Sharp as always! From jesusandmo

In a great news item in the UK today (Archbishop in Sharia law dispute) there has been uproar that the Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested that one way to have greater peace between religious Muslims and British society is to have tolerance towards Muslims in the UK being able to resolve disputes in accordance with Sharia law. I say a great news item because it highlights two fundamentally opposing forces that are at work.

Tolerance and human values The genuine faith the Archbishop holds in his God and his belief that he should live by his God's laws makes him naturally pre-disposed towards the utmost tolerance. This should be applauded since by one interpretation he is suggesting that our most profound views and rights are relative. As Auden said "law is only crimes punished by places and by times". It is difficult to argue with this as, on one level, there is no difference whether you choose a Muslim or Christian God. The point he is making is that if you have a belief then believers of alternative viewpoints should make an effort to accept your difference of opinion. After all, without such tolerance our world would descend into a chaos (or more chaos!) of upwardly spiraling violence and an increasingly less varied and interesting culture - e.g. Eastern Europe during much of the 20th century.

Intolerance for excessive relativism However, one of the reasons for the widespread condemnation of his views is that in pursuing one train of thought (namely a valid moral relativism) he has lost the touchstone which ensures the protection of moral relativism - namely a method of arbitration between different viewpoints (the part that gives relativism a firm place to stand). After all, law is here to arbitrate conflicting rights and desires. In a universe of only one person there would be no laws or morals.... When a law is a good law it deals with conflict in a manner which guarantees maximum diversity of life.

It can only do that when it can:

1. arbitrate impartially between conflicting views based on the prime law (maximal diversity); and

2. effect any concluding opinion.

Clearly Sharia law can do 2. in some Muslim controlled countries but one wonders how much of a guarantee it gives to a diversity of thought and lifestyle. Thankfully, in the UK Sharia law is not currently able to effect any judgement and it is difficult to see how it could permitted to without disastrous consequences. If non-believers had any faith in the ability of Sharia law to protect their non-belief then this would not be such a contentious issue. All cultures must look to adapt the best qualities from other cultures to grow and improve: is Sharia law one such adaptation the British people have been waiting for and will benefit from? One could ask:

What does Sharia law say about so called "Muslims" who do not believe in Islam? Will Sharia law be used in such cases?How will Sharia law defend women from rape and then prosecution for being raped?Will Sharia law indemnify Starbucks and Costa Coffee for non-payment by that, admitedly, small minority of female customers who are whisked off to prison immediately for having coffee with an unrelated male? The Archbishop would do well to consider Einstein's position. Einstein started off being a complete pacifist and against any for of military service. He then realized the world was about to become very nasty brutish and short for certain sections of the population - largely those who beleived in pacifism. This was due to the rise of an excessively militaristic regime that tried to capitalise on the gap in the market for a little of the old "ultra-violence" (much of Western Europe in the 30's and some of the 40's).The middle way is surely not that we have both Sharia and non-Sharia law in the same country but that we have one law which respects the relativity of both and then looks to arbitrate between disputing viewpoints based on non-relative grounds (which has to be based on a guarantee of maximum diversity of opinion).Either the British people are intolerant fanatics or they believe that their law is better at protecting a diversity of beliefs (at least relatively better than Sharia law). To me it seems like the latter and with good reason. We have hundreds of years of violence about this issue and it is only that violence and struggle that has led us to the view that perhaps we should seperate religious belief and law (which the Archbishop appears to have forgotten about). Given that the only thing we can be confident in is that one person is unlikely to have the right view then we need a legal system that looks beneath the opinions and asks "what would the effect of adjudicating for this or that view be on all people?".Using this law we can ask: what would be the effect of adjudicating in favour of the Archbishop's view? In my view the effect would be muddle, confusion and, what is worse, perhaps a little bit of the old ultra-violence could creep into the British legal system. The memory of the persecution of Salman Rushdie (see his great quote on Woody Allen in Quotes) is still quite strong in some of our minds. We need to ask whether,as with absolute pacifism, arbitrating in favour of permitting Sharia law would have the effect of removing a pluralistic view from the planet over a period of time. It is so hard to be certain about such complex matters and one should always be wary of jumping in with size 9's where philosophers have treaded carefully.However, the 20th century has taught the British people to fear those who would seek to make peace with an enemy that would not permit the same peace on us. We would need to be convinced that Sharia law is not such an enemy. Best Thed

Ps: ..and if this doesn't start a debate I am hanging up my editorial spurs and becoming a priest!

www.authearth.com