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Moral Politicians
I just got back from a two-day conference in Shepparton about cultural diversity in rural/regional Australia where I presented on research I had done on the social integration of Iraqi Muslim migrants in Cobram Victoria. (You can read the original report here).
I had the opportunity to meet lots of very interesting people, including one of the conference organisers, Frank Purcell who has been a vocal leader of prominent Catholics opposed to Cardinal George Pell’s recent heavy-handed tactics (eg. threatening Catholic politicians with sanctions if they vote in positions Pell believes are not in keeping with Catholic doctrine).
In his talk on interfaith and social cohesion, the former priest elaborated a position on the role of religious politicians responsibilities living in pluralistic democracies. It was, without doubt, the best explanation I have ever come across. Essentially it boiled down to this:
* living in a religiously pluralistic society, people can hold varying positions on moral questions that affect society (i.e. should we pursue embryonic stem-cell research? should women have free access to abortion? should drugs like marijuana be made legal? etc.)
* various religions provide ‘revelation’ on answers to various questions, but unless it is possible to support those positions by appeal to reason, a person does not have the right to impose their faith-based position on others.
To give a simple example, the Qur’an says that God prohibits the consumption of pork, however unless I am able to show through reason and science that the prohibition on consumption of pork should be made compulsory for everyone regardless of their religious affiliation, then I have no right to stop non-Muslims from eating pork products.
* a politician who is a member of a government in a religiously-pluralist society, therefore, is not being asked to vote on the morality of a particular law, but on the effectiveness of a law in question. I might believe it is morally wrong to have an abortion, but the prohibition on abortion led to all sorts of awful situations like young girls dying from back-yard abortions that carried on anyway.
So as someone religiously or morally opposed to abortion, I can recognise the ineffectiveness of a blanket prohibition on abortion and the effectiveness of allowing legal abortions in controlled settings.
* It is up to religions to inspire believers to act morally. I.e. it is the role of religion to educate and instruct followers on the immorality of gambling, to inspire the followers of churches, synagogues and mosques etc. to eschew gambling even though it is legal.
This is much more realistic for pluralist societies. Think of all sorts of issues where members of different religions and denominations have various positions: abortion, contraception, embryonic stem-cell research, working on the Sabbath, eating pork, consuming alcohol, joining the armed-forces, entering politics; uncovering the head in public; euthanasia; homosexual marriage… I could go on.
Now think on any one issue, if members of different religions imposed *their* views on you? Do you have the right to impose *your* views on them? Even though some of these are important moral questions.
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October 2nd, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Moral issues are not the hardest ones. Our society has this convenient divide between ‘morality’ and ‘ethics’, where morality concerns the actions that only affect the individual (supposedly), and ethics concerns the actions that affect those around you. We take issue with governments that place restrictions on what we consider to be ‘private’ matters.
However, our religions do not make such a distinction. They support a world-view that impacts both our private and public lives (even glossing over the constuct of a private/public divide, which has been critically analyzed from feminist positions amongst others). So to talk of religion as merely a private matter (”to inspire believers to act morally”) is not coherent.
It is the issues that affect us as a wider community that are obviously difficult: the acceptance of refugees; the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities; government ownership of community assets; and so on. Here our religions and philosophies also inform our point of view (including the point of view of politicians). In making decisions about these matters, a government is necessarily imposing a point of view on the people they represent.
Of course, this makes for complex negotiation in a pluralist society. Hopefully, our government decisions are able to represent a wide range of viewpoints (is that what we mean by democracy?), but I would hope that this representation is never merely the imposition of the majority viewpoint (which is why we like the Hare-Clark voting model for the Australian Senates).
I am not arguing that politicians should wear their religion on their sleeve; this makes for very annoying public relations games. Nor do I think that politicians have a right to impose their individual viewpoint on everyone. But they do have a responsibility, of not just pleasing their constituency, but to make wise decisions. This requires skills of listening and leadership, and an ethical integrity (that is sadly lacking in many). And if a religious point of view contributes to that integrity (and not to hypocrisy), this is not a loss.
The last thing we want is politicians who care only for pragmatics. The effectiveness of law is obviously important (a law that is ignored is not meaningful). But politicians do more than just make laws; they set community standards, administer health and education budgets, make decisions about our involvement in international conflicts, and so on. God forgive us if it is all done on the basis of political expediency.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Salams
Sure, but I think there are many of those issues - acceptance of refugees, Indigenous Treaty & Reconcilliation, govt. ownership of assets etc. it is quite possible to make reasoned arguments that can persuade others who are not of the same faith.
It is on issues where there is a belief that a religious politician might hold i.e. the Catholic position on ensoulment at the point of conception, that cannot be proven scientifically, and can only be backed up to appeal to faith. This is where I think a religious politician might struggle.
October 5th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
But even murder as an illegal act is predicated on the idea that a human is in some way more special than a tree. This can only be ‘rationally’ argued so far; while philosophers such as Peter Singer make the attempt, it is not a straightforward argument. We do not criminalize murder primarily because of a rational argument, but because of a ’shared’ understanding of the value of human life. When it comes to difficult issues such as abortion, the differences in our assumptions and understandings mean that some people see this as an issue of women’s rights, and others see it as a sanctity of life problem. There is no simple way to find a consensus, which I would suggest is why our current abortion law is in many ways a compromise between the two positions.
Whether a politician is religious or not will still require a struggle, because they should be seeking solutions that respect points of view other than their own. Perhaps religious people have often been guilty of disrespect, and so we Australians tend to be suspicious of overtly religious leaders. But I still maintain that one cannot just ‘turn off’ religion in public life.
On the other hand, I am reluctant to vote for any religious party, because the assumption seems to be that they selfishly represent only the people who vote for them…
salams