Suchergebnisse
"Beata Polanowska-Sygulska"
Titel: The Crucifix Dispute and Value Pluralism
Autor: Beata Polanowska-Sygulska
Seite: 301-319
This article seeks to interpret the striking divergence between the two judgments passed by the European Court of Human Rights in the Lautsi v Italy case in terms of value pluralism. The latter is a hotly debated position in ethics, brought to life in the second half of the twentieth century by Isaiah Berlin. Pluralism elucidates these in interestingways. First, value pluralism sheds light on three major aspects of the trial before the European Court of Human Rights: the nature of the collision of values, the discrepancy between the two decisions, and the rationale of the final judgment. Secondly, this is my thesis that while the first judgment fits ethical monism, which underlies Dworkin’s ‘one right answer’ theory, the second ruling chimes with pluralism. The pluralist spirit of the Grand Chamber’s final decision turned Europe away from the path of Americanization.
Titel: Value Pluralism: Crucial Complexities
Autor: George Crowder
Seite: 321-336
Discussing the crucifix case, Beata Polanowska-Sygulska concludes that the decision on appeal fits with Berlinian value pluralism, while the initial judgement was ethically monist. Her assumption is that pluralism favours cultural diversity against uniform law. This assumption is too simple and needs to be qualified by several considerations. First, we should be clear that, under pluralism, a moral question may have ‘one right answer’ if this is contextual. Second, so far as pluralism connects with cultural diversity, this has multiple dimensions, applying not just among societies but within them as well. Third, pluralists ought to be concerned primarily with promoting a diversity of values rather than cultures. When these matters are properly taken into account, it can be seen that a uniform lawmay be more pluralist than a multiplicity of local laws, depending on
the circumstances.
Titel: Diversity and Decency
Autor: Beata Polanowska-Sygulska
Seite: 241-25
George Crowder’s article makes an interesting contribution to the literature on value pluralism. Yet, as a commentary onmy essay (Polanowska-Sygulska,2019c) it is entirely misconceived. Crowder’s reading of my text is inadequate, in terms of both the legal and the philosophical aspects of my argument. Having ascribed to me the belief that pluralism always favors cultural diversity against legal uniformity (a belief which I do not hold), he argues that a single uniform law may engender more value diversity than a multiplicity of local legal systems. This may ndeed be so, but it is notmy concern. What Isaiah Berlin aimed at more than anything else was to bring about a decent societ y, which at times requires the pursuit of other values to be limited. I share his approach and therefore argue that, for the sake of decency, both value diversity and cultural diversity may sometimes need to be restricted.