PART IV - THEOLOGICAL FRAGMENTS

Summary

We have seen in earlier chapters of this book some ways in which contemporary pluralism raises problems for policymakers and practitioners. It is often experienced not so much as healthy diversity, but as fragmentation of a sort which seems to obscure the necessary guidelines and norms. We found people of integrity and insight complaining about ‘moral vacuums’, about the problems which arise when nobody knows what justice is, about sudden and inadequately justified reversals of ideology. At the theoretical level we found a diversity of incompatible world-views and theories of justice on offer, and we noted that attempts to base theory and policy on a consensus are fragile because consensus seems today to be rather thin and temporary. But even if we agree that something richer and more robust than a Rawlsian consensus is needed at the heart of things if we are to have a healthy social life, it is difficult to see how the religious beliefs of a minority, however strongly held, can be constructively deployed for the good of society as a whole.