Values are the lifeblood of Law 1.Legislators, when they defend their laws, and judges, when they dictate their decisions, don't win in a vacuum. In response, advocates of liberalism have sought justifications for a liberal policy that does not “discredit traditional forms of human community.” Others, such as Rorty6, Stout and Larmore, point to a “minimum moral conception"7 or “self-limited consensus” on the 8 good ones shared by individualists and those who criticize individualism alike. In the first, “it proposes that a “conception of moral identity based on the philosophy of George Herbert Mead “provides the basis for a more precise and viable theory for addressing the dilemma of religious legislation (p.) Liberals, he says, generally do not “respect the moral identity and constitutional rights of legislators and religious communities to the free exercise of their religion (e.g. the supposed freedom of the noumenic self to rise above historical and empirical circumstance).
From this point of view, a liberal should not try to restrict conceptions of moral identity in the political arena (as long as they do not prevent others from pursuing their conceptions of the good life). A moral self, moreover, takes into account the interests and roles of other beings, as well as its own. It does not discriminate against those who feel morally obliged to apply their religious convictions to their policies. Peach announces that the objective of her book “is to advance the discussion about the place of religion in political life beyond the current impasse between liberal and community proposals (p.
The last section concludes with some remarks on the relationships between legal theory, law and morality). In the specific case of religious legislation, a pragmatic liberal does not need to have a vision of the possibility, necessity or desirability of legislators based solely on secular reasons and motivations, but will seek to develop and strengthen political institutions that protect liberal freedoms.
