Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality

by Martha C. Nussbaum

Book Overview

In one of the great triumphs of the colonial and Revolutionary periods, the founders of the future United States overcame religious intolerance in favor of a constitutional order dedicated to fair... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465051642
• ISBN13: 9780465051649
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
• Length: 406 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.6" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Great Read

This is a very detailed and comprehensive report on the establishment and free exercise clauses in our constitution. It is very eye opening and thought provoking in its possible applications. It is very timely given our recent presidential campaigns and the focus on religion/patriotism/flag lapel pens etc. A very excellent book.

A Problematic Perspective

Martha Nussbaum is in danger of becoming the next Isaac Asimov - a freelance expert on everything in general. This book is more of a tour de force than a serious study. Nussbaum makes a good argument for "overlapping consensus" in discussing equality between the religion clauses in the First Amendment but really misses the boat when it comes to injurious religious practices - the major obstacle to the equality principle. (It was John Rawls who earlier argued for "overlapping consensus" between believers and non-believers.) She does this by merely shrugging off pernicious effects that religious practices can have. Why did the Pope recently have to meet with victims of abuse by Catholic clergy? Nussbaum also unaccountably gives a free pass to polygamy, which has been in the news lately. She is cavalier in dismissing Jon Krakauer's seriously troubling indictment of polygamy. He is a mountaineer, she asserts, and has no major credentials in religion. And who, precisely, is Ms. Nussbaum to complain about someone else's being a non-specialist? Yet Krakauer only shows part of the immense and disturbing problem that polygamy poses. Andrea Moore-Emmett, an award-winning journalist from Utah, exposed much deep ugliness and cruelty underlying polygamy in her study, "God's Brothel," which featured the harrowing accounts of 18 actual women who all lived under polygamy. The problem is there are people who are willing to prey (no pun intended) on the credulous and inflict severe emotional and physical damage while claiming merely to be freely exercising their religion. This is where the equality principle - and Nussbaum's thesis - founder. After all, the Supreme Court has held that religious belief cannot be regulated but religiously-motivated conduct can. This is fortunate. But what is really left of free exercise at that rate? There is far too much misery and torment inflicted in the real world - today, here, now - for Nussbaum to hide behind the sort of dismissiveness that taints this study. Alas, one need not be a "smug atheist" to worry about the sins being committed as people anoint themselves prophets and act on their beliefs to the detriment of others. We act as though the abuses like those of the Inquisition could not happen here or be visited on anyone nowadays. Wrong. Emphatically wrong. It would be nice to think the Establishment Clause should move over and make equal time for the Free Exercise Clause but the fact is, when people insist they have God's sanction to do truly depraved things, in the name of exercising their religion, notional commentary trivializes the harsh realities and, ultimately, the power some religions hold, for good or ill, over the minds of their adherents. I heard Dr. Nussbaum speaking on Bill Moyers on April 18 and I was struck by how she simply avoided difficult questions - and Moyers was gentle with her. She simply sidestepped the issue of what you do about religious people who refuse to recognize that others are entitl

An excellent read....

One doesn't have to be religious to appreciate this book. Its simply an excellent reminder of the wisdom of the founding fathers and how they didn't want a state religion of any type, while also being about a country that has ebbed and flowed when it comes to religion in general. A take it or leave it mode. Yes, we have had periods where pious folk attempted to rule. But a closer look shows that in the end sanity pretty much rules. I also highly recommend The Faiths of the Founding Fathers by David L. Holmes