Thread on Islamic fundamentalism

[Conkle, Daniel O.]

Responding to Eric Cernyar, Bobby Lipkin writes:

People of all kinds of orthodox persuasions (including Christians and
Muslims), and non-orthodox persuasions, should be open to criticism.

How do we explicate the "should" in the above remark? What justifies the
remark? Morality? Religion? Democracy?  Some sort of 'neutral' perspective?
Consider a religion or "orthodox persuasion" that is not open to criticism.
What kind of mistake does a member of that religion make by rejecting
criticism perhaps even violently? Isn't the normative force of the remark
idiosyncratic to a certain (liberal?) conception of religion? If one doesn't
accept this normative framework, one doesn't have reason to agree that
"[p]eople of all kinds orthodox persuasions (including Christians and
Muslims), and non-orthodox persuasions, should be open to criticism."
Openness to criticism is relative to one's persuasion and can't be
explicated independently of that persuasion. Is this conclusion wrong? If
so, why?

As to religious involvement in politics, the "should" might indeed be
supported by arguments of political or democratic theory.  As to
nonpolitical aspects of religious belief and practice, the "should" might be
supported by arguments of theology.  Focusing on the role of religion in the
United States, I sketch "should" arguments along each of these lines in my
article, "Secular Fundamentalism, Religious Fundamentalism, and the Search
for Truth in Contemporary America," 12 J. L. & Relig. 337 (1995-96), and I
extend the same sorts of arguments to secular as well as religious methods
of thought.

Whether these arguments are sound is another question.  And yet another
question is whether these arguments (or other arguments supporting the same
conclusion) are likely, as an empirical matter, to in fact persuade those
who might be strongly predisposed to reject them.
Dan Conkle
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Daniel O. Conkle
Professor of Law
Indiana University School of Law
Bloomington, Indiana  47405
(812) 855-4331
fax (812) 855-0555
mailto:conkle at indiana.edu <mailto:conkle at indiana.edu>
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