El ateísmo como condición de legitimidad procedimental en la comunidad democrática
Resumen
Las personas no religiosas —ateas, agnósticas y no afiliadas— siguen estando sistemáticamente marginadas en democracias liberales que profesan un compromiso con el pluralismo. Sostengo que dicha exclusión no es accidental, sino que está estructuralmente arraigada en formas de pluralismo aún definidas por premisas teológicas. Mediante una metodología no ideal, sensible a los hechos, que integra la teoría política con la investigación en ciencias sociales, documento las asimetrías jurídicas, el estigma social y la invisibilización simbólica que enfrentan los no creyentes, y argumento que la neutralidad liberal es insuficiente para garantizar una inclusión genuina. En respuesta, desarrollo un modelo de pluralismo procedimental que trata el ateísmo como el caso límite de la legitimidad democrática. Apoyándome en la tradición rawlsiana del liberalismo político, muestro que el ateísmo ha funcionado históricamente como una condición estructural de las instituciones seculares modernas y contrapongo la lógica justificatoria, indexada a la comunidad, de la religión revelada con la lógica procedimentalmente universal de la razón pública democrática. Solo esta última puede fundamentar una autoridad legítima en condiciones de profundo desacuerdo moral y metafísico. Reconocer el ateísmo como una doctrina comprehensiva capaz de fundamentar la vida ética y de participar en la razón pública es, por tanto, un requisito de igualdad cívica, y la autoridad democrática debe ser posmetafísica: la legitimidad debe surgir de procedimientos de justificación accesibles a la ciudadanía independientemente de sus compromisos teológicos.
Recibido: 15 octubre 2025; Aceptado: 06 abril 2026
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