Ubi concordia, ibi victoria!
Conditionality
of the Dialogue of Religions [1]
The worthwhileness of
eliminating the currently existing differences in the perception and
interpretation of the Divine by various religions and the attempts to find a
consensus in the
interpretation of God today have become a vital necessity for implementing
the spiritual potential of Humankind. This, in turn, would contribute to the
formation of socially-oriented, responsible politics capable of withstanding
the degradation of morals and ethical values. Thereby ensuring the true and
harmonious progress of civilisation.
Without willing, without being
able or without having the capability to achieve such a spiritual unity, we
will continue to live (or rather, to exist) in a split world, which is full
of aggression and threats of terrorism. In a situation where the established
circumstances continue to impose a merciless struggle for survival on us. Push people
into mercenary selfishness and thus devour their souls,
creating and maintaining the illusion of democracy. Thereby contributing to the
preservation of corrupt regimes and the strengthening of autocracy and
totalitarianism.
In such conditions, the individual’s
personality is downplayed and destroyed, the ideals and the meaning of life are
lost, universal human norms of morality are ignored, while the love of gain,
cynicism, debauchery and xenophobia spreads and thrives. This poses a threat to
the further existence of our civilisation in its present form.
All religions are united by common
ethical values, and,
first of all, the all-consuming Love for
God, the Divine world and its inhabitants, the love of human for human. The
kindness, unselfishness, compassion, honesty and generosity towards our own
kind which are born out of this love.
The nation that believes in
God and trusts in Him sets a model of a highly moral civil society, whose
members always and everywhere stand up for the common interests and the benefit
of the whole society. Thereby ensuring a high quality of life for each individual
member of society.
Love
for the Divine world is nothing but Love for Truth! It reflects an attempt
to find this Truth, to learn it and live according to this learnt and accepted
Truth, hidden in the innermost teachings of the Lord.
Notwithstanding
the diversity of religious practices and faiths, which are formed under the
influence of the teachings of prophets and mahatmas from different historical
epochs, cultural specifics, perception and comprehension of truths by people
living in communities with different social structures, they all come
together in the true and only God!
This is the Great Truth, with its basis
being the dialectical unity of religious views which are different at face
value and stemming from God, who is present in everything obvious and hidden.
The Truth that the faithful have been able to comprehend in the real world and
which is a form of the Divine manifestation and a result of the imperfectly
understood process of Creation and Evolvement.
That is, the differences in the comprehension
of God in various religions are nothing but different interpretations of God in
the teachings of prophets and spiritual guides, various visions and accents of
the versatility of the Eternal Mind and the ambiguity of the comprehension of
God. This is how individual religions understand and explain the various
aspects of the essence of One God and the forms of His manifestations. By no
means denying or neglecting God in His all-encompassing true unity, but in
every possible way trying to get closer to the comprehension of God, the Divine
Truth, God’s commandments and morals.
This suggests that God Himself, in all His infinite
diversity, which is incomprehensible for people, is the basis for the
unification of all human beings created and religious teachings spread
throughout the world. The guarantor of
the resolution of all (seeming, far-fetched, illusory, speculative,
demagogic, artificial, imposed, formal, theological, orthodox, dogmatic or
generated by fanaticism) contradictions and the eradication of incomprehension
and intolerance.
When
people realise that they are all the children of God, the humans will no
longer have the inherent haughtiness – inoculated in a certain religious
confession and culture – towards another religion and intolerance to other
rites. There will no longer be a denial of unaccustomed confessions and
forms of comprehension of the Divine nature, which is often expressed as open
aggression.
A
modern person – engaged in the struggle for survival, search for an
advantageous place in the sun and career growth – does not want, and often does
not know how, to stop and try to find peace in God, meditate, immerse himself or
herself in creative reflections and become aware of himself or herself as a
child of the Lord. Thus, moving away more and more from God, wasting in vain
the potential given to him or her by the Lord and losing the support of Heavenly
Father in overcoming difficulties of life.
All of the above is not at all an
incentive for some abstract interfaith peace, ignoring the objective
conditionality of the variety of religious cults and forms of manifestation of
religious feelings. This article only states the author’s opinion on the ways
of cognition, which bring together and unite representatives of different religious
confessions in their desire to know the Lord as the Higher Truth in all His
infinite variety and incomprehensibility of being. Understanding the essence of
conscious religious tolerance by the author, which offers each believer an
invaluable opportunity to draw wisdom from various sources of the Divine Truth.
Each
religion (without belittling any of them) has learnt just a fraction of the
Divine revelation. To the best of its enlightenment, each of them has come
closer to, and comprehended, only individual aspects of the Higher Truth.
Throughout the process of
evolution, we learn and undergo all-round development, without ceasing to
strive for a deeper knowledge of the Eternal and Incomprehensible and for a
more accurate understanding of Him. Never, nowhere and under no circumstances achieving
this goal all the way through!
The degree
of closeness of a certain religion to God’s Honest Truth is evidenced by the
observance of the norms of morality proclaimed within this religion, the state
of moral health of the particular country and the number (share) of those
citizens of the particular society who feel happy and who have succeeded in attaining
their self-fulfilment and self-affirmation.
According to the above,
tolerance of representatives of different religions towards each other is born,
exists and develops only provided that there is a single perception of God’s
essence, where the interpretation, understanding and acceptance of God are not in
conflict with the basic values and principles of different religions. This
is when a consensus is possible,
providing mutual enrichment and fruitful cooperation on the basis of ethical truth which unites all
believers and all religions and is manifested in the following Canons of Faith (social axioms):
1. Recognising and accepting the manifestation of the one God as the Supreme Reason (the Universal Consciousness), no matter by what name we call Him, how we honour, exalt, glorify and worship Him and how we appeal to Him – all paths lead to God!
1. Recognising and accepting the manifestation of the one God as the Supreme Reason (the Universal Consciousness), no matter by what name we call Him, how we honour, exalt, glorify and worship Him and how we appeal to Him – all paths lead to God!
2. The Divine is present in every person, all people –
children of God – are brothers and sisters!
3. By respecting the uniqueness and identity of the
personality of each person, we are all united in God!
4.
All
people are equal before God!
5.
We
share love with Him, as He shares love with each of us!
6. Love – in all its manifestations – unites us with God
and with each other!
7. Love
is the driving
force of our activity and the keynote of life!
8. The mission of all of us is to generously share Love
with all children of God and receive it from all children of God!
9. Our actions are always motivated by Love and imbued
with respect for each other!
Despite the existing
religious, ethnic and cultural differences, speculations of theologies and
political demagoguery and counteraction by ignoramuses, extremists and
fanatics, a system of values and ideals close to the Divine morals should be
built (or the existing one should be harmonised) on such a platform of ethical truths, uniting us all. The motivation
of human life activities should be streamlined and a stable foundation for the
establishment of a society based on the principles of humanism, where most
members not only believe in God, but also recognise themselves as children of
the Lord and organise their lives according to this awareness awakened in them,
should be laid.
Therefore,
the common spiritual heritage of all religions should be freed from the
traditional ethnic and dogmatic framework, revealed for human cognition. Access
to it should be open to all those who are tolerant, patient and filled with understanding
in the Faith and who are eager to become closer to God in all His
manifestations. This is the mission
of wise spiritual teachers and each religious confession!
True faith in God a priori cannot and will never be separated from sincere respect
for one’s fellow human beings and from Love for other creatures of God, the
same as Yourself. This is the key
to interfaith peace and the true humility stemming from the realisation that Humankind
exists thanks to God. That God cherishes His children and does not restrict
their free will, but supports it in every possible way, as long as they do not come
into conflict with God’s commandments and laws of nature.
This means that the spiritual
unity of all humankind in Faith is also the will of God Himself!
And any discrimination and any prejudice are clearly contrary to faith in God.
Since the communication of people with God is inextricably linked with their
being, it predetermines the content of the relationship of people as children
of the Lord and the nature of this relationship.
By
their nature, the origins of the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ were born in
the Love of God for people and all nations. God gave the Son, so
that everyone would know the price of His love! Thus, he showed to all
people the way of acknowledging and redeeming sins, which is revealed in
unlimited love for all the children of the Lord. Where there is no Love,
there is no presence of the Divine spirit and there the Divine spirit is
despised.
Is it really so that many of us, in our
cynical egoism, have come to the point where the sacrifice of God the Son, made for the sake of the salvation
of humankind, was in vain? That His act has remained incomprehensible and unvalued
and that it has not become the starting point for an objective assessment of oneself,
a criterion for the life of a believer and his or her salvation?!
In order for the dialogue to take place,
spiritual fathers, imams, priests and teachers must be genuinely interested in it.
And this interest is inextricably linked to, and flows from, the sincerity of their Faith in
God’s Truth, from the breadth of their perception and depth of their
comprehension of the Divine as well as from their ability to overcome the
political, cultural and language barriers and differences in traditions and
rituals.
Therefore,
relations with representatives of different religious denominations should be
built like with brothers in Faith in God, whose religious confession is
somewhat different and distinct. And this is by no means a reason to despise
their teachings, oppose different approaches to the knowledge of God and
confront believers. On the contrary, we must respect the other way of knowing
God chosen by our brother in Faith.
Thus, we must be open to dialogue,
without cultivating prejudices against other religious denominations, at the
same time, however, not abandoning out Faith and views, but enriching each
other and developing. Otherwise, a possible interfaith dialogue will end before
it can ever begin, or it will turn into a farce, a parody, a monologue with oneself.
A dialogue is a necessary, effective and
efficient way to understanding different religious teachings, which serves as a
means of strengthening the Faith within each religious confession, while allowing
for achieving mutual enrichment and in-depth interpretation of God’s teaching.
To understand brothers in Faith
who profess another religion, we cannot and should not remain solely within the
orthodox theological framework. We need to broaden our outlook and the horizon
of our faith as much as possible. Feel the mutual spirituality. Accept as an
objective Divine reality those religious traditions and rituals which have been
formed historically and which are dictated by the way of life of believers.
So, we
should not deny other religious teachings, but accept them as different forms
and facets of comprehending the Divine essence. As different levels of the
achieved depth of theological knowledge, which only testifies to the specific
degree of perception of God and the Word of God.
It is possible to cultivate such an
attitude towards brothers in Faith in oneself thanks to the humility of the
participant in the dialogue (adept of the faith) before the infinite wisdom of
God and thanks to the depth of his or her Faith in God and the veracity and
sincerity of his or her Faith.
The interfaith dialogue, built
on such an interpretation of Faith, will become a natural manifestation of
the will of God, an invaluable gift of God and the result of the true Faith!
Through the dialogue of religions,
the necessary conditions are created for the common cause for the sake of
strengthening true religious values and their ubiquitous elevation into the
status of universal human values. Thus, promoting – together with all the religions
participating in the dialogue – the emergence of a fairer, freer, more open, more
humane and, therefore, happier society living in accordance with the will of
God.
Thus,
led by our selfless, kind, sincere, humble, trusting, prudent, and noble service
of God, saturated with Love and based on the unquenchable Faith, – we serve
all of Humanity. By bringing the Divine morality home to people, we harmonise
social development in accordance with the laws of nature and God’s commandments
that we have learnt.
The needs, interests, goals
and problems of modern people are increasingly becoming intersecting and
globally interdependent, despite the state, ethnic, religious and ideological
alienation. Therefore, it is very important to search for truly effective means
and efficient methods of the prevention of social conflicts and the resolution
of current conflicts (often created by the politicians themselves), stemming from
delusions, erroneously or selfishly interpreted in a manner characteristic of a
state, generated due to narrow national interests, and also because of the
unwillingness to build equitable relations with partners.
This hinders the cooperation
of states and the integration of nations. Their sovereign unity in the process
of globalisation is artificially slowed down, despite the existing suitable
conditions for the development of Humankind as a single and harmonious organism
with a huge spiritual, intellectual, creative and productive potential.
As a result of the fulfilment
of this potential, it would be possible to completely eradicate the existing
discrimination against people, as well as inequalities linked to differences in
the quality and level of social, economic, scientific and technological
development of each state. That, in turn, entails tension in relations between
states. Positive aspects are brought to naught and achievements of globalisation
are discredited.
Nowadays, politicians talk a
lot about peace-loving, about the need to protect national interests and state
sovereignty of the country and about social progress. However, they have done
little to achieve tangible and positive results for the population, often
looking for the far-fetched justifications of their fundamentally flawed decisions,
which are made, as a rule, under the pretext of defending self-formulated alleged
state interests.
The dialogue of religions is a treacherous path to overcome spiritual
obscurantism, misunderstanding and selfishness. The ultimate goal of the dialogue is the realisation of the
true essence of one’s own inner “I” as a child of God. That is, enlightenment – a limitless urge and a
colossal desire to finally see, perceive and take advantage of the opportunity
given by humility before God to solve one’s own pressing problems. Truly
believing in the Lord and relying on His support in order to awaken in
oneself a dormant inner strength – the inexhaustible energy of Love as part
of infinite Love for the entire Divine world and in sincere Faith!
Those who have failed to learn
the Faith in God, struggle and wander in the webs of their confused life, looking
in vain for ways to solve urgent problems, while being in a depressed state
from the awareness of their helplessness. They do not understand that salvation
should be sought in their own head – in the ability to become aware of oneself
as a child of the Lord and build one’s life on inexhaustible Faith and
unlimited Love for Heavenly Father. It means setting carefully thought-out
goals and implementing them through unbending will and socially responsible
actions.
The prerequisite and indispensable
condition for a fruitful dialogue is the desire born in the Love for God
to listen and understand the religious beliefs of one’s brothers in Faith,
their spiritual values, traditions of prayerful appeal to God and spiritual
practices.
Without Love, dialogue turns into an empty, banal discussion. At
best, it boils down only to an exchange of theological views and listening to
the parties, when everyone continues to adhere to his or her original position,
considering the search for common points with another religion to be heresy and
blasphemy. Thus, in fact, refusing to accept God in His limitless diversity –
rejecting the opportunity to look at God through the eyes of a representative
of another religious confession.
In the absence of sincere Love,
opponents do not even attempt to withdraw from their dogmatic positions. At the
same time, they try in every possible way to prove their subjective truth,
without even hearing the ringing of church bells and without knowing the joy of
comprehending God in His all-round diversity.
All
that is needed to turn the ideals described above into reality and implement
these ideas is Faith and Conviction
that they are pleasing to God and therefore
feasible. That there are people who are wholeheartedly seeking and striving
to step onto the path of overcoming artificial obstacles in order to achieve an
interfaith consensus.
I truly hope that adhering to the set guidelines and
adopting them as motives for targeted actions will allow for spreading
spirituality on all levels of society.
At
the same time, one should be realistic and understand that the majority of
people – evaluating things from the position of materialistic advantage – will
find the ideas presented here an impossible and fantastical vision of the
development of society due to their apparent contradiction to the prevailing
views in modern society, values cultivated in it and dominant motives.
Yet, in spite of everything, I consider
it my duty to bring these conscious, nurtured, self-cultivated ideals to
people. Being deeply convinced that there will be people who are ready to
perceive, study, evaluate, develop and use them as a value orientation for
their spiritual growth.
Due
to the incompleteness of his theological knowledge, the author does not exclude
the possibility of deviating from some dogmas of orthodox religious confession or
canons of religious doctrine. But my main
desire is to be sincere, frank and unfeigned! To selflessly share worldview
beliefs inspired by personal experiences, passed through a sieve of my own soul
and felt by the author’s heart (See the article Calling of the Heart).[2]
The
author does not seek to persuade anyone to impose his views, but only voices his
hope that there are caring, active, erudite people in our society who are ready
to listen to the opinion expressed and evaluate and develop it objectively to the extent
possible.
In the light of current
realities, I do not see an alternative for overcoming the living conditions
that are degrading the human personality and for spiritual development, which
is the major backbone in the relationships between people.
If
there is a different vision and other reasonable models proposed to ensure the
progressive development of a truly socially responsible and open society, this
will further accelerate the evolution of Humankind and strengthen the ideals of
humanism throughout the world!
[1] If there is no God in the heart, if
there is no conscious Faith in the Almighty dwelling in the soul, if you do
not see any flaws in the society and the state where you live, if you are
generally satisfied with the quality of life and intend to continue living in the
same way you have lived so far, then further arguments and reflections are not
addressed to you! Therefore, you should not waste your precious time trying to
understand someone else’s thoughts and considerations which are alien to you in
your current objective reality, which seem impracticable and incomprehensible
and which you are not ready to evaluate and accept as possible guidelines for
your spiritual development as well as organisation and improvement of your life
and the lives of others.
03.11.2018
[1] http://ceihners.blogspot.com/
Aux Émirats, le Pape défend la liberté
religieuse
Par Jean-Marie Guénois Mis
à jour le 04/02/2019
Dans un discours très direct, François a aussi appelé
au dialogue avec les musulmans.
De notre envoyé spécial à Abu Dhabi
Il y a un palais des mille et une nuits, avec ses
arabesques, ses vertigineuses colonnades de marbres, ses fontaines sans fin. Il
y a un prince, Mohammed Ben Zayed al-Nahyan, et un pape, François. En ce décor
irréel d'Abu Dhabi, il est reçu comme un roi.
Imperturbable dans sa
volonté d'incarner une papauté pauvre, François roule dans une petite auto de
marque Kia, modèle Soul, qui dénote dans le ballet des limousines blanches. Il
entend tracer son chemin entre ces bouquets de gratte-ciel trop neufs et leurs
racines arabes vivaces. Il profite surtout de ce premier séjour d'un chef de
l'Église catholique dans la péninsule arabique pour lancer un appel sans
précédent. L'appel d'Abu Dhabi, pourrait-on dire. Une sorte de dernier avis
avant la fin d'un monde. Qui pourrait basculer vers le pire… À moins d'un
sursaut que cet apôtre de «fraternité» croit possible. D'où l'impulsion qu'il a
cherché à donner, lundi, à travers un discours fleuve, d'une rare intensité,
... http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2019/02/04/01016-20190204ARTFIG00277-aux-emirats-le-pape-defend-la-liberte-religieuse.php
An energetic and engaging public intellectual, Dworkin's contribution to
the philosophy of law was incomparable. In his final book, he tackled the idea
of a secular sacredness
‘He never gave up on explaining to his readers what was at stake’ …
Ronald Dworkin. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
Jeremy Waldron Thu 28 Nov 2013
Ronald Dworkin, who died this year, was one of the great legal
philosophers of the modern era. His books Taking Rights Seriously (1977), Law's Empire (1986) and Justice in Robes (2006)
made him famous as a defender of the role of courts in modern politics, both in
the US and – if he had had his way – in the UK. He was a proponent of the
"right answer" thesis (there is a right answer for judges to find,
even in the most difficult cases), the value of legal integrity (interpreting
legal provisions, we should aim to make the law, as a whole, the best it can
be) and the idea of rights as trumps (individual rights should prevail not just
in the face of tyranny but even against good-hearted efforts to promote
the general welfare at some individual's expense). These are massive and
enduring contributions to the philosophy of law, each of them adding riches and
colour to our jurisprudence.
But this, his last, book, Religion Without God, is about
value and religious experience. What's the connection wtih jurisprudence? Why
was this occupying the last days of our most prominent legal philosopher?
There is a flourishing field of law and religion concerned with
religious law (canon law, for example, and Islamic law), the way in which
religious traditions, in history, have influenced the development of secular
legal systems, the importance of religious values in underpinning the deepest
commitments of our legal system, and the ideas of toleration and freedom of
worship. There is a huge legal literature about religious establishment and the
application of laws to those whose religious practices they affect. (For
example, in 1990 the US supreme court refused an invitation to strike down
certain narcotics laws under the first amendment's guarantee of religious
freedom on the grounds that they inhibited the sacramental use of peyote in
native American ceremonies.)
For the most part, however, Religion Without God is not
about any of this. The book is based on the Einstein lectures that Dworkin
delivered at the University of Bern in 2011. In those lectures he addressed
questions about the meaning of life and the sublimity of nature, about the
intoxicating experience of celestial and earthly beauty, and about our
commitment to objective goods whose value transcends the preferences of those
who keep faith with them. Dworkin believed that in all this there is
something of the religious attitude to life, even though in his own life –
and, he says, in Einstein's too – there was no belief in what he called
"a Sistine God", no place for worship, creed or redemption.
He went further. Our recognition of objective value, Dworkin argued, must
be prior to anything we say about God. It is certainly prior to any role that
divine command or example can play in ethics. He would have agreed with
Immanuel Kant: "Even the Holy One of the Gospel must first be compared
with our idea of moral perfection before he is recognised as such." If a
religious attitude lies at the foundation of ethics, it must be religion
without God.
Judges often have to decide what counts as religion. In 1965, the US
supreme court decided that someone who had doubts about the existence of God
but who professed a "belief in and devotion to goodness and virtue for
their own sakes, and a religious faith in a purely ethical creed" was
entitled to an exemption from military service – even though previous
interpretations of the Selective Service Act confined such conscientious
exemptions to those whose opposition to war arose out of a belief in a
supreme being. Dworkin approved of this result, and argued that the US
constitution's freedom of religion clause should be understood generally as
protecting people's ethical independence, not as privileging the worship of a
Sistine God.
The Einstein lectures were not the first time Dworkin considered these
matters. Twenty years ago, in Life's Dominion: An Argument About
Abortion, Euthanasia and Individual Freedom, he suggested that a belief in
the sacredness of life was not confined to those who opposed euthanasia and
abortion. He offered a secular account of "sacredness", which he
thought was a form of objective value "independent of what people happen
to enjoy or want or need or what is good for them". On this account,
pro-choice advocates might profess a belief in the sacredness of human
life too: they would just give a different account of what the ultimate
value of life consisted in; an account they found compelling, that emphasised
the glory of what people have made of their lives as much as the biological
humanity:
The life of a single human organism commands respect … because of our
wonder at the divine or evolutionary processes that produce new lives from old
ones, at the processes of nation and community and language through which a
human being will come to absorb and continue hundreds of generations of
cultures and forms of life … and … at the process of internal personal creation
… by which a person will make and remake himself, a mysterious, inescapable
process in which we each participate, and which is therefore the most powerful
and inevitable source of empathy and communion we have with every
other creature who faces the same frightening challenge. The horror we
feel in the wilful destruction of a human life reflects our shared inarticulate
sense of the intrinsic importance of each of these dimensions of investment.
This was a valiant attempt to find common ground in a series of
intractable debates, though I am not sure that it convinced anyone who held
what we conventionally call a religious view of euthanasia or abortion.
Beyond these specific debates, the position taken in Religion
Without God reflects a commitment to objective value that has been
indispensable for Dworkin's broader jurisprudence. Part of what he meant when
he maintained that there was always a right answer to a hard case facing a
court was that even if the relevant precedents, legislation and constitutional
provisions left the judge with a choice to make, the values that would
have to be invoked to guide this choice – rights, justice and the common
good – were as real and objective and compelling as the parchment on which the
black-letter law was printed. What was distinctive, though, about Dworkin's
view was that objective moral values were not invoked in law in their raw
philosophical form. Dworkin believed that legal rights and legal principles entangled
moral and legal elements together: one would call them
"hybrids", if not for the suggestion implicit in that term that pure
law could be imagined without this entanglement. In Dworkin's view, law was
infused with value and principle through and through.
There was no algorithmic formula for distilling these moral values out of
laws, no easy-to-apply rule for recognising their presence. Legal judgment was
a matter of argument and discernment, and the sensibility involved had to be
partly moral but at the same time attentive in complex ways to what had been
enacted and the significance of precedent decisions. That was what lawyers and
judges were doing when they delved doggedly into the books of the law to
search for legal answers to hard cases. They didn't just abandon the quest
and start making new law at the first sign of difficulty. They would keep on at
it, respecting the position of plaintiffs and petitioners as people coming
into court to seek vindication of their rights, not just as lobbyists for a
quasi-legislative solution to some intractable legal problem.
In a generous and good-humoured way, Dworkin practised what he preached.
He too loved argument – the endlessness of it, the scintillation as
connection after connection was made. He was not one to allow himself the last
word in any controversy, let alone anyone else. He believed that perseverance
in argument – the worth of persevering in argument – was the best tribute to
the rights and values and principles at whose altar, in a manner of speaking,
he worshipped.
And all this was seamlessly bound up with fierce conviction about the
real world of constitutionalism and the rule of law. Dworkin's death has
led many people to reflect on the role of a public intellectual in
explaining the workings of constitutional law – in all its intricacy and
controversy – to the general public. His contribution, mainly in the pages
of the New York Review of Books, was prodigious. He published almost 100
essays, reviews, and articles in the Review over 45 years, from a seminal piece
on not prosecuting civil disobedience in 1968, through powerful comment on the
affirmative action cases of the 1970s, on the Robert Bork nomination in 1987 and
the Clarence Thomas nomination in 1991, on abortion, pornography, and assisted
suicide, all the way through to the Citizens United case in 2010 on
corporate speech and other things he called the "Embarrassingly Bad Decisions" of the Supreme Court
under John Roberts.
He believed in law, though there was nothing deferential in his
writing. Dworkin had a great faith in courts as forums of principled argument,
and though that faith must have been shaken at times, he never gave up on the
idea that the these institutions had a salutary role to play in a democracy.
Better still, he never gave up on explaining to his readers what was at stake
in the decisions he described. You didn't have to agree with him to see the
immense contribution he made by talking publicly about this. The courts matter
to citizens, and so does the law (their law) – that's what he thought.
We have nothing like that in Britain, no one of his stature and
perseverance to explain in an informed and elegant way what the UK supreme
court is doing or the European court of human rights. Perhaps Stephen Sedley is
beginning to fill this role, but no one has filled it for us for as long as
Dworkin did for his readership in and beyond the US. I think that the crisis in
this country regarding the legitimacy of the Strasbourg court has been
aggravated by the absence of any such commentator, anyone who might have shown
us regularly, on issue after issue, case after case, why the court matters
here, why the issues that it confronts matter, and why the law that it brings
to these issues matters too, in a way that admits of better or worse reasoning,
right and wrong answers.
I am no great fan of judicial review of legislation; but I know that a
case can be made in its favour and Dworkin made that case, as much in his
critique of what the American courts were doing as in his engaging defence
of the very idea of constitutional values. I would much rather
answer his presentation of that case – by someone who made an honest
effort to reconcile it with democracy – than stand with those in
Britain who respond in a thoughtless, negative and sometimes even xenophobic
way to the judgments of the human rights court in Strasbourg.
A year or two before Religion Without God, Dworkin
published Justice for Hedgehogs, a huge book (in every sense) that
aimed to bring together apparently disparate principles and values under the
auspices of one master ethical conception. Isaiah Berlin followed the Greek poet Archilochus in
distinguishing between the attitude of the fox, who gathers many separate
things, and the hedgehog, who knows only one big thing. The pluralism of the
fox "has ruled the roost in academic and literary philosophy for many
decades," said Dworkin; but he wanted to defend the unity of value. His
hedgehog, however, was not someone who worried away at a single topic. Instead
he worked in the wake of the fox showing that ideas about freedom – which foxes
like Berlin regarded as separate from ideas about justice, and separate
again from ideas about equality, dignity, legality, religion, ethics, democracy
and rights – could in fact be connected together under the auspices of single
respectful ideal. That insistence on looking for connections through
argument, not giving up as soon as the going got tough,
but thinking that the connections mattered enough to persevere in
their pursuit was the motif of Dworkin's jurisprudence and the key to the unity
of his philosophical work.
• Jeremy Waldron's most recent books are The Harm in Hate Speech and Dignity, Rank, and
Rights.
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