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

From distinguished moral philosopher Martha Nussbaum, this is a historical and conceptual study of the American tradition of religious freedom. In one of greatest triumphs of the colonial and Revolutionary periods, the founders of the future United States overcame religious intolerance in favour of a constitutional order dedicated to fair treatment for people’s deeply held conscientious beliefs. It granted equal liberty of conscience to all and took a firm stand against religious establishment. This respect for religious difference, argues Martha Nussbaum, is the basis for democracy in America. Yet today there signs that this legacy is misunderstood. The prominence of a particular type of Christianity in America’s public life suggests the unequal worth of citizens who hold different religious beliefs or no beliefs. Other people, meanwhile, seek to curtail the influence of religion in public life in a way that is itself unbalanced and unfair. Such partisan efforts, argues Nussbaum, violate the spirit of the American Constitution. Weaving together political history, philosophical ideas and key constitutional cases, this is a rich chronicle of an ideal of equality that has always been central in America’s history, but is now in serious danger.