In short, if goodness (or its more public face “civility”) is the goal, and if reason alone can be used to create well-functioning moral communities, then God and the sacred becomes less and less important. Reason and nature become guides to the good life, politically understood. God grows more distant, mainly thanked for creating reason and a morally coherent universe. The moral core of this civic and political existence would be for citizens to practice a “universal beneficence” that would foster peace and a well-functioning society. This “universal beneficence” became the hallmark of
...more
