| Liberal political theory owes its very existence to the fact that political leaders can no longer expect nor force citizens to agree on religious matters. Even as liberalism accommodates the permanent condition of religious pluralism, it must promote a moral consensus persuasive enough to sustain itself. In the American context the forms of this dilemma are outlined in the religious clauses of the First Amendment; any acceptable answer must fall within the Constitutional prescriptions of non-establishment and free exercise. The lack of a persuasive moral consensus within liberalism leads Beem to re-examine this fundamental problem. In the context of a critical assessment of the work of John Rawls, John Courtney Murray and William Galston, Beem proposes to ground liberal politics in a realist understanding of the human good. He develops a "constructive liberalism," along with the terms by which secular liberals and religious adherents alike can affirm it. (CSSR Press) |
