pos-