Justice

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides the third and final argument against Catholic integralism—the justice argument. The integralist adopts two seemingly conflicting norms of justice: (a) coercion into the faith is always unjust, but (b) coercion to keep the faith is just. But if religious coercion is wrong at the start of the Christian life, why is it permitted after that? The integralist answer is baptism. Baptism serves as a moral transformer: it transforms religious coercion from unjust to just. The chapter claims that baptism fails as a normative transformer. It critiques Thomas Aquinas’s approach to this question and then adapts gratitude, associative, and natural duty theories of political obligation to repair his argument. These strategies fail. The chapter then ends by constructing a framework for analyzing other anti-liberal religious doctrines.