How, When, and Why Do Religious Actors Use Public Reason? The Case of Assisted Dying in Britain

The public reason criterion is a prominent theme in contemporary political theory. Yet scholars have focused predominantly on conceptual and normative issues at the expense of empirical questions about the language used by actors engaged in political debate. This is a particular problem in the case...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPolitics and religion Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 385 - 408
Main Author Kettell, Steven
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.06.2019
Subjects
Content analysis
Death & dying
Debates
Digital archives
Intellectuals
Legalization
Parliaments
Political philosophy
Politics
Private members bills
Religion
Secularism
Theology
United Kingdom > UK
Scotland
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Summary:The public reason criterion is a prominent theme in contemporary political theory. Yet scholars have focused predominantly on conceptual and normative issues at the expense of empirical questions about the language used by actors engaged in political debate. This is a particular problem in the case of religious actors, whose underlying motives for taking part in such debates are frequently driven by theological concerns. This paper explores these issues by analyzing religious opposition to the legalization of assisted dying in Britain. It shows that religious actors have tended toward the use of secular rather than theological modes of argumentation, and that this is consistent with the idea of a strategic shift in response to the increasingly secularized nature of British society.
ISSN:1755-0483
1755-0491
DOI:10.1017/S175504831800086X