A most interesting read (which I read) has been suggested by my sister-in-law, increased in importance by my father’s experience, and cogently argued by a concerned academic/authour.
The article (and here my library background kicks in): Guretzki, David. Three Dimensional Conscience: A Theo-Legal Proposal for Testing Conscience Clams. The Supreme Court Law Review, Second Series: Volume 113, 2023, pp. 38-52. I understand that the Judges on the Supreme Court of Canada all receive a copy of this series.
In summary, David makes a case for legal conscience cases needing to provide evidences of three areas: 1) a sincerely and visibly practiced belief, 2) A community of conviction (from which a sincerely held belief may have originated), and 3) A transcendent Norm (a universal moral reality).
A slight divergence here to explain my interest in these areas.
My father was a “conchie” (conscientious objector) in World War II. Guretzki touches on the whole pacifist phenomenon of breaking conscription law as a matter of conscience. As a child, my father’s conversations with friends about moral decline still stick with me – often generated around a moral conscience that he held – and which was currently being assailed by a more lenient society.
A good friend of mine served as a surgeon – in the 1990’s our coffee times were both personal and professional. The matter of surgeons being required to perform abortions (and the spectre of MAiD) occupied our chats as we discussed how even conscience guarantees in law might not be of much consequence.
As a bit of a research nerd, a theology buff and a philosophy dabbler this area has become even more complicated as we have entered an age of self-spirituality, individual moral agents who claim only self-revelation to guide their conscience, and relativism’s strongly occurring head. These and other factors have raised a spectre of moral opportunism, radical autonomism and fanaticism, and communal relativism and legal tribalism (Thanks, David, for those categories).
All that to say, Guretzki lays out a good case to help the law (lawyers and judges included in that broad term) to adjudicate conscience cases.
Just as a teaser as you look over Guretzki’s three dimensional conscience article – is the whole area of freedom in our Canadian society somehow related to conscience? OOPS, I just gave away the first paragraph of the article!
