Net publikationsdato 27-03-07

2007, Anvendt etik, Etisk teori, Metaetik, Religionsfilosofi

What kind of wrong, if any, does blasphemy consist in?

The argument in the follow-ing unfolds as follows. In section I, I present what I believe is a fairly neutral and useful concept of blasphemy. This concept, however, does not specify in what the wrongness of blasphemy could consist. In section II, I proceed to an analysis of different levels of claims of moral wrongness and I present and defend a central claim of this paper, namely that there is a strong connection between rules and claims of wrongful blasphemy. The wrongness, if any, of blasphemy consists in the breaking of rules. In section III, I argue first that a classical, subjective utilitarian framework is inadequate to deal with the moral phenomena at hand, and proceed to a discussion of autonomy. It seems to be a stable part of people’s conception of the good that they set out at least some of the rules that guide their lives – that they are, in a phrase, at least part authors of their own lives. If so, there is autonomous value in keeping the rules that people set up for themselves. If blasphemous acts break people’s rules, then perhaps here we find a justi-fiable rationale for claims of wrongful blasphemy: such acts infringe on people’s auton-omy. However, admitting autonomy as the foundational value for blasphemous claims cuts both ways: although certain rules are certainly independent of endorsement or con-sent, the rules that blasphemous acts do break seem straightforwardly dependent on (autonomous) consent; and hence, they hold no authority for those who do not acknowledge them. In the final section, IV, I amend this picture somewhat and, much more ten-tatively, propose a practical guide to our thinking about blasphemous acts and locutions that allow for justifiable claims of (unwarranted or morally wrong) acts of blasphemy, but only within certain highly circumscribed social arenas.