In this chapter, I argue for religious freedom as a first-class right, and I criticise the views of some distinguished scholars who react against traditional conceptions of religious freedom and deny the right to any special protection of religion by legal systems. I focus primarily on Ronald Dworkin and Brian Leiter’s views and arguments. I conclude that Dworkin’s approach to religion belittles the idea of God. Yet conviction about the existence of God and the holding of profound ethical and moral convictions are not so independent as Dworkin argues. Leiter’s approach belittles the idea of religion, which cannot be reduced to a matter of commands, a lack of evidence, and consolation. I argue why religion is more than a matter of conscience and a personal decision about ultimate concerns and questions. Religion cannot be reduced to moral conscience, let alone ethical independence in foundational matters. An increasingly globalised and pluralistic society demands a more comprehensive approach that fully protects all religions and creeds.

An increasing appreciation of the moral dynamic of freedom has led to the development of a range of positive conceptions of liberty. For T. H.Green positive freedom concerns the acquisition of moral agency, and this acquisition is made possible through successful internalisation of moral ideals. Interestingly, however, moral ideals have been seen both as constitutive of – as in the case of Green – and as threatening to positive freedom. Christman defines positive freedom as a form of autonomy, key aspects of which are one’s capacity to be “moved by values, desires, and motives that are reflections of an authentic, reflective self and not entirely alien to the agent or externally imposed by manipulative forces outside his control.” In other words, for Green positive freedom depends on the internalization of existing moral ideals, even though this has to be critically done, while for Christman it depends on our effective capacity to question such ideals. In this paper, I argue that positive freedom cannot both aspire towards values but also effectively resist them. We need to choose whether to align positive freedom with the first or the second. I argue that positive freedom should be understood as the acquisition of moral agency or attainment of excellence in a recognized field and that both of these entail some form of value affirmation.