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Chapter 7. Religious Agreements: Beyond the Minimalist Principle
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Chapter 7 Religious Agreements: Beyond the Minimalist Principle Religious people seem to do odd things.1 They sometimes shave their heads, pray a lot, and refrain from eating and consuming things they would otherwise enjoy. Some are gentle and compassionate, while others seem especially prone to intolerance and violence. In this chapter I will describe how the notion of religious integrity could explain otherwise anomalous behavior, and also how adding more principles into the analysis raises new and different problems of incoherence. While most of this book has focused on the parsimonious , minimalist, ethical principle “lying is wrong,” a principle virtually all religions profess to be true, the case of religion offers a particularly instructive examination of a wider set of principles because of the important position religion holds in so many people’s lives. In this chapter the issue of coherence takes center stage. The ‹rst thing to note is that religious commitment often provides an important source of personal identity.2 Religions typically provide followers with principles and associated norms, institutions, values, and traditions that enable an individual to establish and maintain a secure identity. Buddhism centers on suffering and its cessation, while Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism focus on God and matters like sin and salvation, the nature of reality , service, charity, love, and justice. Each doctrine offers a set of principles whose validity can be judged. Sometimes individuals claim the absolute truth of some principle(s), while at other times they profess faith in the veracity of the principle. But if an individual takes religious principles to be true, and if she also judges them to be of suf‹cient importance that she commits herself to them, then not only could they form an important source of her identity, but she would also have speci‹c reasons for her religious acts. That is, reli107 1. Some of the material in this chapter is adapted from Cosgel and Minkler 2004a and 2004b. However, in those papers we use different levels of commitment to drive the analysis, while in this chapter I focus more on the strength of will. 2. See, for instance, Seul 1999. gious integrity would give her reason to act in accordance with her religious principles. One who believes in the truth of religious principles may act counter to her preferences. Almost all religions teach regard for others, something that can be quite dif‹cult to practice, especially in the face of needling preferences that favor pettiness, retribution, or just a general lack of concern. Moreover, religious doctrines usually involve norms and institutional rules that followers are expected to follow. Devout Christians and Jews are expected to observe the Sabbath quite irrespective of any dominant preference to play golf. Devout Muslims are required to pray ‹ve times a day, and Islamists believe it impermissible to charge interest on loans. Many religions also impose consumption restrictions. Hindus, Jains, and most Buddhists are expected to eschew meat. Muslims and Jews are not allowed to eat pork. Catholics are not supposed to eat meat on Fridays during Lent. While some may choose to commit simply to the core principles of a religion, many extend their commitments to the associated norms. Their religious integrity encompasses all of it. To explore these issues I will ‹rst review the economic theory of religion. It turns out that an analysis based on religious integrity does not suffer some of the literature’s limitations. Then I will offer an extension of chapter 3’s analysis by including additional principles and continuous actions. As in chapter 3, the strength of the will is an important determinant of behavior. The chapter concludes with an examination of the different kinds of possible incoherence that a more complicated analysis implies. 7.1. The Economic Theory of Religion To motivate the discussion on religious behavior, consider the prohibition of the consumption of pork in both Islam and Judaism.3 Followers of both religions know about the prohibition, and most observe it strictly. Yet others do not. Some will occasionally eat pork, especially if it’s the only alternative, while still others will eat it with gusto and regularity. How do economists explain the consumption institution and the behavioral choices of the religions’ followers? While economic perspectives on religion can be traced back to at least Adam Smith, a recent resurgence focuses on three types of explanations.4 The INTEGRITY AND AGREEMENT 108 • 3. For the history of the prohibition, see Lobban 1994. 4. See Anderson 1988; Welch and...