Freedom and Futures: Personal Priorities, Institutional Demands and Freedom of Religion

How should one define the legitimate reach of individuals' institutional obligations in the light of their right to freedom of religion? The most divisive settings for this question involve exclusions from certain jobs and schools. At the same time, some fundamental issues of ethics and law lie in the background. One of the most central concerns choice. On one approach, if there are other sources of work or education that do not make the same demands on the objector then she should choose between conforming and taking up that alternative. On another approach, even if there are such alternatives, people should not be confronted with such a dilemma: they should be entitled to stay in their preferred institution, which must make its best effort to accommodate them. The conflict between these two views arises from underlying differences concerning the nature of free choice itself; about the obligations borne by institutions in civil society; and about basic rights. The connections between these notions are investigated, and a way through the disagreement is suggested.     

Freedom, Law, and the Colonial Project

In this essay I develop a Marxist-informed anticolonialist position, and from this position I assess the role of law in the early Canadian settler-state. I claim that the flexibility of law is a measure of its restitutive and exploitative facets, such facets that operate dialectically as a means of moderating between the settler-state’s liberal democratic ideals (e.g. individual freedom and enfranchisement) and its capitalist imperatives (e.g. privatization of land, expansion, and profit). Law plays an integral role in this context because, by performing this moderating function, it stabilizes the socio-economic order of the emergent settler-state. In the second half of this essay, I enrich my theoretical analysis by examining the variable legal subjectivity of early Ukrainian immigrants to Canada. This historical perspective allows me to illuminate the intricacies of the logic that informs law’s flexibility, and to show how the liberal democratic principle of freedom was—and continues to be—both extolled and compromised by the law’s moderating function.     

有关法律与自由的问题

就人类活动而言,法律主要表现为规范、引导和限制人的行为;自由则是满足人行为的自主与自为。两者之间似乎是一对矛盾,我们怎样认识和理解这对矛盾呢? 讨论这个问题之前,先让我们来认识自由行为的主体——人和自由行为的环境——社会之间的关系。马克思把人的本质看成是“真正的社会联系”,是“社会关系的总和”,是“人的真正共同体”。同时,全体的人又总是从属于一定的社会群体、阶层和阶级,生活在特定的历史时段。因此,那种用超社会、超阶级、超时代的观点来界定人的自由概念是不可取的。     

Morality, Law and the Fair Distribution of Freedom

Hart’s criticism of Devlin’s stance on the legal enforcement of morality has been highly influential in shaping a new liberal sensibility and in paving the way to many important legal reforms in the UK. After 50 years it is perhaps time to go back to Law, Liberty and Morality to see it in the perspective of the general evolution of Hart’s thought since the early 50s. This is a period of extraordinary creativity for the Oxford philosopher, in which he writes many important contributions to legal, moral and political philosophy. Prominent among these is ‘Are There Any Natural Rights?’, an article that sets the agenda for Hart’s subsequent work on liberty, fairness and rights, and provides the philosophical background for the liberal understanding of the relations between law and morality defended in Law, Liberty and Morality.     

Freedom of Religion and Minority Religions in Hungary

Religiosity in Hungary is not especially high; however, the vast majority of the population has a denominational identity. There has been a religious revival since the early 1980's, both in the mainstream churches and due to some religious groups newly active in the country. Religious claims are mostly accommodated on an individual basis. Legal entities called churches can be founded for the purpose of exercising religion, but the registration of a church is not a condition of the free exercise of religion. Religious freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution. The Hungarian state regards itself neutral in matters concerning ideology and religion. Church and state operate separately. The state, however, appreciating religious phenomena, provides support for churches and is open for cooperation with them on a sophisticated legal basis. A new method of offering state support for religions using taxpayer choices is described, which shows some interesting patterns of support for minority faiths as well as traditional ones.     

On the Foundations of Law: Religion,Nature, Morals

Abstract. The article discusses the importance of three extra‐legal sources—divine inspiration, natural law, and morality—for a full understanding and effective application of law. Each source is seen as vital due to its ability to compensate for the shortcomings of the other two sources. No source, including belief, is seen as necessarily incompatible with the doctrinal pluralism characteristic of modern societies.     

State,Law and Religion in Edith Stein's Thought

This article presents a paradox in the thought of Edith Stein betweenher attitudes in relation to the state/law problem and her vision ofreligion. I seek to explain the paradox through the study of the Theoryof the State and Sovereignty. In this regard, basing herself onclassical authors, Edith Stein disagrees with the great jurists of hertime who did not always recognise the priority of the concept ofsovereignty. The examination of the relationship between the State andlaw breaks new ground within her phenomenological position, by, on theone hand, defending a strong concept of sovereignty of the State seen asa legal a priori while on the other hand stating that the State doesn'trelate to spiritual values. This leads us to propose a particular viewof the semiotic processes relevant to the relation between law/stateand religion, illuminating the semantic-pragmatic factors which promptedStein towards the above contradiction.     

法律与宗教关系的多向度追问

作为共同调整人类社会的规范,法律与宗教存在着千丝万缕、多个向度的联系。从目的指向来看,法律与宗教都关心人类生存的方式与意义;从思想和制度角度来看,法律中的许多思想和制度都发源于宗教和宗教规范;从西方法治建设的演进历程来看,西方法治的形成得益于人们从内心真正信仰宗教权威与规范的传统;从功能上来看,法律和宗教都有凝聚和调试社会等功能,共同成为维系社会的纽带。当下中国,深刻认识宗教与法律的多向度关系之于落实依法治国以及正确应对宗教社会问题都具有重大的意义。     

Loyal Opposition: Minorities and State Law

This essay on Mitra Sharafi's Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia: Parsi Legal Culture, 1772–1947 (2014) focuses on the relationship between certain minorities and the law of the state. It seeks to expand the discussion found in Sharafi's book in three directions: first, by comparing the attitude of Parsis in South Asia to the law of the state with the attitude of German Jewish immigrants in mandatory Palestine and Israel to state law; second, by asking whether the Parsis' embracing of state law was linked to their economic success; and, finally, by pointing to the nature of law itself as a “minority discourse.”     

论宪法的自由理念

宪法的自由理念有其肯定和否定双重形态,这两种不同的形态产生出宪法与宪政具体理念, 即肯定性自由理念建构起宪法的人民主权理念, 否定性自由理念建构起宪法的权利保障和权力制约理念, 自由的双重形态建构起公共政治领域和私人领域的界分。一部实质宪法应当从实质到规范都能体现其自由理念, 即对基本自由权利和其他剩余权利的保障以及对国家权力的限制。     

Law, Religion, and "Public Health" in the Republic of Brazil

The essay evaluates the general problem that, while most modern republican constitutions follow the U.S. and French models in declaring religious freedom, absolute religious freedom is impossible and undesirable. How are religious freedoms constrained, and how much should they be? The essay evaluates the strategies by which limitations on freedoms of religion are constructed and imposed, especially the powerful isomorphism of law and science described by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Taking the example of Afro‐Brazilian religions in relation to the Brazilian state since 1890, post‐emancipation, the essay argues that pseudo‐scientific discourses of “public health” constrained the religious practice of former slaves, thus allowing the trompel'oeil of religious freedom to continue in the new republic, even as freedoms were in fact constrained by the state.     

骑士、侠客与法文化

宪法变迁的过程也是宪政秩序的塑造过程 ,需要妥善处理好宪法的权威性、稳定性和适应性之间的关系。宪法变迁主要有三种方式 :宪法修改、解释和宪法惯例。每一种方式对于维护宪法的权威性、稳定性和适应性都有利有弊。宪政秩序的塑造不能仅仅依靠一种变迁方式 ,而需要三种方式相互补足的综合性变迁模式。     

Law,the State,and Public Order: Regulating Religion in Contemporary Egypt

A substantial scholarship has studied the extent to which states across the political and geographic spectrums rely on legal, bureaucratic, and judicial institutions to govern religion. However, a deeper inquiry into the mechanisms through which regulation occurs has yet been achieved. This article foregrounds conversion, understood as mobility between social groups in which belief and sincerity may figure but is not reducible to either, to observe these dynamics. Through an analysis of Egyptian jurisprudence on the right to change religion as well as interviews with complainants and litigators, the article challenges widespread assumptions about who and what constitute the regulatory field. It also shows how religious difference is produced in the legal‐bureaucratic encounter. By accounting for institutions that are not typically considered part of the regulatory field nor thought to be bound by the strictures of legal positivism, this article further occasions a rethinking of the public–private distinction within critiques of secularism.     

论宗教身份对出家人的私法和公法能力的影响

出家就是抛弃世俗社会的行为规则,采用灵修世界的行为规则。民法是为世俗的国民制定的,原则上不适用于出家人,他们有自己的身份法。无论是天主教还是汉传佛教,莫不如此。此等法限制出家人的民事权利能力,由此完成世俗社会与灵修世界的区隔。所以,公民的权利能力一律平等的规定是错误的,因为出家人的权利能力受到了限制。这种限制是他们自愿承受的,所以,权利能力不得放弃的命题也是错误的。