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Religious liberties are at the centre of many debates on how liberal democratic societies can accommodate diversity. This book considers the interaction between law and religion from a broad international, comparative and jurisprudential perspective and proposes a new theoretical approach to religious liberty that both transcends and transforms current approaches to religious rights. Not only does the discussion draw on the work of a range of legal and political philosophers including John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin and John Finnis, it also tests the validity of the various proposals against actual 'hard cases' derived from multiple jurisdictions. In so doing, the analysis overcomes longstanding challenges to existing religious rights regimes and identifies a new theoretical paradigm that specifically addresses the challenges associated with religiously pluralist societies. Through this type of interdisciplinary analysis, the book identifies a religio-legal system that both religious and non-religious people can support.
List of contents
1. Introduction; 2. Current approaches to religious rights; 3. The religiously orientated original position: presumptions and framework; 4. Purely self-regarding practices: religious acts with no effect on others or society; 5. Complex self-regarding practices: religious acts with an effect on others or society; 6. False other-regarding practices: religious directions to non-religious persons with no effect on others or society; 7. True other-regarding practices: religious directions to non-religious persons with an effect on others or society; 8. Conclusion.
About the author
S. I. Strong has taught at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the United Kingdom as well as Georgetown Law Center and the University of Missouri in the United States. Professor Strong has written over 100 books and articles which have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian and Chinese, and has won numerous awards for scholarly writing, including Cambridge's esteemed Yorke Prize. Professor Strong is a former US Supreme Court Fellow and holds a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and a J.D. from Duke University, North Carolina, in addition to other degrees.
Summary
Through an international, comparative and interdisciplinary analysis, this book creates a new approach to religious liberty which aims to be acceptable to both religious and non-religious people living in religiously pluralist societies. It will be of interest to scholars and practitioners interested in the relationship between law and religion.
