Is the Liberal State Secular?
Mon 21 November 2022
Wesley House
Under which conditions does a state meet basic criteria of liberal legitimacy? In particular, is it permissible for a state to endorse and promote a religion – and under which conditions? In this lecture, I introduce secularism as a minimal normative requirement of state legitimacy. I understand secularism, not as a comprehensive non-religious conception of the good, but as a political doctrine specifying the rightful place of religion in the state. Secularism does not focus on the duties and dispositions of citizens but, rather, on the institutions of the state and the obligations of its officials. It asks whether liberal democracy requires some form of separation between state and religion, which, and why.
Cécile Laborde is the Nuffield Chair of Political Theory at the University of Oxford. She is notably the author of Critical Republicanism. The Hijab Controversy and Political Philosophy (Oxford University Press 2008) and Liberalism’s Religion (Harvard University Press 2017).
Cost: Free