Reply to Five Critics of Why Tolerate Religion?

Abstract

This is my contribution to a symposium on my book Why Tolerate Religion? (Princeton, 2013), in which I respond to essays by François Boucher (Montreal) and Cécile Laborde (University College London), Frederick Schauer (Virginia), Corey Brettschneider (Brown), and Peter Jones (Newcastle). I clarify and revise my view of the sense in which some religious beliefs are "insulated from reasons and evidence" in response to the criticisms of Boucher & Laborde, but take issue with other aspects of their critique. I defend most of my original argument against utilitarian and egalitarian objections from, respectively, Schauer and Brettschneider. I also discuss and defend the "No Exemptions" approach to conscientious objection to neutral laws of general applicability against a variety of objections, arguing, in particular, that my view is not probably that different from that of Jones.

Keywords: religious liberty, toleration, exemptions, Rawls, Mill, Marx, Nietzsche