On Justifying the Study of Religion

Abstract

This chapter takes up the question whether the study of religion can be justified and indicates why scholars of religion deny themselves reasons for tackling that question. It uses as its point of departure Max Weber’s lecture, “Science as a Vocation” as articulating a methodological standard for studying religion, one that privileges value-neutrality and avows an “ascetic ideal” (following Nietzsche). It is argued that this ideal poses obstacles to making justificatory claims on behalf of studying religion and fortifies a repressive scholarly conscience in the field’s regime of truth. The chapter adds that this conscience is not entirely repressive and notes the presence of quixotic, haphazard appeals to normative ideals that materialize in the study of religion. Lastly, it sketches the book’s alternative to the ascetic ideal and describes ideas from moral philosophy that inform the book’s critical and constructive argument.