Fish on Hobbes on religious exemptions

[Steve Sanders]

Apropos of recent discussions on this list, Stanley Fish as a worthwhile
commentary on the NYT web site:
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/conscience-vs-conscience/.  Among
other things, he grounds the discussion in some classical political
philosophy: 
 
Hobbes's larger point - the point he is always making - is that if one gets
to prefer one's own internal judgments to the judgments of authorized
external bodies (legislatures, courts, professional associations), the
result will be the undermining of public order and the substitution of
personal whim for general decorums: ". . . because the Law is the public
Conscience . . . in such diversity as there is of private Consciences, which
are but private opinions, the Commonwealth must needs be distracted, and no
man dare to obey the Sovereign Power farther than it shall seem good in his
own eyes."
 
_____________________________________ 


Steve Sanders 


 <http://www.mayerbrown.com/lawyers/profile.asp?hubbardid=S597744167>
Attorney, Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice group, Mayer Brown
LLP, Chicago

Co-editor,  <http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/lgbtlaw/> Sexual Orientation
and the Law Blog

Adjunct faculty, University of Michigan Law School (Winter term 2010)

Email:  <mailto:stevesan at umich.edu> stevesan at umich.edu

Personal home page:  <http://www.stevesanders.net/> www.stevesanders.net

 

 
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