Law, morality, and religion are alike in one respect: each purports to provide authoritative prescriptions about what one ought to do. Each also seems to claim the right to decide for itself how to resolve conflicts with other normative claims when they arise. The question of how citizens and legal systems should respond to these potentially competing sources of authority has long been a topic of interest for both lawyers and philosophers and has produced a considerable amount of classical and contemporary scholarship.
This seminar will explore some of the topics raised by this literature. Topics to be explored include: 1) the problem of “legal moralism,” (should immorality alone be a sufficient condition for enacting and enforcing legal norms?); 2) civil disobedience and conscientious objection; 3) the problem of objectivity in law and morals; 4) the definition of “religion;” 5) the place of religious values in public policy decisions; 6) the possibility and desirability of State neutrality toward competing conceptions of the good. Readings will be drawn from classical and contemporary scholarship in legal and political theory, as well as from relevant case law. Students will be expected to write short (ungraded) reaction papers to the materials assigned each week and will write a paper at the end of the seminar. Further instructions, and a tentative syllabus, will be available prior to the beginning of the seminar.