On the Limits of Rights and Representation: The Moral Challenge of Blackness and the Problem of Public Reason
Author: Terrence L. Johnson
October 21, 2015
In this article, published in The Journal of Religious Ethics, Terrence Johnson examines the relationship between moral and religious beliefs and John Rawls's idea of "public reason" as a framing device for political discussions about moral issues. Johnson argues that Rawls' account of how we should conduct conversations in a democratic society does not provide a way to grapple with "cultural inheritance," the way in which our shared histories have both privileged some people and shaped our own moral beliefs. Johnson frames his discussion around a criticism of black preachers who have come to support same-sex marriage but who often do so in the supposedly "neutral" language of rights, using this political, non-religious form of discourse as a means to avoid grappling with their own deeply conditioned beliefs about the immorality of same-sex relationships.
