Suchergebnisse

What is the role of the Church in politics? Is there a way to justify such role? This paper will explore the answer to this problem in the area of deliberative democracy, and will seek to strengthen the idea that political and democratic discourse may allow for religious arguments, if and only if these arguments also purport to express public values. To shed light onto this problem, I will bring into dialogue John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, most especially with emphasis on their respective ideas concerning civil society, and hope to reconcile the role of politics and religion in Philippine democracy.

This paper examines the involvement of the Catholic Church in Philippine political affairs, and questions whether there is legitimate justification for such crucial engagement. To shed light into this, I bring into dialogue John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, most especially concerning their idea of civil society. This dialogue shows a possibility for the reconciliation of politics and religion in Philippine democracy.

This essay applies Amartya Sen's Capability Approach to the way democracy is practiced in the Philippines by Filipinos. The author has reached the conclusion that negative freedom does not secure for people their well-being. Thus, even after the removal of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippines still remains poor. In this essay, the author argues that Filipinos should empower themselves morally in terms of their positive freedoms or capability, and the Church can be at the frontlines of this initiative, in order to achieve national development.