Political Liberalism and Christian Ethics: A Review Discussion

POLITICAL LIBERALISM AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS: A REVIEW DISCUSSION* WHAT IS A LIBERAL THEORY of social justice, and what does it have to do with Christian ethics ? For a helpful preliminary answer to the first question , we can turn to Amy Gutmann's excellent study, Liberal Equality. Gutmann describes such a theory as being founded on a view of what makes up an individual's interests, which include an interest in doing what one chooses without interference from others. A liberal state is justified if and only if it satisfies these interests, as it also serves to regulate the pursuit of them, given the realities of social conflict. " Conflict " follows from conditions of economic scarcity, since under such conditions all interests cannot be simultaneously satisfied, and from the presence of divergent conceptions of the good pursued by individuals. Thus arises the need for principles of justice which determine the appropriate division of the benefits of social cooperation, upon which citizens make competing claims.1 While I am interested in developing this answer in this essay, I am more concerned to propose an answer to the second question , regarding the relation between liberal theory and Christian ethical reflection. In doing so I will consider some important current philosophical writings attentive to justice and liberal thought. *Bruce A. Ackerman, Social Justice in the Liberal State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980); Amy Gutmann, Liberal Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980) ; Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books, 1983). 1 Gutmann, pp. 1-7. 81 82 WILLIAM WERPEHOWSKI My position concerning the second question is to be distinguished from two recent theological appraisals of liberal justice. The first, powerfully argued by Stanley Hauerwas, views many contemporary Christian calls for justice as implicitly reinforcing liberal assumptions that undermine the character-constituting commitments of the Christian life. Liberalism is not a social strategy appropriate to the Christian call to conform one's personal story to the particular story of God's dealing with humanity in Jesus Christ. The liberal presupposition that persons have no shared conception of the good yields only " individual interest " and " liberty " as bases for political life. Such a life, founded on self-interest and conditions of distrust, stands in fact at odds with a community that trusts in God's promises of redemption and that accordingly offers hospitality to the stranger. What is more, liberalism's effort to organize society apart from a particular vision of the good tempts us to believe that "we are free to make up our own story." This belief violates the truth that our story is one of response and conformation to God, and deceives us into uncritically accepting liberal social arrangements in the name of our "consent" to them. For Hauerwas, the Christian community must resist these tendencies by preserving its internal distinctiveness in faithfulness to God's promises; it thus stands as a "contrast model " to all politics that know not God 2 Yet Hauerwas never clarifies, it seems to me, what Christian warrant there is, if there is any, for working directly toward a national society in which persons' welfare and freedom are supported justly. Does the Church's "being itself" internally exhaust its social ethic? Is there a secondary if still essential task of securing justice in the secular political community ? How would this task be related to the primary task in terms of values supported by each ? Is there any relation between these values and the values of liberalism ? I want to focus on these 2 Stanley Hauerwas, A. Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Ethio (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), pp. l· 2, 11·12, 12-86. :POLITICAL LIBERALISM AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS 88 questions, questions which Hauerwas clearly cares about but seldom addresses in detail. Gilbert Meilaender's recent work on friendship sensitively addresses the Christian stance toward political liberalism through a critique of the ideal of " civic friendship." 3 This ideal would be realized in a "participatory-communal polity," wherein citizens are actively aware of themselves as participants in a free state for the...