Defending Religious Accommodation

This Paper offers a defence of legal accommodation for individuals with strong religious or moral conviction. The personal responsibility objection says that because individuals identify with their convictions they are therefore liable to bear their costs. A further illiberalism objection questions whether individuals with illiberal (e.g. discriminatory) convictions have even a prima facie case for accommodation. Reflecting on the notion of identification, the paper argues that there is value in living up to one’s core beliefs and commitments; the ideal of integrity suggests that individuals be able to manifest their convictions . The notion of identification therefore cuts both ways; because we are responsible for our beliefs we should internalise their costs, but cost internalisation can set back our interest in integrity. Accommodation cases are typically assessed through an adjudicatory model where tribunals third personally resolve the conflict they bring. I propose instead a view of interpersonal justification which models the relationship between the contending parties who are co-citizens and often co-workers. On the interpersonal view parties address each other as equal authorities seeking to arrive at a fair framework for co-operation. Individuals have framework duties to adjust their ends so they are realisable within a set of common rules, but also democratic duties to reflect upon those rules with fellow citizens to ensure their fairness. This helps weaken the illiberalism objection because illiberal convictions cannot be reasonably proposed to others. The paper identifies other relevant moral and non-moral interests which should inform the content of the framework, including a distinct notion of integrity as coherence between disparate aims and ends (for example as an employee and a Christian). Integrity as coherence too has agent neutral value because accommodation claimants, like all citizens, participant in the maintenance of shared social and economic institutions on which we all rely.