‘Quid est veritas?’: On Conscientious Objection and Truth

This paper aims at analysing the relationship between conscientious objection and Truth. Firstly, it will try to investigate dialectically the Truth-based approach to conscientious objection. Secondly, it will point out its main implications and moral premises in terms of theories of conscience. Thirdly, it will scrutinize two possible ‘logics’ of conscientious objection from the legal viewpoint. Eventually, the paper will point out the goals of the Truth-based approach and the positive law-based approach to conscientious objection, and their effects on contemporary democratic society

Omogenitorialità, famiglia e «mero pregiudizio»

Homoparentality represents both a critical matter and a challenge in the Italian context. From a legal viewpoint, most difficulties are created by a constitutional disposition, article 29, which identifies family as a «natural society based on marriage». But what «natural society» means? Can we have families without marriage? This paper frames these issues, in attempt to dismantle the false obstacles against the recognition and juridical protection of homoparental families. At the same time the author tries to point out limits and dangers of a prejudice-based approach on family

Au nom de l’État. Conscientious objection to same–sex marriage in France

In the last decades the debate on LGBT rights has gained a wide appeal in Europe. With law n. 2013-404, lesbian and gay couples can get married in front of the French State and adopt children under the same conditions as heterosexual couples. But what happens if people in charge of celebrating marriage au nome de l’État do not bear this sort of marriage on ethical grounds? Is it possible to recognize an hypothesis of conscientious objection for them? This article frames the issue starting from a reconstruction of the 2013 French judiciary affair

For a General Legal Theory of Conscientious Objection

From a descriptive perspective, conscientious objection may be considered as a form of individual resistance, shared or sharable by others, nonviolent, and “apolitical”, towards a specific law, considered to be unjust. The injustice of a law descends from its incompatibility with the fundamental ethical convictions of the objector. In recent decades, this kind of resistance has undergone a profound transformation. It has acquired a specific legal dimension. In cases in which the ethical requests of objectors have been increasingly considered to be deserving of legal protection by political power holders (as in the case of military service or abortion), the scenario has changed completely. There has been a transition from conscientious objection as a request to conscientious objection as a positive right. The right to conscientious objection is now a fundamental subjective right,instrumentally linked to freedom of conscience in the contemporary constitutional rule of law. In this scenario, that emerged after World War II, conscientious objection is no longer an illegal form of resistance, but, in many cases, a legal instrument to respect individual beliefs. What is the structure of this right? Is there a general right to object in democracy? Can we find specific limits for the claiming of this right? This paper addresses the issue by proposing a general theory of conscientious objection as a fundamental right, under the constitutional rule of law. Only by understanding its logic and goals is it possible to accept or reject specific requests on the part of conscientious objectors. With reference also to the Italian legal system, this paper will try to show how a general but limited right to conscientious objection could be implemented within the pluralistic structure of contemporary democracies