Question I have a question about separation of religion and politics,especially about French "laïcité". My understanding is that laïcité is removing religion from public places. But what is religion? For example, female Moslems living in France are not allowed to wear scarves in public schools because it is tought to be a symbol of Islam, a religion. However, also some morals (like loving your neighbors or helping out each other) are part of religion as it is written in Bible and Qur'an. As long as they are acting according to God's lesson, is it impossible to secularize any public places?

Accepted:
April 13, 2009

Comments

The Bible tells us all sorts of things -- e.g. that wheat ripens later than barley (Exodus 9:31-33). Now, when farmers arrange their work so the barley gets harvested first, then I suppose you might say that they are acting according to what the Bible says about crops. But of course, they don't arrange their work thus and so because the Bible says wheat ripens later, but because it actually does ripen later.

The Bible also tells us that we should help each other out -- for example "If you see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help him get it to its feet." (Deut: 22:4). Now, again, when I stop to help a broken-down motorist on a country road, for example, I suppose you might say that I am acting according to what the Bible enjoins. But I don't act that way because the Bible says that it is the decent thing to do, but because it actually is the decent thing to do. (After all, there are plenty of things the Bible enjoins that I don't think decent at all, and very probably nor do you, and we wouldn't dream of doing them: consider all those injunctions about whom to stone to death.)

So we must distinguish between acting in a way that happens to accord with some part of the Bible, Qur'an, or another book of moral precepts, and acting because the Bible, Qur'an, or whatever, tells you to act thus and so. The fact that people are in this or that way acting in accord with some of the more admirable precepts of e.g. the Bible doesn't ipso facto give their behaviour any distinctively religious character. And, of course, supporting the secularization of public life does not mean thinking that people shouldn't act decently, i.e. shouldn't act in accord with the more admirable bits of morality shared by various religious codes as well as by non-religious ethical codes. Removing religion from inappropriate places doesn't entail removing morality!