For our Covenantal Pluralism series, Alberto Cavallarin applies Paul Feyerabend’s philosophical reasoning to the debates around freedom of religion.

On a rainy Saturday, a year or so ago, I found myself in an antique bookstore in the beautiful Dutch city of Utrecht. There, hidden amongst dusty encyclopaedias and old French books, I stumbled upon a copy of what has since become one of my favourite philosophical works: Science in a Free Society by Paul Feyerabend. In this lesser-known work of his, the Austrian philosopher elaborates a defence of what he calls “political relativism”. When applied to the realm of religion, a transposition that Feyerabend himself engages in, the philosopher’s position can be seen as a form of covenantal pluralism: without necessarily granting equivalence to other worldviews, all religious traditions should respect the other traditions’ rights to exist and flourish, while actively engaging with each other’s ideas. What follows is a reflection on the justification of this framework and on its limits.

Feyerabend’s position finds its starting point in an epistemological concern: one’s standards for judgement can only be assessed from within one’s tradition, or worldview. What this means, fundamentally, is that every religious tradition – and in general, all belief systems that provide answers to religious issues – can endorse different beliefs on truth and morality, and there exists no “extra-traditional” perspective from which one can assess these beliefs. Let us say that a Christian and an atheist are having a dispute over the existence of God. To assess the dispute one would have to employ some standards; but unless they are shared across the board, their application will be meaningless to at least one of the traditions involved. For example, stating that, according to materialistic standards, God does not exist, means very little for a Christian who simply doesn’t endorse those standards. The same, however, would be true if the Christian was to assess God’s existence using standards that are not accepted in the atheist’s worldview – say, their relationship with, or individual experience of, God.

The only way to avoid the conundrum would be determining that one tradition’s standards are better than the other’s. To do this, however, one would again have to use some standards of judgement, which would either come from one of the two traditions in question, thus being meaningless to the other, or from a third, unrelated tradition, thus being meaningless to both. Ultimately, this leads Feyerabend to advocate for a form of epistemic and moral pluralism: from a global perspective, all religions are equally true because they employ different standards of judgement and judge their own progress according to those standards. These standards are justified within a tradition, which is therefore justified in believing in its own superiority, but any universalisation of them would be arbitrary and tyrannic, independently of the standards.

Now, critiques of Feyerabend have shown this understanding of traditions as epistemically and morally hermetic to be shakier than it might appear at first glance. Donald Davidson, for example, argues, first, that the mere fact that people with different worldviews are able to communicate meaningfully implies that some assumptions are shared, such as some basic rational principles. And second, that it is possible to translate standards from one tradition’s language to another, or into a third, neutral language, thus creating common ground for judgement. Arguably, then, Feyerabend’s worldview needs to be scaled back. Having said this, I believe that the importance of Science in a Free society does not reside in Feyerabend’s pluralism per se, but in the political consequences that he derives from it. Therefore, for now, let us follow Feyerabend’s reasoning.

A concern immediately comes to one’s mind: according to this framework, wouldn’t a religion be justified in doing anything, as long as it is accepted within that same tradition? For example, if a religion’s standards of judgement allow it, wouldn’t it be justified in indoctrinating people, imposing its own beliefs onto other worldviews, and silencing disagreement? Feyerabend’s reply is that some principles and guidelines naturally arise from all religions being considered perfectly equal.

The first of these principles is that all religions have an equal right to exist. This right should not only be respected and promoted by legislative bodies, but also by other religions. This, then, is one of the rules that all religious traditions must abide to: they must respect the other traditions’ right to exist. Such a principle shields our philosopher from the risk of justifying someone in imposing their own beliefs onto other worldviews.

While Feyerabend never made this explicit, preventing someone from leaving the religion they were raised in would also represent a violation of this first principle. The reason is that someone who rejects a worldview does so by endorsing a different one. Preventing this person from doing so, then, would represent a violation of this newly endorsed tradition’s right to exist. A question, however, follows: what if someone is not given the chance to get in contact with different ideas and beliefs in the first place? This takes us to Feyerabend’s next principle, termed “opportunism”.

All religions should be granted equal opportunities, such as state funding and institutions. Among other things, this means that legislative bodies should promote and ensure the possibility of a free exchange of information, and the citizens’ equal opportunity of being informed about other worldviews. This would prevent indoctrination by allowing citizens to make an informed decision on what beliefs they want to endorse. Rejecting this guideline would again show an underlying preference, or endorsement, of one worldview over another.

The picture that our philosopher paints, then, is one in which independent religions, with independent standards, coexist and have equal rights, and in which people are equally informed and free to move from one worldview to another. A deeper philosophical concern, however, seems unavoidable: if standards, as Feyerabend claims, are not universal, but only justified within a worldview, why should one follow his standards?

Unfortunately, Feyerabend was not a particularly systematic thinker and a clear answer does not emerge from his work. Nonetheless, I believe a defence of his political guidelines can be advanced by keeping in mind that his arguments are structural in nature. What this means is that his political principles are not extracted from a specific tradition’s content, but from the mere fact that there exist multiple, equally true traditions. Universal principles, then, do exist, but rather than pertaining to a specific belief system, thus being relative to it, they are the normative consequence of pluralism itself: traditions are relative, but the relativeness itself is universal.

Despite its perhaps questionable foundations – i.e., the (partial or complete) absence of shared and shareable standards across religions – Feyerabend’s final framework is, in my opinion, appealing. Indeed, his arguments are fairly utopic. In the real world, policymakers often take positions, and people sometimes do everything in their power to impose their own beliefs onto other worldviews. Nonetheless, I believe his reflections show that there are potential political advantages in considering conflicting religions as equally justified in their beliefs. Endorsing Feyerabend’s principles, even as a guiding ideal alone, could pave the way towards a non-naïve, covenantal pluralism, in which hegemonic tendencies are dropped in favour of an active exchange of information, and in which excesses of dogmatism, oppression, and violence, are not defensible in the name of tolerance.

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