Contributi di Corrado Del Bò

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione - 2. La libertà religiosa e le regole alimentari religiose - 3. Le regole alimentari religiose e la laicità dello Stato - 4. Il menù quaresimale - 5. L’immunità dall’esposizione - 6. Conclusioni.

Religious dietary rules and school lunch menus: a challenge for secularism?

ABSTRACT: The paper starts from a case of dietary pluralism to discuss the possibility to justify menus sensitive to different religious dietary rules in schools’ canteens. Building on an analysis of the idea of secularism, both in its legal interpretation and in its philosophical understanding in terms of neutrality, I try to show that providing for menus sensitive to different religious dietary rules does not amount to a breach of secularism; it is, rather, a legitimate consequence of the protection of individuals’ rights to freedom of conscience and religion. Moreover, whenever institutions take action to devise and implement such menus they can be taken to act on a commitment to respecting the beliefs of minority groups in society without expecting that these groups, which are often migrant communities suffering of well-known problems of social integration, take on the burden to put forward public claims.

1 - La notevole attenzione mediatica che ha ricevuto il Messaggio del Santo Padre Francesco ai partecipanti al Meeting regionale europeo della "World Medical Association" sulle questioni del "fine-vita", tenutosi il 16 e 17 novembre 2017 sul fine-vita in Vaticano con la co-organizzazione della Pontificia Accademia per la Vita, ha generato nei cronisti più distratti la convinzione che la Chiesa cattolica sia giunta a un momento di svolta sui temi bioetici legati al morire. In verità, le cose non stanno esattamente così: dal punto di vista strettamente dottrinario la continuità è indiscutibile, come anche una sommaria analisi del testo può dimostrare. La novità è casomai nei toni, e questo può suggerire l’utilità di qualche considerazione di carattere più politico. Ma procediamo con ordine. (continua)

SOMMARIO 1. Introduzione - 2. La satira e il diritto alla libertà di espressione - 3. Satira, umorismo e rispetto - 4. Deridere la religione - 5. Le basi morali della libertà di satira - 6. Conclusioni.

With a smile on the lips. The satire between freedom of expression and duty of respect

ABSTRACT: T his paper argues for a liberal perspective about satire, rejecting the idea that satire should not have constraints, and trying to ground this perspective on a more articulate argument than the mere reference to the relevance of freedom of expression in Western societies. I will proceed in this way. In Section 2, I will clarify what satire is, and how it is connected to freedom of expression. Section 3 will be devoted to analyze the relationship between humour and respect, and to explain why satire is morally more problematic than liberals usually think. In Section 4 I will suggest that satire against religion can be sometimes considered a lack of respect for people who believe in that religion. In Section 5 I will argue against restricting satire, even if it is seriously disrespectful, producing two different arguments for two different situations: when the victim can be considered “a powerful person”, and when he/she can be considered “a disadvantaged person”.

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione - 2. Su alcuni equivoci nel dibattito italiano sulla laicità - 3. Laicità e neutralità: un rapporto complicato - 4. La laicità della Corte costituzionale - 5. Conclusioni.

ABSTRACT: This article, which is the chapter five of the book La neutralità necessaria. Liberalismo e religione nell’età del pluralismo (ETS, 2014), tries to identify what is the link between the idea of neutrality and secularism, suggesting that this link depends on the various possible interpretations of neutrality. Moreover, it is argued that we should avoid to reduce the issue to a nominal disputation about the meaning of the words and move our attention to the more fundamental problem about the relationship between politics and religion in a secular State.