Abstract

This dissertation situates John Courtney Murray's writings on religious toleration within the context of a contemporary debate in moral and political philosophy. I show that Murray's arguments for religious toleration can be illuminated if mapped onto a broader dilemma. The broader dilemma involves the two main strategies by which political neutrality is justified. ;Following Jeffrey Stout, I call the first a "moral esperantist" strategy. This strategy attempts to ground political neutrality either foundationally or transcendentally. Because it seeks an Archimedean point that can be accepted by all rational agents, the esperantist approach is subject to the devastating criticisms that have recently been leveled against foundationalist approaches to political theory. The second strategy escapes the objections to foundationalism by arguing for political neutrality on grounds of collective prudence. Yet this "modus vivendi" approach has the disadvantage of making religious toleration subject to historical contingencies, most notably those in which no single philosophical or religious view predominates. ;I argue that Murray's lifelong struggle with the issue of religious liberty can best be understood as an instructive yet unsuccessful attempt to avoid the problems of these strategies. He realized that foundationalist justifications for religious liberty must fail. Yet he also found inadequate the traditional Roman Catholic position that reduced the matter to a question of collective prudence. Nevertheless, in his rejection of liberal Protestant and secularist attempts to defend religious liberty as a natural and therefore ahistorical right, he was obliged to resort to collective prudence to make his case. I suggest that contemporary debates over the meaning of Murray's life-work can ultimately be traced to the resulting ambiguities of Murray's argument for religious liberty. Finally, by showing how the dilemma is also exemplified in the work of John Rawls, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Stanley Hauerwas, I suggest that the problems encountered by Murray are not unique to him, but are inherent in any theory that attempts to justify religious toleration.