Religious tolerance - The pacemaker for cultural rights

Philosophy

Volumn 79, Issue 307, 2004, Pages 5-17

  Habermas, Jürgen ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 38849121065     PISSN: 00318191     EISSN: 1469817X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0031819104000026     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (18)

1. See the Allgemeine Handwörterbuch der philosophischen Wissenschaften nebst ihrer Literatur und Geschichte, ed. Wilhelm Traugott Krug, (2nd edn., 1832): 'Toleranz (von tolerare, dulden, ertragen) ist Duldsamkeit... Doch wird jenes Wort meist im engeren Sinne von religiöser Duldsamkeit gebraucht, wie das entgegengesetzte Intoleranz von der religiösen Unduldsamkeit'
2. In 1598, Henri IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes
3. see also the Act Concerning Religion passed by the Government of Maryland in 1649
4. the Toleration Act issued by the King of England in 1689 or - as one of the last instances in this chain of sovereign 'authorizations' - the 'Patent of Toleration' proclaimed by Joseph II in 1781
5. Quoted from C. Herdtle, Th. Leeb (eds), Toleranz, Texte zur Theorie und politischen Praxis, (Stuttgart, 1987), 49
6. K. Loewenstein, 'Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights', American Political Science Review (31), 1937
7. see also his Verfassungslehre, 3rd edition, 1975, 348ff
8. On the problematic issue of civil disobedience see my two essays in: J. Habermas, Die Neue Unübersichtlichkeit, Frankfurt/M. 1985, 79-117
9. R. Forst, 'Der schmale Grat zwischen Ablehnung und Akzeptanz,' Frankfurter Rundschau (Dec. 28, 2001)
10. J. Rawls Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia U.P.), 1993, 58ff
11. J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (loc. cit. p. 11ff
12. See the list offered by D. Grimm in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, of June 21, 2002, p. 49: 'Can a Sikh riding a motorcycle be excused from obeying the general law to wear a helmet on grounds of his religious duty to wear a turban? Must a Jewish prisoner be offered kosher food? Does a Muslim employee have the right to briefly interrupt his work time in order to pray? Can an employee be fired because he did not appear for work on the High holy days? Does an employee dismissed for this reason forfeit his entitlement to unemployment benefits? Must Jewish entrepreneurs be permitted to open their businesses on Sundays simply because for religious reasons they had to keep them shut on Saturday? Does a Muslim pupil have the right to be exempted from PE classes because she is not allowed to show herself to other pupils wearing sports clothes? May Muslim pupils wear headscarves in class? What is the case if the woman concerned is a teacher at a government-owned school? Should the law be different for nuns than it is for a Muslim teacher? ...Must muezzins be allowed to broadcast their call to prayer by loudspeaker in German cities just as churches are allowed to ring their bells? Must foreigners be allowed to ritually slaughter animals although it contravenes the local animal protection regulations?... Must Mormons be permitted to practise polygamy here because it is allowed them in their country of origin?'
13. On the unity of political culture in the diversity of sub-cultures see. J. Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, (Cambride, Mass: MIT Press), 117ff
14. On this distinction N. Fraser, From Redistribution to Recognition?, in: C. Willett (ed.), Theorizing Multiculturalism, Oxford 1998, 19-49
15. A. Honneth, Das Andere der Gerechtigkeit, (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2000) focuses specifically on these pathologies of refused recognition
16. Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and 'The Politics of Recognition' With Commentary by Amy Gutmann (Ed.), Steven C. Rockefeller, Michael Walzer, and Susan Wolf. (Princeton University Press, 1992). See in the German edition my critique of the communitarian conception of cultural rights as collective rights (pp. 117-16)
17. On the concept of such 'encompassing groups' see A. Margalit, J. Raz, 'National Self-Determination,' in: W. Kymlicka (ed.), The Rights of Minority Cultures, (Oxford U.P., 1995), pp. 79-92, esp. p. 81ff
18. The more comprehensive the cultural life form is, the stronger its cognitive content, the more it resembles a way of life structured by religious worldviews: 'The inescapable problem is that cultures have propositional content. It is an inevitable aspect of any culture that it will include ideas to the effect that some beliefs are true and some are false, and that some things are right and others wrong.' T. B. Barry, Culture and Equality (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2001), 270