In this paper, I examine critically Kimberley Brownlee’s descriptive criteria for identifying when a person has a conscientious moral conviction. Then, I contrast her conception of conscience with other ideas of conscience, including a religious conception, a relativist conception, and those of Butler and Kant. The concepts examined here are central in her argument that, if civil disobedience is grounded in citizens’ conscience-based conscientious convictions, then it deserves legal and moral protection.

In this paper, I seek to challenge two prevailing views about religious accommodation. The first maintains that religious practices deserve accommodation only if they are regarded as something unchosen on a par with the involuntary circumstances of life people must face. The other view maintains that religious practices are nothing more than preferences but questions the necessity of their accommodation. Against these views, I argue that religious conducts, even on the assumption that they represent voluntary behaviours, deserve in certain circumstances (...) certain kinds of accommodation. They must be understood as one possible expression, along with nonreligious or secular beliefs, of a person's convictions of conscience, which are strong ethical commitments upon which depends the moral integrity of those having such convictions. I demonstrate that the main ground for religious accommodation is the need to protect fairly, through such rights as religious freedom and freedom of conscience, the ethical commitments and conscientious beliefs of all citizens. Finally, against the objection that such a view risks leading to the proliferation of demands for accommodation, I maintain that a deliberative approach to religious accommodation is in a good position to put serious hurdles in the path of unreasonable demands. (shrink)

The opinion of the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) on the accommodation of conscientious objectors among medical doctors aims to balance fairly patients’ rights of access to care and accommodating doctors’ deeply held personal beliefs. Like similar documents, it fails. Patients will not find it persuasive, and neither should they. The lines drawn aim at a reasonable compromise between positions that are not amenable to compromise. They are also largely arbitrary. This article explains (...) why that is the case. The view that conscientious objection accommodation has no place in modern medicine is defended. (shrink)

This article asks whether firms should exempt employees when they object to elements of their work that go against their conscience. Fairness requires that we follow the rules of an organization we have joined voluntarily only if these rules express mutual advantage. In corporations, I argue that subordination and exemption provides for mutual advantage better than subordination plus right of exit. This is because agents want to protect their conscientious convictions, even in hierarchical organizations geared towards efficient preference satisfaction. (...) Thus exemptions should be granted in unforeseeable circumstances, provided the costs are limited. (shrink)

Society typically shows conscientious objectors more deference than civil disobedients, on the grounds that they appear more conscientious and less strategically minded than the latter. Kimberley Brownlee challenges this standard picture in Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience, where she claims that civil disobedience is more conscientious than conscientious objection, in virtue of its communicativeness. Brownlee conceives of conscientious conviction as necessarily communicative, and distinguishes it from ‘conscience’—the set of practical moral (...) skills involved in adequately responding to complex situations. This review article argues that Brownlee’s account of conviction is too narrow, as it excludes many core beliefs which we would want to classify as convictions although they violate one or more of the criteria of communicativeness, while her account of conscience is incomplete, because it ignores some of the persistent obstacles for the development of conscience produced by structural injustice. The article identifies these obstacles and offers some strategies for protecting against them, namely, vigilance, self-scrutiny, empathy and collaborative ambivalence. (shrink)

Oxford Legal Philosophy publishes the best new work in philosophically-oriented legal theory. It commissions and solicits monographs in all branches of the subject, including works on philosophical issues in all areas of public and private law, and in the national, transnational, and international realms; studies of the nature of law, legal institutions, and legal reasoning; treatments of problems in political morality as they bear on law; and explorations in the nature and development of legal philosophy itself. The series represents diverse (...) traditions of thought but always with an emphasis on rigour and originality. It sets the standard in contemporary jurisprudence.This book shows that civil disobedience is generally more defensible than private conscientious objection.Part I explores the morality of conviction and conscience. Each of these concepts informs a distinct argument for civil disobedience. The conviction argument begins with the communicative principle of conscientiousness. According to the CPC, having a conscientious moral conviction means not just acting consistently with our beliefs and judging ourselves and others by a common moral standard. It also means not seeking to evade the consequences of our beliefs and being willing to communicate them to others. The conviction argument shows that, as a constrained, communicative practice, civil disobedience has a better claim than private objection does to the protections that liberal societies give to conscientious dissent. This view reverses the standard liberal picture which sees private 'conscientious' objection as a modest act of personal belief and civil disobedience as a strategic, undemocratic act whose costs are only sometimes worth bearing.The conscience argument is narrower and shows that genuinely morally responsive civil disobedience honours the best of our moral responsibilities and is protected by a duty-based moral right of conscience.Part II translates the conviction argument and conscience argument into two legal defences. The first is a demands-of-conviction defence. The second is a necessity defence. Both of these defences apply more readily to civil disobedience than to private disobedience. Part II also examines lawful punishment, showing that, even when punishment is justifiable, civil disobedients have a moral right not to be punished. (shrink)

Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who refuse on grounds of conscience to participate in certain legal, expected, and standard practices have been accused of unprofessionally introducing their personal views into medicine. My first response is that they often are not engaging in conscientious objection because that involves invoking convictions external to those of the medical community. I contend that medicine, properly construed, is pathocentric, and so refusing to induce a pathology via abortion, contraception, euthanasia, etc., is actually being loyal to (...) the internal morality of medicine. My second response is that even if such refusals are best considered conscientious objection, there is still no personal hijacking of medicine. Doctors refusing to induce pathologies need not refuse qua Christian, but can do so qua doctor. A pathocentric account of medicine provides a principled way of distinguishing conscientious objection from religious, idiosyncratic, and bigoted refusals. Patients’ refused pathology-inducing procedures are not medically harmed. (shrink)

In the debate on conscientious objection in healthcare, proponents of conscience rights often point to the imperative to protect the health professional’s moral integrity. Their opponents hold that the moral integrity argument alone can at most justify accommodation of conscientious objectors as a “moral courtesy”, as the argument is insufficient to establish a general moral right to accommodation, let alone a legal right. This text draws on political philosophy in order to argue for a legal right to accommodation. (...) The moral integrity arguments should be supplemented by the requirement to protect minority rights in liberal democracies. Citizens have a right to live in accordance with their fundamental moral convictions, and a right to equal access to employment. However, this right should not be unconditional, as that would unduly infringe on the rights of other citizens. The right must be limited to cases where the moral basis is more fundamental in a sense that all reasonable citizens in a liberal democracy should accept, such as the constitutive role of the inviolability of human life in liberal democracies. There should be a legal, yet circumscribed, right to accommodation for conscientious objectors refusing to provide healthcare services that they reasonably consider to involve the intentional killing of a human being. (shrink)

abstract The so‐called ‘morning‐after pill’ is a drug that prevents pregnancy if taken no later than 72 hours after presumably fertile sexual intercourse. This article argues against a right of conscientious objection for pharmacists with regard to dispensing this drug. Some arguments that might be advanced in support of this right will be considered and rejected. Section 2 argues that from a philosophical point of view, the most relevant question is not whether the morning‐after pill prevents implantation nor is (...) it whether preventing implantation is tantamount to abortion. Section 3 suggests a more general philosophical question as most pertinent, namely whether and to what extent a pharmacist can justifiably be exempted from dispensing the morning‐after pill when to do so would entail participating in something that goes against his or her deepest moral or religious convictions. Section 4 explains why, within liberal institutions, pharmacists should not have the right to conscientious objection to dispensing the morning‐after pill. (shrink)

To inform the ongoing discussion of whether claims of conscientious objection allow medical professionals to refuse to perform tasks that would otherwise be their duty, this paper begins with a review of the philosophical literature that describes conscience as either a moral sense or the dictate of reason. Even though authors have starkly different views on what conscience is, advocates of both approaches agree that conscience should be obeyed and that keeping promises is a conscience-given moral imperative. The paper (...) then considers exemplars of conscientious objection—Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.—to identify the critical feature of conscientious objection as willingness to bear the burdens of one’s convictions. It concludes by showing that medical professionals who put their own interests before their patients’ welfare violate their previous commitments and misappropriate the title “conscientious objector” because they are unwilling to bear the burdens of their choices and instead impose burdens on their patients and colleagues. (shrink)

In Kimberly Brownlee’s book, Conscience and Conviction, she argues that Thomas More’s paradigmatic ‘personal objection’ successfully meets the 4 conditions of her ‘Communicative Principle’. In this article I want to challenge Brownlee’s ‘universality’ condition and the ‘dialogical’ condition by focusing on a counter-example of a British GP conscientiously objecting to authorizing an abortion. I argue that such an objection can be morally admirable, even though the GP is not politically active, even though she is not open-minded to the possibility (...) that she might be wrong, and even if she refuses to condemn her non-objecting colleagues. I suggest that this particular counter-example can tell us more general things about the nature of ethical disagreement and ethical incomprehension. (shrink)

The Swedish solution to the legal handling of professional conscientious refusal in healthcare is described. No legal right to conscientious refusal for any profession or class of professional tasks exists in Sweden, regardless of the religious or moral background of the objection. The background of this can be found in strong convictions about the importance of public service provision and related civic duties, and ideals about rule of law, equality and non-discrimination. Employee's requests to change work tasks are (...) handled on a case-by-case basis within the frames of labour law, ensuring full voluntariness, and also employer's privilege regarding the organisation and direction of work, and duties of public institutions to provide services. Two complicating aspects of this solution related to the inclusion of ‘alternative medical’ service providers in a national health service, and professional insistence on conscientious refusal rights to accept legalised assisted dying are discussed. The latter is found to undermine the pragmatic reasons behind recent attempts by prolife groups to challenge the Swedish solution related to legal abortion in courts. (shrink)

abstract The so‐called ‘morning‐after pill’ is a drug that prevents pregnancy if taken no later than 72 hours after presumably fertile sexual intercourse. This article argues against a right of conscientious objection for pharmacists with regard to dispensing this drug. Some arguments that might be advanced in support of this right will be considered and rejected. Section 2 argues that from a philosophical point of view, the most relevant question is not whether the morning‐after pill prevents implantation nor is (...) it whether preventing implantation is tantamount to abortion. Section 3 suggests a more general philosophical question as most pertinent, namely whether and to what extent a pharmacist can justifiably be exempted from dispensing the morning‐after pill when to do so would entail participating in something that goes against his or her deepest moral or religious convictions. Section 4 explains why, within liberal institutions, pharmacists should not have the right to conscientious objection to dispensing the morning‐after pill. (shrink)

Kimberley Brownlee’s Conscience and Conviction offers a powerful defence of civil disobedience as a conscientious and communicative mode of protest. The overall argument of the book is important and compelling, but this critical commentary explores certain aspects of Brownlee’s view that warrant further consideration and clarification. Those aspects relate to her suggestion that civil disobedience is a dialogic mode of communication, her attempt to ground a moral right of civil disobedience in a principle of humanism, and her belief (...) that the right establishes a defeasible moral claim against all forms of interference. (shrink)

How should the judge or jury in a just criminal court treat a civil disobedient, someone who performs a conscientiously motivated communicative breach of the criminal law? Kimberley Brownlee contends that all else equal a court of law should neither convict nor punish such offenders. Though I agree with this conclusion, I contend that Brownlee mischaracterizes the nature of the criminal defense to which civil disobedients are entitled. Whereas Brownlee maintains that such actors ought to be excused for their criminal (...) breach, I argue that they ought to enjoy a justification defense. Acts of civil disobedience are not wrongful violations of the law for which an actor ought not to be blamed; rather, they are violations of the law that are not wrong in virtue of their illegality. It is the absence of wrongdoing, and not merely the absence of fault, that renders the conviction and punishment of those who perform acts of civil disobedience inappropriate. (shrink)

Contemporary bioethics generally stipulates that public moral deliberation must avoid allowing religious beliefs to influence or justify health policy and law. Secular premises and arguments are assumed to maintain the neutral, common ground required for moral deliberation in the public square of a pluralistic society. However, a careful examination of non-theistic arguments used to justify euthanasia (regarding contested notions of human dignity, individual autonomy, and death as annihilation) reveals a dependence on metaethical and metaphysical beliefs that are not universally accepted (...) in a pluralistic society. Such beliefs function in non-theistic arguments in the same way that foundational beliefs justify moral convictions in religious frameworks of belief. This parallel is apparent when religious belief is defined broadly (_a la_ John Reeder) as ‘the search for the good in light of the limits and possibilities of the real.’ Seen through this interpretive lens, frameworks comprising Secular foundational commitments function, in ethically relevant respects, like the guiding beliefs found in the comprehensive frameworks of traditional religions. When conscientious practice in healthcare is reconsidered in light of this foundational similarity between the religious and the secular, it is clear that those who object to the foundational beliefs underpinning Secular arguments for euthanasia should not be required to provide, participate in, or refer patients for euthanasia (or other ethically controversial practices similarly dependent on contested frameworks of belief) in pluralistic societies that prize moral freedom as a primary human good. (shrink)

Public professionals do not only serve their clients but also – by doing so – the public at large. The state often has a direct grip on their work, through financing, regulation or otherwise. This leads to a deeply felt conflict in contexts where authoritarian, illiberal leadership is widespread. Public professionals then face a moral dilemma: should they resist illiberal pressures by the state, or continue to obey their states? The paper's main question is how this practical dilemma for public (...) professionals should be interpreted. First, it presents a framework to interpret the professional situation, characterising it as a fiduciary relation, which we can understand through the lens of Thomas Hobbes's theory of authorisation/representation. On this theoretical basis, the paper discusses three competing models for understanding the public professional's predicament. The teleological model revolves around loyalty to one's clients. The conscientious professional model which is about loyalty to one's own moral convictions. The constitutional model is about loyalty to constitutional principles. The paper argues in favour of the constitutional model. Standing up against illiberal pressures is best interpreted as a matter of loyalty to the principles of constitutionality that underly the fiduciary relation between citizens and their states. (shrink)

We respond in this paper to various counter arguments advanced against our stance on conscientious objection accommodation. Contra Maclure and Dumont, we show that it is impossible to develop reliable tests for conscientious objectors' claims with regard to the reasonableness of the ideological basis of their convictions, and, indeed, with regard to whether they actually hold they views they claim to hold. We demonstrate furthermore that, within the Canadian legal context, the refusal to accommodate conscientious objectors would (...) not constitute undue hardship for such objectors. We reject concerns that refusing to accommodate conscientious objectors would limit the equality of opportunity for budding professionals holding particular ideological positions. We also clarify various misrepresentations of our views by respondents Symons, Glick and Jotkowitz, and Lyus. (shrink)

Nicholas Wolterstorff and Christopher J. Eberle have defended the view that the ethics of liberal citizenship allows citizens to publicly support the passage of coercive laws based solely on their religious convictions. They also develop positive conceptions of virtuous citizenship that place moral limits on how citizens may appeal to their religion. The question I address in this essay is whether the limits they impose on citizens’ appeals to their religion are adequate. Since Eberle’s “ideal of conscientious engagement” provides (...) us with the most extensive statement of these limits, it is the primary focus of my attention here. My conclusion is that in its current form, Eberle’s ideal is not constraining enough. In the first section, I argue that Eberle’s ideal does not require citizens to be self-critical enough about their religious and political commitments. In the second section, I highlight a conflict between Eberle’s ideal and the need for citizens to respect the religious freedom of their fellow citizens. I argue that the way to resolve this conflict is to adopt a more fine-grained conception of religious reasons and to hold that citizens should not rely on religious reasons of certain kinds. In the final section, I argue that laws punishing or discouraging homosexual conduct (which Eberle’s ideal would apparently allow) violate what Wolterstorff calls “the Idea of liberal democracy” and so are not the kind of proposal that virtuous citizens can defend. (shrink)

This paper uncovers a much-neglected ambiguity in Kant’s conception of rational religion, namely, a confusion regarding the public communicability of moral faith, which would in turn render faith and knowledge indistinguishable. The few scholars who have noticed this ambiguity pursue its epistemic dimensions, but this paper explores its ramifications for Kant’s claim that coherent moral agency requires religious faith, taking issue with Lawrence Pasternack’s recent interpretation. Once one notices Kant has two methods for distinguishing conviction from persuasion, one is (...) better able to understand the connection he draws between religious conviction and conscientious character, and the corresponding connection between mere persuasion and spurious faith. While Kant does not explicitly acknowledge this parallel, this paper reveals that it is in play across the Kantian corpus, and is especially perspicuous in his analysis of the biblical figures of Job and his comforters. (shrink)

Integrity looks dangerous. Passionate willpower, focused devotion and driving self-belief nestle all-too-closely to extremism, narcissism and intolerant hubris. How can integrity skirt such perils? This question opens the perennial issue of whether devout, driven devotees can guard themselves from antisocial extremes. Current proposals to inoculate integrity from moral danger hone in on integrity’s reflective side. I argue that this epistemic approach disarms integrity’s dangers only by stripping it of everything that initially made it worthwhile. Instead, I argue that integrity contains (...) substantive moral principles serving to surgically target the dangers the trait would otherwise pose. The person of integrity avoids extremism not by questioning whether her values are right, but by recognizing that in a social world whether her values are right is not the only factor that bears on how she should act. Normatively, the proposed account allows integrity to retain its intuitive allures of willpower, direction and unified character. Descriptively, it explains the surprising capacity for principled compromise displayed by canonical figures of integrity. Ultimately, integrity empowers us to be fit for society, even as we are true to ourselves. (shrink)

Conscientious disobedients often face the demand to differentiate themselves from criminals whose law-breaking actions are not undergirded by conscientious convictions. In public and philosophical discourse, conscientious disobedients are often criticised on the basis that their actions render them no different from criminals. I provide a qualified defence of disobedients in this essay. I argue that the differentiation demand can be satisfied even by disobedients who engage in what are typically regarded as radical acts of disobedience. In practical (...) terms, this means that even disobedients who engage in actions such as arson, looting, rioting, vandalism or vigilantism can also successfully differentiate themselves from criminals. (shrink)

Exemption claims remain a tangled and divisive moral and legal issue both in academia and in the public sphere. In his book Exemptions: Necessary, Justified, or Misguided?, the constitutional scholar Kent Greenawalt zeros in on the vexed question of whether exemptions from rules of general applicability based on the conscientious convictions of individuals or groups are sometimes justified or prudent by discussing a wide range of cases drawn from the American jurisprudence. Although he does not engage in a significant (...) way with political and legal philosophy and comparative law, his contextualist and pragmatic approach is a powerful antidote against oversimplification and dogmatism with regard to exemption claims. Unsurprisingly, Greenawalt’s approach comes at times dangerously close to casuistry, and some of his analyses and normative recommendations would benefit from a firmer footing in moral principles and rational argumentation. In this review, I flesh out some of the strengths and limits of Greenawalt’s valuable book. (shrink)

Exemption claims remain a tangled and divisive moral and legal issue both in academia and in the public sphere. In his book Exemptions: Necessary, Justified, or Misguided?, the constitutional scholar Kent Greenawalt zeros in on the vexed question of whether exemptions from rules of general applicability based on the conscientious convictions of individuals or groups are sometimes justified or prudent by discussing a wide range of cases drawn from the American jurisprudence. Although he does not engage in a significant (...) way with political and legal philosophy and comparative law, his contextualist and pragmatic approach is a powerful antidote against oversimplification and dogmatism with regard to exemption claims. Unsurprisingly, Greenawalt’s approach comes at times dangerously close to casuistry, and some of his analyses and normative recommendations would benefit from a firmer footing in moral principles and rational argumentation. In this review, I flesh out some of the strengths and limits of Greenawalt’s valuable book. (shrink)

Acts of civil disobedience are undertaken in defense of a variety of causes ranging from banning GMO crops and prohibiting abortion to fighting inequality and saving the environment. Recently, Brownlee has argued that the merit of a cause is not relevant to the establishment of a moral right to civil disobedience. Instead, it is the fact that a dissenter believes his cause for protest to be morally right that is salient. We may term her and similar such theories belief-relative theories (...) of civil disobedience. In this paper, I first argue that Brownlee’s important argument from conscientious conviction fails in its aim to establish a belief-relative moral right to civil disobedience. I then provide a more general argument that no purely belief-relative theory of civil disobedience grounded in a basic moral value will be tenable. Any moral warrant of civil disobedience that is derived from a value must be limited by the value from which it is derived, as well as by other similarly weighty values. If the moral warrant of civil disobedience is derived from the value of autonomy, then the warrant does not extend to acts of civil disobedience that violate the autonomy of others, or other similarly weighty values. Furthermore, granting a right to disobey in promotion of a grossly unjust view is problematic because civil disobedience ought to serve the role of promoting justice. (shrink)

I focus on some controversial features of Peter Balint’s stimulating and provocative reassessment of the place of toleration in contemporary diverse societies. First, I question his argument that we must enlarge the concept of toleration to include indifference and approval if toleration is to be compatible with state neutrality. Secondly, I suggest that his idea of active neutrality of intent risks encountering the same difficulties as neutrality of outcome, although these will be mitigated the more the state’s neutrality takes a (...) ‘hands-off’ form. Thirdly, while accepting his claim that exemptions depart from neutrality insofar as they attribute a significance to religious and conscientious convictions that they deny to mere preferences, I argue that that departure is not arbitrary and remains within the spirit of neutrality of intent. (shrink)

Acts of civil disobedience are undertaken in defense of a variety of causes ranging from banning GMO crops and prohibiting abortion to fighting inequality and saving the environment. Recently, Brownlee has argued that the merit of a cause is not relevant to the establishment of a moral right to civil disobedience. Instead, it is the fact that a dissenter believes his cause for protest to be morally right that is salient. We may term her and similar such theories belief-relative theories (...) of civil disobedience. In this paper, I first argue that Brownlee’s important argument from conscientious conviction fails in its aim to establish a belief-relative moral right to civil disobedience. I then provide a more general argument that no purely belief-relative theory of civil disobedience grounded in a basic moral value will be tenable. Any moral warrant of civil disobedience that is derived from a value must be limited by the value from which it is derived, as well as by other similarly weighty values. If the moral warrant of civil disobedience is derived from the value of autonomy, then the warrant does not extend to acts of civil disobedience that violate the autonomy of others, or other similarly weighty values. Furthermore, granting a right to disobey in promotion of a grossly unjust view is problematic because civil disobedience ought to serve the role of promoting justice. (shrink)

A collection of 17 essays on Kantian moral theory and practical ethics, including papers on autonomy, human dignity, utopian thinking, O'Neill and Rawls on constructivism, tragic choices, philanthropy, conscientious object, suicide, respect, self-respect, and an ideal attitude of appreciation beyond art, nature, and gratitude. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations for Kant’s Works INTRODUCTION PART II: KANT AND KANTIAN PERSPECTIVES (1) The Groundwork (2) Kant on Imperfect Duties to Oneself (3) Kantian Autonomy and Contemporary Ideas of Autonomy (4) Rüdiger Bittner on (...) Autonomy (5) Kantian Perspectives on the Rational Basis of Human Dignity (6) In Defense of Human Dignity (7) The Kingdom of Ends as an Ideal and Constraint on Legislation (8) Kantian Ethics and Utopian Thinking (9) Varieties of Constructivism PART II: PRACTICAL ETHICS (10) Human Dignity and Tragic Choices (11) Duties and Choices in Philanthropic Giving: A Kantian Perspective (12) Killing Ourselves (13) Conscientious Conviction and Conscience (14) Stability, A Sense of Justice, and Self-Respect (15) Two Conceptions of Virtue (16) Beyond Respect and Beneficence: An Ideal of Appreciation (17) Ideals of Appreciation and Expressions of Respect REFERENCES INDEX . (shrink)

Exemptions from laws of general application are sometimes granted on the basis of an individual’s unwillingness to comply with the law. Most such volitional exemptions involve a conflict between the law and the demands of an individual’s religious or secular moral convictions. I argue here that a limited number of volitional exemptions can be justified on the basis of a futility principle. When otherwise morally permissible penalties for violating the law cannot be expected to induce the compliance of an intransigent (...) minority, the penalties are futile, and the state has some principled reason to exempt the minority from the law’s requirements. Since the futility principle only applies to some cases of conscientious objection, it differs in important ways from justifications grounded in a general entitlement to religious or moral exemptions. (shrink)

It is a widely supported claim that liberal democratic institutions should treat citizens with equal respect. I neither dispute nor champion this claim, but investigate how it could be fulfilled. I do this by asking, as a sort of litmus test, how liberal democratic institutions should treat with respect citizens holding minority convictions, and thereby dissenting from a deliberative output. The first step of my argument consists in clarifying the sense in which liberal democracies have a primary concern for the (...) respectful treatment of citizens qua self-legislating persons. Taking the second step, I address critically the common tendency in the literature to concentrate on what I have termed the ex ante legem phase, focusing solely on the structure of institutionalized decision-making processes. I submit, rather, that the principle of equal respect for persons demands more of liberal democratic institutions to enhance citizens' chances to give voice to their consciences and influence, on that ground, the formulation of the rules to which they should conform. Fulfilling this commitment requires democratic theorizing to go beyond the ex ante legem phase and regard forms of ex post legem contestation as an extension of citizens' right to political participation. Against this backdrop, I take the third and last step and argue that a promising way forward consists in the adoption of an ex post legem version of conscientious exemptionism, granting citizens a conditional moral right to request exemptions on the grounds of conscience from certain controversial legal and political provisions. (shrink)

The central notion in this article is ‘pluriform accommodation,’ a term that we have coined to defend two lines of thought. The first is a plea for inclusive and consequential neutrality; the second is a closely linked plea for reasonable accommodation. With ‘pluriform accommodation’ we emphasize that the multicultural recognition scope should be expanded. The need for inclusive and accommodative rules, laws, and practices is a matter of principle and as such cannot be reduced to the inclusion of people with (...) an immigration background who bring with them all kinds of ethnocultural and religious practices, convictions, and traditions. Furthermore, the enshrined freedom of religion does not provide the needed protection for the multiplicity of conscientious identifications, convictions, and strong allegiances that might be central to one’s sense of self. We argue that we should not engage in (top down) debates about the rights of individuals and groups of different types and think in terms of identity hierarchies, but instead should consider the various claims being made (bottom up), aiming for common standards and criteria to assess the validity of these claims and the reasonableness of the associated accommodations. (shrink)

The past decade has seen a vigorous debate in medical ethics over whether and under what conditions physicians can refuse requests from patients for medical interventions that the physician believes are morally inappropriate to perform. The debate has typically been framed in terms of "conscientious refusal": when, if ever, is the physician justified in refusing an intervention when the reasons of refusal have to do with the convictions of the physician's conscience? To this version of the question, a range (...) of answers have been given. At one extreme, scholars have argued for the so-called incompatibility thesis, that conscientious objection is a matter of personal morality and hence incompatible with the... (shrink)

Increasingly, physicians are being asked to provide technical services that many believe are morally wrong or inconsistent with their beliefs about the meaning and purposes of medicine. This controversy has sparked persistent debate over whether practitioners should be permitted to decline participation in a variety of legal practices, most notably physician-assisted suicide and abortion. These debates have become heavily politicized, and some of the key words and phrases are being used without a clear understanding of their meaning. In this essay, (...) I endeavor, firstly, to clarify the meaning of some of these terms: conscience, conscientious action, professional judgment, conscientious objection, conscience clauses, civil disobedience, and tolerance. I argue that use of the term conscientious objection to describe these refusals by health care professionals is mistaken and confusing. Secondly, relying on a proper understanding of the moral and technical character of medical judgment, the optimal deference that the state and markets ought to have toward professions, and general principles of Lockean tolerance for a diversity of practices and persons in a flourishing, pluralistic, democratic society, I offer a defense of tolerance with respect to the deeply held convictions of physicians and other health care professionals who hold minority views on contested but legal medical practices. (shrink)

It is a fairly widespread conviction that conscience offers not only a yardstick for moral evaluations but constitutes a cognitive faculty that helps one learn something about the world. If so much is true, and, as it seems to be the case with Henryk Jankowski, one is equipped with a socialist conscience, the resulting position is equally informed by certain evaluative and epistemological premises. A conscientious socialist sees the world as a vast terrain of opportunities that can be (...) used to make the world a socially better world. This attitude can be very strong, deep rooted, intransigent and good natured. It may sometimes desensitize its representative to the implications of many facts that are incompatible with his vision of the future, but it can also make him a loyal, ingenious, honest and tireless defender of the common good. An example of Henryk Jankowski is adduced, on the seventieth anniversary of his birth, as a particularly admirable embodiment of the socialistic ideals, motivated by ethical rather than political reasons. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to challenge two prevailing views about religious accommodation. The first maintains that religious practices deserve accommodation only if they are regarded as something unchosen on a par with the involuntary circumstances of life people must face. The other view maintains that religious practices are nothing more than preferences but questions the necessity of their accommodation. Against these views, I argue that religious conducts, even on the assumption that they represent voluntary behaviours, deserve in certain circumstances (...) certain kinds of accommodation. In the first part of the paper, I explain how religious conscience should be understood and show that they must be understood as one possible expression, along with nonreligious or secular beliefs, of a person’s convictions of conscience. In the second part, I demonstrate that the main ground for religious accommodation is the need to protect fairly, through such rights as religious freedom and freedom of conscience, the ethical commitments and conscientious beliefs of all citizens. (shrink)

The central notion in this article is ‘pluriform accommodation,’ a term that we have coined to defend two lines of thought. The first is a plea for inclusive and consequential neutrality; the second is a closely linked plea for reasonable accommodation. With ‘pluriform accommodation’ we emphasize that the multicultural recognition scope should be expanded. The need for inclusive and accommodative rules, laws, and practices is a matter of principle and as such cannot be reduced to the inclusion of people with (...) an immigration background who bring with them all kinds of ethnocultural and religious practices, convictions, and traditions. Furthermore, the enshrined freedom of religion does not provide the needed protection for the multiplicity of conscientious identifications, convictions, and strong allegiances that might be central to one’s sense of self. We argue that we should not engage in (top down) debates about the rights of individuals and groups of different types and think in terms of identity hierarchies, but instead should consider the various claims being made (bottom up), aiming for common standards and criteria to assess the validity of these claims and the reasonableness of the associated accommodations. (shrink)

"Public Bioethics collects the most influential essays and articles of James F. Childress, a leading figure in the field of contemporary bioethics. These essays, including new, previously unpublished material, cohere around the idea of "public bioethics," which involves analyzing and assessing public policies in biomedicine, health care, and public health, often through public deliberative bodies. The volume is divided into four sections. The first concentrates on the principle of respect for autonomy and paternalistic policies and practices. The second explores the (...) tension among bioethics, public policy, and religious convictions. It pays particular attention to the role of religious convictions in the formation of public policies and to the basis and limits of exemptions of health care providers who conscientiously oppose providing certain legal and patient-sought services. The third section looks at practices and policies related to organ transplantation. Childress focuses particularly on determining death, obtaining first-person consent for deceased organ donation, and allocating donated organs effectively and fairly. The book's fourth and final section maps the broad terrain of public health ethics, proposes a triage framework for the use of resources in public health crises, addresses public health interventions that potentially infringe civil liberties, and sheds light on John Stuart Mill's misunderstood legacy for public health ethics."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Philip Quinn, John A. O’Brien Professor at the University of Notre Dame from 1985 until his death in 2004, was well known for his work in the philosophy of religion, political philosophy, and core areas of analytic philosophy. Although the breadth of his interests was so great that it would be virtually impossible to identify any subset of them as representative, the contributors to this volume provide an excellent introduction to, and advance the discussion of, some of the questions of (...) central importance to Quinn in the last years of his working life. Paul J. Weithman argues in his introduction that Quinn’s interest and analyses in many areas grew out of a distinctive and underlying sensibility that we might call “liberal faith.” It included belief in the value of a liberal education and in rigorous intellectual inquiry, the acceptance of enduring religious, cultural, and political pluralism, along with a keen awareness of problems posed by pluralism, and a deeply held but non-utopian faith in liberal democratic politics. These provocative essays, at the cutting edge of epistemology, the philosophy of religion, philosophical theology, and political philosophy, explore the tenets of liberal faith and invite continuing engagement with the philosophical issues. “Philip Quinn was admired enormously throughout the world of professional philosophy.... His reputation for rigor, his tireless service to the profession, and his essentially ‘non-dogmatic,’ but philosophically sophisticated faith is widely admired... The essays in this volume are first-rate contemporary philosophy along with an excellent introduction to Quinn’s work.” —_Charles Taliaferro, St. Olaf College_ "The papers that form _Liberal Faith_ give insightful treatments of three types of questions: first, how can we conscientiously believe something when there are many people we admire who do not believe it, and what is the underlying relation here between justification and rationality; second, what does it mean to desire union with God, and can Christians properly believe in the possibility of eternal self-annihilation; third, how should liberal democracy accommodate the religious convictions of its members, whether some comprehensive doctrine such as a religion is required to justify a commitment to human equality, and whether there is an absolute moral prohibition on the state use of torture. The volume has an unusually good introduction putting the papers into dialog with each other and with the work of Philip Quinn. The papers are cohesive because the central themes of Philip Quinn's work hold together into a picture of how Christianity and Liberal Democracy fit together." —_John Hare, Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology, Yale Divinity School _ “This is a collection of high quality essays dealing with various topics related to Philip Quinn’s work. The book makes an original contribution by virtue of its individual papers, each of which is new. These essays will be of interest to scholars and students who followed Quinn’s work, especially in philosophy of religion and political philosophy.“ —_John Greco, The Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Chair in Philosophy, Saint Louis University _. (shrink)

More than 95 per cent of criminal convictions in the USA never go to trial, as the vast majority of defendants forfeit their constitutional rights to due process in the pervasive practice of plea bargaining. This article analyses the relationship between American mass incarceration and this mass forfeiture of procedural justice by situating the practice of plea bargaining in the normative framework drawn by recent Supreme Court rulings and the proliferation of criminal statutes, including mandatory minimum sentencing legislation. Looking at (...) systemic racial disparities in sentence severity and incarceration rates for otherwise similarly situated defendants, I argue that, rather than a voluntary waiver of constitutional rights, this mass forfeiture of due process rights ought to be conceptualized as the product of an entrenched system of procedural entrapment. Such entrapment, I argue, ought to be abolished not only on grounds of procedural injustice, but because the practice refashions rather than redresses forms of racial domination derived from prior eras. The article concludes by exploring the tactic of mass conscientious plea refusal through the collectively organized assertion of constitutional due process rights as a strategy of resisting mass incarceration. (shrink)

In Section One the automatic ratification of existing law as immediately self-validating is shown to undermine the very purpose of law - the surpassing of arbitrariness and of Czar-like ukases. In Sections Two and Three there is an attempt to explore the justification or grounding that can be given for the existing laws and civil disobedience, respectively. In both cases, the justification has been given in terms of fundamental human dignity which should never be violated by empirical laws. Only when (...) such a violation does occur can civil disobedience be justified. Therefore, the rationale for, and motivation of, both a legal system and civil disobedience are the same.However, one does not so easily resolve the opposition between the two. For the law itself is proclaimed apodictically, without the reservation that one may with impunity break the law and commit an act of civil disobedience whenever the law violates one's conscience. Otherwise, we do not have a rule of law but instead anarchy. For, as Jesus has said and Abraham Lincoln paraphrased it: “A kingdom divided against itself will not stand.” The law cannot declare that it is legal to break the law without incapacitating itself. The law must punish its violators to be a valid law; without powers of enforcing sanctions against violators the law is no law.However, we must not consider for this reason that those who are responsible for making, interpreting, and enforcing the law and those who are civilly disobedient are working at cross purposes. Both are concerned with justice. The civilly disobedient individual is concerned with improving the existing legal system. He envisions his role as therapeutic rather than destructive. He believes that the ideal of justice is being violated in some way in the existing laws. He therefore makes of himself a martyr, bearing witness to the truth, and hoping thereby to educate and enlighten and to move men of good will - in short, to effect a change in the law.Before an individual who respects the rule of law should be willing to be civilly disobedient he must be convinced of the violation of basic human rights in the law. He also must consider whether civil disobedience is the most effective means of producing the desired change. But beyond the pragmatic consideration of the most effective means to produce the desired end, there is also the question of what is most meaningful and suitable for him personally in living in conformity with the categorical imperative. Discussions of civil disobedience which limit themselves to questions of practical consequences do a great disservice to such actions. For, must we not admire those who resisted Hitler, even though they realized that their actions were futile in terms of changing the law and might even mean their deaths?In a free society, dedicated to the rule of law, all citizens are concerned with justice. Those entrusted with the responsibility of enforcing the law obviously must do just that, so that violators of the law have to be punished. However, when legislators and judges notice that some of the most perspicacious and conscientious individuals are openly violating existing laws in the name of a higher law, they should also make a serious reappraisal of their positions, looking to see whether they may not have become morally insensitive or careless. Indeed, the real value of a free society is its flexibility and tolerance of dissent, even that of civil disobedience, which can serve to dramatize forcefully, deep-seated convictions concerning the injustice of certain laws on the books. It is true that fanatics from time immemorial have been willing to sacrifice much in the name of their cause. But whenever one finds that there is an individual who is willing to sacrifice much without the hope of personal advantage and who is also willing to provide arguments in defense of his position, society would do well to listen to his words and actions.Without the constant delving scrutiny and criticism of existing laws, there cannot be true legal responsibility. Therefore, the civilly disobedient individual, who is willing to put his head on the block in order to abrogate unjust laws, is in fact the legally responsible individual par excellence. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to challenge two prevailing views about religious accommodation. The first maintains that religious practices deserve accommodation only if they are regarded as something unchosen on a par with the involuntary circumstances of life people must face. The other view maintains that religious practices are nothing more than preferences but questions the necessity of their accommodation. Against these views, I argue that religious conducts, even on the assumption that they represent voluntary behaviours, deserve in certain circumstances (...) certain kinds of accommodation. In the first part of the paper, I explain how religious conscience should be understood and show that they must be understood as one possible expression, along with nonreligious or secular beliefs, of a person’s convictions of conscience. In the second part, I demonstrate that the main ground for religious accommodation is the need to protect fairly, through such rights as religious freedom and freedom of conscience, the ethical commitments and conscientious beliefs of all citizens. (shrink)

Reformed Christianity's qualified embrace of freedom of conscience is per- haps best represented by William Ames (1576-1633). This essay explores Ames's interpretation of conscience, his understanding of its relationship to natural law, Scripture, and civil authority, and his vacillation on the sub- ject of conscientious freedom. By rooting his interpretation of conscience in natural law, Ames provided a foundation for conscience as an authority whose convictions are binding and worthy of some civil respect and free- dom. At the same (...) time, his Puritan worldview ultimately required the deference of conscience to the superior manifestations of divine law in Scripture and civil institutions. As a result, Ames provided raw ingredients for a theological doctrine of freedom of conscience despite his unwillingness to commend the idea himself consistently. In this way, Ames symbolizes an ambiguity on freedom of conscience characteristic of the broader Reformed tradition. (shrink)

Previous studies linking personality and social integration with religiosity conflate the weakly religious with the completely nonreligious, and religious belief with group membership, leading to spurious associations. The present study characterizes the growing nonreligious population by comparing church and secular group members on personality characteristics and social integration. Although church members were higher in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and perceived social support, these differences were largely eliminated when controlling for demographics and group attendance. Secular group members were higher on Intellect/Openness. Many previously (...) reported characteristics associated with religiosity are a function not of belief itself, but of strong convictions and group identification. (shrink)

At the request of our friend, Mr. Heywood, we give in full, on our last page, his address on “The War Method of Peace,” – a somewhat paradoxical title, – delivered before the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, at the Melodeon, on Sunday, June 14th. Of course, he alone is responsible for the views he presents; and, certainly, he is to be respected and commended for his conscientious fidelity to his convictions. But we cannot regard his treatment of the subject, in (...) its relation to the present state of the country, as peculiarly felicitous; and we think he renders himself liable to be greatly misapprehended in certain particulars. In our judgment, believing that there is “a time to keep silent,” as well as “a time to speak,” [Online editor’s note: Ecclesiastes 3:7. – RTL] and that, while the whirlwind, the earthquake, and the fire of civil war are in full operation, it is not possible for “the still, small voice”. (shrink)

During the First World War Russell frequently complained about unwarranted encroachments by the wartime state on the sphere of individual freedom. He experienced such encroachments very directly. The Defence of the Realm Act (dora) was the legal instrument through which most official reprisals were visited on him—punitive meas­ures arising from his dogged support for conscientious objectors and a negotiated peace. Under this emergency legislation he was twice convicted and had his freedom of movement curbed. This harsh treatment is well (...) known, but the literature on Russell has not yet systematically examined his relationship with this “other DORA”. Using the Russell Archives, his Collected Papers, and government records in the UK’s National Archives, this paper seeks to establish the legal, administrative and political contexts in which he was prosecuted and sanctioned extra-judicially, and where he sometimes benefitted from DORA’s formidable powers being set aside. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 444-449 [Access article in PDF] Psychoanalysis and Morality Eugene Goodheart Equals, by Adam Phillips; 246 pp. New York: Basic Books, 2002, $25.00. I THINK I WOULD RECOGNIZE an unattributed essay by Adam Phillips by its manner. Every serious writer aspires to such recognition. A comment on the book jacket of his latest collection of essays Equals tells us that his "territory is complication," though (...) "he reports back in the simplest of words." The words may be simple, but the movement of thought through the sentence, the paragraph and an entire essay is not. His way with complication, as I hope to show, is not always to Phillips's credit. The difficulty in reading him is in trying to know where he or she is being taken. The complication often leads to inconclusiveness, which is not a fault if the problem is insoluble or the situation genuinely intractable. Too often, however, the complication seems to reflect a love of it for its own sake. On other occasions, it degenerates into obscurantism.When Phillips does take a stand, he deliberately plants himself on shifting sands. As his title suggests, he is an egalitarian democrat, to which he brings the perspective of psychoanalysis. (He was Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital in London.) All hierarchy is anathema, all claims to superiority are to be resisted. Authority turns into authoritarianism. These are my sentences, uttered in an apodictic style, foreign to that of Phillips, but they reflect a view (his view) that the prose sometimes blurs. In its psychoanalytic application, the psychoanalyst is or should be unseated from his superior [End Page 444] position. Both the analyst and the analysand need to listen to what each has to say without passing (premature?) judgment, a model for all human interactions. (Phillips does not say whether the listener is permitted to distinguish sense from nonsense.) Conflict should be the rule, for where there is no conflict there is suppression. (But conflict on either side usually presupposes a desire to impose one's will on another. Is there a distinction to be made between fruitful and destructive conflict? Again Phillips has nothing to say on the subject.) As for the meaning of equality, he avoids all the real-life obstacles to genuine equality. He approves of Chantal Mouffe's version in which there can never be "an equality of wealth, or talent or beauty," but rather "an equality of rivenness, an equality of unknowingness, the equality of there being no foundations to master." I am not sure I understand what it means to be equal in rivenness. I believe that we are all unknowing in many ways, but not that we are equally unknowing. Is equality (in the presence?) of no foundations the same as equality in the prospect of death? In any event, I'm pretty sure that no authoritarian person or institution would be much troubled when faced with these banners of equality.Yet equality is a serious matter for Phillips, so serious that in another essay he is troubled by the threat that laughter presents. In a characteristically tortuous essay in which he tries conscientiously to sort out the benign and malign effects of mockery and ridicule, he ends by concluding that mockery is "the emotional terror of democracy" and "that what is always being ridiculed is our wish to be together, our secret affinity for each other." Always? Phillips of course knows the pleasures of ridicule, even its benignly toxic effect on our self-importance. But he begins from such an extreme position of its noxiousness (at the beginning of the essay he cites Primo Levi's initial response to the concentration camp as a joke: how could it possibly be what it purports to be?) that he cannot shake himself of the solemnity of his democratic conviction to allow a place for the human comedy. I wonder too at the authority of his claim for "our secret affinity for each other." The difficulty of democracy or togetherness for many or at least some may be precisely the secret aversion that they have for... (shrink)

G. A. Cohen incisively argued that our judgments of social justice should fit our convictions about how to interact with others in our personal lives. Ironically, the ordinary morality of cooperation invoked in his last book undermines his favored principle of equality, and supports John Rawls' reliance on a relevantly impartial choice promoting appropriate fundamental interests as a basis for distributive standards. His further objections to Rawls' account of distributive justice neglect the role of social relations in establishing the proper (...) scope of that impartiality and the moral force of Rawls' taxonomy of non-ideal societies. In contrast, the powerful evocation of goods of community at the end of Cohen's last book points to a genuine inadequacy. Conscientious fellow-citizens must take account of the impact of their political choices on options for sharing and caring. In finding a proper balance between these goods and competing individualist concerns, the original position is of too little use to sustain Rawls' assessment of his conception of justice as complete. In the face of our strong moral convictions about how to live together, both Cohen's luck egalitarianism and Rawls' barriers between aspirations to community and political choice must give way. (shrink)

Religious pluralism in healthcare means that conflicts regarding appropriate treatment can occur because of convictions of patients and healthcare workers alike. This contribution argues for a presumption in favour of respect for religious belief on the basis that such convictions are judgements of conscience, and respect for conscience is core to what it means to respect human dignity. The human person is a subject in relation to all that is. Human dignity refers to the worth of human persons as members (...) of the species with capacities of reason and free choice that enable the realisation of dignity as self-worth through morally good behaviour. Conscience is both a feature of inherent dignity and necessary for acquiring dignity as self-worth. Conscience enables a person to identify objective values and disvalues for human flourishing, the rational capacity to reason about the relative importance of these values and the right way to achieve them and the judgement of the good end and the right means. Human persons are bound to follow their conscience because this is their subjective relationship to objective truth. Religious convictions are decisions of conscience because they are subjective judgements about objective truth. The presumption of respect for religious belief is limited by the normative dimension of human dignity such that a person's beliefs may be overridden if they objectively violate inherent dignity or morally legitimate acquired dignity. (shrink)