Secularism Smuggling Religion: Are There Secular Reasons?

My friend Steven sent me this link to Stanley Fish's February 22 opinion piece in the New York Times: Are There Secular Reasons?

Fish begins with what many think to be a truism of modern political life, that the religious life cannot provide "reasons" for public policy. Only "secular reasons" based upon "facts" can guide our social contract:

In the always-ongoing debate about the role of religion in public life, the argument most often made on the liberal side (by which I mean the side of Classical Liberalism, not the side of left politics) is that policy decisions should be made on the basis of secular reasons, reasons that, because they do not reflect the commitments or agendas of any religion, morality or ideology, can be accepted as reasons by all citizens no matter what their individual beliefs and affiliations. So it’s O.K. to argue that a proposed piece of legislation will benefit the economy, or improve the nation’s health, or strengthen national security; but it’s not O.K. to argue that a proposed piece of legislation should be passed because it comports with a verse from the book of Genesis or corresponds to the will of God.
The outcome of this division is a kind of "apartheid" between faith and reason in our public life:
Whether the argument appears in its softer or harder versions, behind it is a form of intellectual/political apartheid known as the private/public distinction: matters that pertain to the spirit and to salvation are the province of religion and are to be settled by religious reasons; matters that pertain to the good order and prosperity of civil society are the province of democratically elected representatives and are to be settled by secular reasons.
Fish goes on to question this apartheid by reviewing Steven Smith's new book The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse. Smith's argument has a family similarity to David Hume's contention that “reason is incompetent to answer any fundamental question.”

At root, empiricism and logic are normatively incompetent. Science cannot answer the questions "What is good?" or "What is best?" Fish describes this situation:
While secular discourse, in the form of statistical analyses, controlled experiments and rational decision-trees, can yield banks of data that can then be subdivided and refined in more ways than we can count, it cannot tell us what that data means or what to do with it. No matter how much information you pile up and how sophisticated are the analytical operations you perform, you will never get one millimeter closer to the moment when you can move from the piled-up information to some lesson or imperative it points to; for it doesn’t point anywhere; it just sits there, inert and empty.
So how are we to make policy decisions without a framework for the good? Smith contends that we "smuggle" religious constructs and values into public discourse. Fish quotes Smith:
...the secular vocabulary within which public discourse is constrained today is insufficient to convey our full set of normative convictions and commitments. We manage to debate normative matters anyway — but only by smuggling in notions that are formally inadmissible, and hence that cannot be openly acknowledged or adverted to.
Fish goes on to illustrate how this smuggling happens in public discourse:
And how do we [smuggle]? Well, one way is to invoke secular concepts like freedom and equality — concepts sufficiently general to escape the taint of partisan or religious affiliation — and claim that your argument follows from them. But, Smith points out (following Peter Westen and others), freedom and equality — and we might add justice, fairness and impartiality — are empty abstractions. Nothing follows from them until we have answered questions like “fairness in relation to what standard?” or “equality with respect to what measures?” — for only then will they have content enough to guide deliberation.

That content, however, will always come from the suspect realm of contested substantive values. Is fairness to be extended to everyone or only to those with certain credentials (of citizenship, education, longevity, etc.)? Is it equality of opportunity or equality of results (the distinction on which affirmative action debates turn)? Only when these matters have been settled can the abstractions do any work, and the abstractions, in and of themselves, cannot settle them. Indeed, concepts like fairness and equality are normatively useless, except as rhetorical ornaments, until they are filled in by some partisan or ideological or theological perspective, precisely the perspectives secular reason has forsworn. Therefore, Smith concludes, “conversations in the secular cage could not proceed very far without smuggling.”

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4 thoughts on “Secularism Smuggling Religion: Are There Secular Reasons?”

  1. Yes, this is so true! I just have an argument as to the word "smuggle". Smuggle means deceptive means to an end? That seems to subvert a necessary componant of ethical behavior, consent or choice, which is the basis of contracts.

    Any word that holds emotional value, must be defined by those using it. Otherwise, one will be duped by the deceptive 'smuggling" in their agenda.

  2. When you ask whether the equality and fairness issue is universal (irregardless of citizenship), you are talking about international or global interests. This presupposes that globalism, or dissolving a specific nation's interests are of prime importance in reaching universiality.

    I don't believe so, because nation's have interests just as individual do. Nothing whatsoever is wrong with having interests. It is what and how we go about getting those interests addressed, or met.

    Nations have traiditionally approached the issues of interests on a rational basis, which brings about a treaty, similar to contracts for an individual.

    Nations cannot be dissolved, anymore than indviduals can be dissolved into an "organistic whole". Social structures and individuals loose their function without their individuality.

    Boundaries are what is required in maintaining healthy relationships. These are national boundaries (laws) as well as personal ones. I think the dissolving or attempt to dissolve distincitions among the European Union, is what has led to much stress and crisis when it comes to resolving conflict. Differences must be affirmed instead of diminished.

    So, I do not believe I can "love humanity", a universalization of "community". Citizens have rights that are important to maintain, otherwise, what benefit is citizenship? Why would an individual feel an obligation, duty, or responsibility toward a government that does not specially recognize their right, as a citizen? Protection of liberty is what our nation and its laws is about, not about protecting the liberty of those that have sought to subvert liberty.

    It becomes impossible to walk coherently with others that do not agree to the same rules, and have similar goals for their people.

  3. The difficulty is, and the issue social scientists are dealing with is: what are relevant "facts" to make decisions by and how do we arrive at them. As it seems social facts are a bit more hard to come by than the nature of gravity.

  4. To me, this smells a little like the assertion that "you can't have values without God". Which is wrong. All people have things that they value.

    The liberal argument, properly understood, has two parts. First, we argue that "because my deity says so" is a poor argument in a democracy because it is not broadly convincing. Second, we argue that "because my deity says so" /should be/ a poor argument, for a variety of reasons.

    So "Smuggling" your faith into the discussion is to be expected, because the only parts of faith that can successfully be smuggled actually arise from common values that are shared by human beings, and not owned by any particular religion.

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