2022年2月6日日曜日

Liberty of Conscience

「とても受け入れられない」といってもいろいろあって限度を超えたものもあろう。 

III. Madison and the Virginia Assessment Controversy
In 1776, Virginia was drawing up a Declaration of Rights. George Mason had written a draft, stating “that all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, . . . unless under color of religion any man disturb the peace, the happiness, or safety of society.” In his first major public act, Madison objected to the word “toleration” as too grudging, suggesting legislative grace rather than entitlement, and to the absence of the language of equality. He proposed, successfully, that Mason’s language be replaced by the statement that “all men are equally entitled to the full and free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience.Toleration suggested hierarchy, as if it were by the blessing of the majority that the minority was not persecuted. That idea was going out, and the idea of human equality was coming in, with Madison in the vanguard. [...]

Madison also objected that Mason’s “peace, happiness, and safety” language was not protective enough; he suggested language that said government could interfere with the free exercise of religion only if equal liberty itself and the very existence of the State were “manifestly endangered.”


One of the most central commitments in our constitutional tradition is a commitment to fairness, to treating citizens as equals, where that means that no hierarchies should exist under law in our nation. Religious membership and nonmembership should not be special sources of advantage or disadvantage under law

 We may get some help, I think, by returning to Roger Williams’s idea of conscience. For Williams, the faculty with which each person searches for the ultimate meaning of life is of intrinsic worth and value, and is worthy of respect whether the person is using it well or badly

From the respect we have for the person’s conscience, that faculty of inquiring and searching, it follows that we ought to respect the space required by any activity that has the general shape of searching for the ultimate meaning of life, except when that search violates the rights of others or comes up against some compelling state interest


Mutual respect imposes duties that are themselves mutual: the duty for each and every person to allow each and every person, majority and minority, a space for conscience to unfold itself, even in ways that are strange and surprising—so long as they violate no compelling state interest and respect the equal rights of others.

"Tolerance "というのは「寛容」と訳されるんだけど「忍耐」という意味合いがあって、むしろ、自分と違ったくだらん考えをしているが、まあ、我慢してやるみたいなところもあるから、むしろ、誰もが斉しく、思想良心の自由がある、といったほうがいい、という考えもある、と。

 寛容といったとき一番寛容が要求されるのは異教徒についてであって、それについて、やむにやまれぬ国益や他の人の平等な権利を侵害しない限り、寛容であるべき、という考えであるみたいだね。

 ちなみに、キリスト教では、

Mercy vs. Tolerence

Mercy vs. Tolerance

TOLERANCE VS. MERCY


「寛容」と「慈悲」を区別していると。「寛容」と「慈悲」は矛盾する概念。神は罪、悪に対して寛容ではない。ただし、悔い改めるものについては慈悲深い、と。


--ーこういった不寛容な宗教が支配的な国だからこそ寛容の思想が生まれたのかもしれませんね。







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