Religion, Justice and Well-Being: the normative foundations of public policy in a multi-faith society

In a multi-faith society such as the UK, many people's identities have a significant religious component. This means that many people's well-being is greatly affected by how their religion fares in public life: how law and government policy impact upon it, how it is accommodated in major institutions, and others' wider attitudes towards their religion. The main aim of the project is to investigate how religious sources of well-being should impact upon law and policy-making in the contemporary UK, particularly in a welfare context. We aim also to understand how major religions have understood their role in policy-making, and how government has responded; and more generally to give a wide sample of key individuals and institutions in academic, religious and policy communities a stake in our research; and to disseminate its results through edited volumes and the internet. In the current political climate, such aims seem urgent and important; but they also reflect much interesting work on religious identity done by political theorists which has had little influence on law, policy or religions themselves.

Specifically, our objectives are to advance our knowledge and understanding in five significant areas where law and policy continue to impact upon religious identity. Each of these will be the focus of a one day research seminar with participants from the academy, the policy community, and representatives of the major religions. The seminars will address the following key questions:

I: Education
How can the needs of a common citizenship be reconciled with many religions' desire to maintain themselves through faith schools and religiously-informed curricula? Are faith schools and FE colleges vehicle of separatism or a mode of inclusive accommodation for children of religious parents? More broadly, should school education in a multi-faith society be wholly secular, informed by a religion or comparatively evaluate different religions?

II: The Family Given that the family is a crucible of religious expression and socialisation, how far can the state intrude upon its autonomy? Do public officials have rights to interrogate the religiously-informed gender-specific and age-specific roles of spouses, partners, parents and children? Can we reconcile religious and secular views on marriage, divorce, adoption, civil (same sex) partnerships and other key family policies?

III: Social Capital
How can state and sub-state organisations create and maintain social trust, community cohesion, public altruism, and social capital in diverse, multi-faith societies? How far do residential, educational, vocational and other axes of religious segregation erode social capital, and how can law, policy and institutional design counter-act this? Should local community initiatives build upon or bypass religious identities?

IV: Healthcare
How far is the notion of well-being implicit in healthcare policies encoded with religious norms, in for example, what it means to be autonomous or to enjoy good family relationships? For example, can it be right for decisions on treatment to be arrived at by the patient's family, challenging the idea of individual consent? Do medical practitioners have the right to refuse to administer treatments that oppose their religious beliefs?

V Conflict and Reconciliation
Do conflict and reconciliation commissions work best by bracketing religious differences or by exploring them, by reparative justice or by forgiveness? Which strategies best promote trust and civic solidarity? What role can faith communities play in resolving social and political conflicts which many see as originating in religious difference?