Religion and Law: Response to Michael Moxter

Abstract

I outline and examine Prof Moxter’s thesis, that State Law, to be effective, must not be obeyed only from fear of punishment, but needs the habits of reverence and obedience that may be learnt within religious sects, even though the modern State should not endorse or depend on any particular religious faith. One response is that, at least in the United Kingdom, such habits of reverence and togetherness are more likely to be learnt within non-religious groupings, and people mostly prefer a ‘convenient’ State to a high-principled one. Secondly, even such convenient, ‘secular’ States actually do depend on unvoiced and contentious principles that amount to a shared, polytheistic religion: we may need to follow along with that State religion (or at least suppose we do), but should also remember the possibility of some occasional call to abandon those old certainties. State Law is not God’s Law.