Freedom of conscience and freedom of religion are two distinct but often conflated rights, both of which have been integral in United States legal and political discourse since before its founding. This course will examine the history of these rights and invite students to ask why these legal protections exist, what presuppositions led these protections to be structured as they are, and whether they might profitably be restructured in the future. As part of this course, we will examine theoretical underpinnings of what the conscience is understood to be and how it fits into a general “moral anthropology” (the latter loosely defined as an understanding of how persons determine right and wrong). The tension between personal and communal conceptions of the conscience will also be explored.
