Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Law is an expansive concept with resonance not only in political institutions, but also in religious traditions. The fact that “law” is found across these diverse domains of human social life raises profound questions for religious ethics. Whether law should be in the business simply of creating the conditions for peace or of producing morality has been a central debate from Confucian China to the modern West. Should law leave individual behavior unregulated if it does not affect others, as John Stuart Mill would have it, or should law attempt to establish a moral regime as well? Is human flourishing (if that is indeed the appropriate goal of human activity) best served through guarantees of individual freedom and autonomy or through the coercive agency of laws prescribing appropriate behavior, public and private? And, if the second is desirable, can it be done effectively? What is the relationship between international law, state law, and more local or informal systems of regulating morality? Is law, politically defined, separate from, dependent on, or an expression of “religion”? This chapter concerns “law”: “law” in relation to “religion” and to “morality.” Law, religion, and ethics are cultural complexes that, however different in many ways, share an engagement with the problem of how one ought to live. They might be seen, in fact, as alternative systems, or structures, in a ... log in or subscribe to read full text