Alienation, equality, and multifaith establishment

Abstract Religious establishment today often takes a multifaith form, whereby multiple religions are supported in different ways and to different degrees. In order to contribute to the development of a normative framework for assessing practices and regimes of multifaith establishment, this article recommends the concept of “social alienation.” Initially, social alienation is defended as a negative normative criterion to determine when specific establishment practices are unacceptable. This criterion is compared favorably with approaches that evaluate establishment practices by reference to an ideal of public reason or according to whether they convey an expressive harm, as well as with similar approaches based on a purely subjective understanding of alienation. Subsequently, it is also argued that addressing social alienation can support a case for multifaith religious establishment regimes that support or recognize minority religions, since it is often unequal establishment practices that socially alienate, not establishment as such.