Abstract

A central concern for non-ideal theory is how to reconcile what political morality demands with what political reality permits. My view is that a liberal conception of religious freedom should be guided by this concern. In this paper I offer a brief defense of an egalitarian conception of religious freedom that takes non-ideal theory seriously. Many liberal accounts of religious freedom are framed in terms of American or European legal and political traditions and in this way are liable to suffer from a kind of parochialism. A non-ideal theory of religious freedom should have something useful to offer to transitional societies, including emerging democracies with Muslim majority populations and I try to show that an egalitarian conception of religious freedom is promising in this way.