Some RLL readers may be interested in this paper, which I just posted to SSRN (here). The abstract:
In a
paper I posted to SSRN last month — “The Morality of Human Rights” (June
2013) — I explained that as the
concept “human right” is understood both in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and in all the various international human rights treaties
that have followed in the Universal Declaration’s wake, a right is a
human right if the rationale for establishing and protecting the right —
for example, as a treaty-based right — is, in part, that conduct that
violates the right violates the imperative, articulated in Article 1 of
the Universal Declaration, to “act towards all human beings in a spirit
of brotherhood”. Each of the human rights articulated in the Universal
Declaration and/or in one or more international human rights treaties —
for example, the right, articulated in Article 5 of the Universal
Declaration and elsewhere, not to be subjected to “cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment”—is a specification of what, in
conjunction with other considerations, the imperative — which functions
in the morality of human rights as the normative ground of human rights —
is thought to forbid (or to require).
A particular specification
is controversial if and to the extent the supporting claim — a claim to
the effect that the “act towards all human beings in a spirit of
brotherhood” imperative forbids (or requires) X — is controversial. My
aim in this essay is to elaborate and defend a particular specification:
the right, internationally recognized as a human right, to freedom of
conscience — to freedom, that is, to live one’s life in accord with the
deliverances of one’s conscience.
A more focused name for the
right is the right to religious and moral freedom. Jocelyn Maclure and
Charles Taylor begin their book Secularism and Freedom of Conscience
(2011) by stating that “[o]ne of the most important challenges facing
contemporary societies is how to manage moral and religious diversity.”
One indispensable strategy for managing religious and moral diversity
is, as I explain in this essay, the right to religious and moral freedom
— to freedom to live one’s life in accord with one’s religious and/or
moral convictions and commitments.
In the final part of the
essay, I explain why we are warranted in concluding that the
internationally recognized human right to freedom of conscience — to
religious and moral freedom — is part of, is entrenched in, the
constitutional law of the United States.
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