Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt to justify religious freedom as an inalienable human right. The nature of an ethical approach to religious freedom is distinguished from other approaches, such as theological, pragmatic, or legal. The need for an ethical approach, however, is established through analysis of these other approaches. Specifically, recent discussions of religious freedom in Roman Catholic theology, liberal political theory, and U. S. Constitutional law are seen as generating the need for an ethical perspective on the matter. An ethical method based on inductive generalities as well as concern for particulars is developed. Clifford Geertz's notion of religion as a cultural system is then employed, out of which a concept of religious integrity is developed. Religious oppression, it is argued, jeopardizes this integrity, in the extreme fracturing religious persons at the core of constitutive selfhood--literally setting them against themselves. The appropriateness of the language of inalienability comes to light at this point. Finally, potential political ramifications of religious freedom as an inalienable right are discussed, including the need for and possibility of a limited State. Liberalism, it is argued, rather than being undercut by communitarian concerns, becomes set on a trajectory toward a vision of society as a just pluralism