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60The Religion Clauses in the US Constitution: Some Debates on Liberty, Equality, and Religious FreedomВестник Казну, Серия Религиоведение 1. 2023.In this short article, my aim is to introduce readers to some debates about religious freedom and constitutional law in the United States. I highlight a few of the enduring questions debated by political philosophers and legal scholars. For example, does the Constitution require special religious exemptions for citizens whose religious convictions put them at odds with otherwise neutral and legitimate state pol- icy? Should the Constitution be interpreted as supporting a strict secularism or a m…Read more
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385Protestant Christian Supremacy and Status InequalityRadical Philosophy Review 25 (1). 2022.In the United States, Protestant Christian identity is the dominant religious identity. Protestant Christian identity confers status privileges, yet also creates objectionable status inequalities. Historical and contemporary evidence includes the unfair treatment of Mormons, Native Americans, Muslims, and other religious minorities. Protestant Christian supremacy also plays a significant role in bolstering anti LGBTQ prejudice, xenophobia, and white supremacy. Ways that Protestant Christian iden…Read more
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356Liberalism and Liberal Muslims. 2021.In this paper I propose an approach to thinking about religion and politics that should inform how we think about liberalism and religion. I also consider how the conception of political authority defended by the prominent Muslim public intellectual Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im is a paradigm example of liberalism. In Part I I consider two approaches to religion and politics. According to the reductionist view, whether values that are central to a religious tradition can be reconciled to liberalis…Read more
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456Toleration and Liberty of ConscienceIn Mitja Sardoc (ed.), Handbook of Toleration, Palgrave. 2021.This chapter examines some central features to liberal conceptions of toleration and liberty of conscience. The first section briefly examines conceptions of toleration and liberty of conscience in the traditions of Locke, Rawls, and Mill. The second section considers contemporary controversies surrounding toleration and liberty of conscience with a focus on neutrality and equality. The third section examines several challenges, including whether non-religious values should be afforded the sam…Read more
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881Liberalism and TolerationIn Johannes Drerup & Gottfried Schweiger (eds.), Toleration and the Challenges to Liberalism, Routledge. 2020.Political liberty is at the centre of liberal conceptions of toleration. Liberal political philosophers disagree about the limits of toleration, whether equality is central to liberal toleration, and the toleration of illiberal religious and cultural practices, among other topics. Some non-liberal states adopt a model of toleration, despite significant limitations on liberty. Moreover, some recent work in comparative philosophy emphasizes pluralism across traditions of political morality. This c…Read more
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3Review of Understanding the Political Philosophers: From Ancient to Modern Times, by Alan Haworth (review)Essays in Philosophy 6 (1): 281-285. 2005.
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271Wedding Cakes and Muslims: Religious Freedom and Politics in contemporary American legal practicePolitologija 1 25-36. 2019.This paper offers a critical examination of two recent American Supreme Court verdicts, Masterpiece Cake Shop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission and Trump v Hawaii. In Masterpiece the Court ruled against the state of Colorado on grounds that religious bias on the part of state officials undermines government’s authority to enforce a policy that might otherwise be constitutional. In Trump the Court ruled in favor of an executive order severely restricting immigration from seven countries, five of…Read more
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Autonomy and Obligation: Moral Discourse, Reciprocal Accountability, and Moral InjuryDissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton. 2000.There are two primary indices for measuring the plausibility of a moral theory. The first is theoretical, the second practical. From a theoretical point of view moral theory is assessed by examining the adequacy of its principles. Every moral theory must offer principled guidance on how to resolve moral conflicts and must offer some justification for these principles. If moral reasoning is to be non-arbitrary in the outcomes it produces, then some constraint or 'test' for moral validity is neede…Read more
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529Religious and Political Authority in the Kingdom of Saudi ArabiaManas Journal of Social Science 6 (02): 241-257. 2017.Alfred Stepan’s “twin-tolerations” thesis (2000) is a model for explaining different ways that religious and political authority come to be reconciled. In this paper, we investigate some obstacles and challenges to realizing a reconciliation between religious and political authority in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) that might result in a transition away from a theocratic monarchy to a more consultative form of political authority. Whereas most analyses of religion and politics in KSA focus …Read more
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38Rights without dignity?: Some critical reflections on Habermas’s procedural model of law and democracyPhilosophy and Social Criticism 27 (3): 21-40. 2001.I argue that Habermas’s proposed system of rights fails to offer an adequate account of the relation between rights and moral injury. In providing a non-moral justification for rights, Habermas’s functional-normative argument excludes the moral intuition that persons are worthy of being protected from a class of injurious actions (i.e. false imprisonment, religious persecution). Habermas does offer clearly stated reasons for his proposed normative, yet non-moral foundation for a legitimate legal…Read more
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54Justice in education and religious freedomSocial Philosophy and Policy 31 (1): 276-294. 2014.This essay examines religious freedom in the context of education policy. I defend an approach that serves the aims of both religious freedom and adequate education requirements. The permissive view of religious exemptions endorsed in American law sometimes lends support to objectionable education policies. The alternative I defend opposes granting exemptions to education policy, religious or otherwise, when doing so will deprive students of an education that permits entry to higher education or…Read more
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35Cosmopolitanism as a Moral ImperativePhilosophy in the Contemporary World 9 (2): 41-47. 2002.In this paper I consider and respond to two arguments against cosmopolitanism, the membership needs argument and the preferential treatment argument. I argue that if there are reasonable grounds for endorsing universal norms such as human rights, then there are no reasonable grounds for rejecting moral cosmopolitanism.
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23The Paradox of Wealth and Poverty (review)International Studies in Philosophy 37 (4): 151-152. 2005.
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100Public reason and the moral foundation of liberalismJournal of Moral Philosophy 1 (3): 311-331. 2004.moral foundation of liberalism can be defended in one of three ways: (1) as a conception one accepts as a result of one’s affirmation of political liberalism, (2) as a conception one must affirm as a presupposition for political liberalism, or (3) as a philosophical truth about practical reason and persons. The first option makes it impossible to distinguish a moral consensus from a modus vivendi . The second renders the moral foundation of liberalism dogmatic because it affirms a moral foundati…Read more
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43A Democratic Equality Approach to Religious ExemptionsJournal of Social Philosophy 42 (3): 305-320. 2011.
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40Objectivity, interpretation, and rights: A critique of Dworkin (review)Law and Philosophy 23 (2): 187-222. 2004.
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26Communicative Action and Rational Choice (review)International Studies in Philosophy 37 (4): 141-142. 2005.
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5Review of Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay On Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, by Gabriel Richardson Lear (review)Essays in Philosophy 6 (2): 435-438. 2005.
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86Liberalism and the Polygamy QuestionSocial Philosophy Today 23 161-174. 2007.Part I of this paper examines liberal toleration and its relevance to the debate on polygamy. The remaining sections consider Marci Hamilton’s claim that polygamy should not be accommodated. Hamilton’s position rests on three kinds of arguments which I call: 1) the argument from public reason; 2) the argument from democracy; and 3) the argument from exploitation. Each of these fails: 1) fails because Hamilton’s conception of public reason is too restrictive; 2) fails because it rests on a proced…Read more
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42Axel Honneth’s Ethical Theory of RecognitionInternational Studies in Philosophy 31 (1): 97-110. 1999.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Law |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Law |
Social and Political Philosophy |