Opting Out
Conscience and Cooperation in a Pluralistic Society
1st Edition
Published on 5. July 2018
152 pages
978-0-255-36762-2 (ISBN)
Description
Should people with deeply held objections to certain practices be allowed to opt out of involvement with them? Should a Christian baker who objects to homosexuality be allowed to deny service to a customer seeking a cake for a gay wedding? Should a Catholic nurse be able to refuse to contribute to the provision of abortions without losing her job? The law increasingly answers no to such questions. But David Oderberg argues that this is a mistake. He contends that in such cases, opting out should be understood as part of a right of dissociation - and that this right needs better legal protection than it now enjoys.
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Person
David S. Oderberg is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading. He completed his doctorate at Wolfson College, Oxford, and became Lecturer in Philosophy at Reading in 1992. He has written four books and edited or co-edited five others, as well as being the author of over sixty papers. His main research areas are metaphysics and ethics, but he also works in philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and other areas. In 2013 he delivered the Hourani Lectures in Ethics at the State University of New York, Buffalo, and in 2003 was a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green, Ohio. Professor Oderberg is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and in 2016 was named, by a major US website for prospective college applicants, as one of the fifty most influential living philosophers.
Content
- Intro
- here
- _GoBack
- The author
- Acknowledgements
- Summary
- 1 Introduction
- Brief background to this book
- Overview of topics covered
- 2 The attack on freedom of conscience
- The Obamacare mandate
- The UK midwives
- Canadian euthanasia
- The EU versus conscience
- Weddings, adoptions, holidays, operations
- 3 The state of the law: unclear and inadequate
- UK: freedom of conscience needs a microscope
- The law is a mess
- Participation is not enough
- 4 Law needs philosophy: ethical principles of cooperation
- How might you act wrongly? Let me count the ways
- Types of cooperation
- Dispensability
- Proximity
- Balancing goods and bads
- Should you sign? It depends
- 5 Application to contested cases
- Hobby Lobby: what it got right, what it got wrong
- Zubik v. Burwell: an opt-out or a trigger?
- Doogan and Wood cannot stand
- Equality Acts and regulations: a charter for inequality
- 6 Freedom of conscience: how far can it go?
- Pluralism to the rescue?
- Freedom of dissociation
- When monopoly is coercion
- The Satanist nurse
- Sex and race
- What kind of society?
- 7 Policy guidelines: time for parliaments and courts to take notice
- How to take freedom of conscience seriously without harming others
- Does the UK need a Religious Freedom Restoration Act?
- General statutory guidelines
- The role of case law
- Sincerity is not enough
- Conclusion
- References
- About the IEA
- Blank Page
