Description du projet
Une analyse comparative pionnière de la «conscience» dans des contextes culturels et politiques
La conscience est définie de manière générale comme la perception par un individu de la moralité ou de l’éthique de ses actions ou de ses pensées. Ce qui est considéré comme éthique est fortement influencé par les valeurs culturelles et les régimes politiques, qui peuvent considérablement varier. Cette divergence locale dans les définitions de l’éthique et de la conscience a des implications importantes pour les institutions internationales des droits humains et la protection de la liberté de conscience. Le projet AnCon, financé par le Conseil européen de la recherche, ouvrira une nouvelle voie en faisant appel à des méthodes et des perspectives analytiques inédites dans la première analyse comparative des contributions culturelles et politiques aux revendications de conscience. L’équipe étudiera les pacifistes britanniques, les activistes sri-lankais et les dissidents soviétiques, ainsi que le système des droits humains des Nations unies.
Objectif
This project is a comparative anthropology of conscience, ethics and human rights. Numerous international human rights documents formally declare their commitment to protect freedom of conscience. But, what is conscience and how do we know it when we see it? How do we distinguish it from self-interest or fanaticism? And what happens when the concept, often associated with a distinct Christian or liberal history, travels across cultural boundaries? The project will examine the cultural conditions under which claims to conscience are made possible, and the types of claims that are most persuasive when doing so. The project addresses these issues through the comparative analysis of three case studies: British pacifists, Sri Lankan activists, and Soviet dissidents. These case studies have been carefully chosen to provide globally significant, but contrasting examples of contests over the implications of claims to conscience. If claims of conscience are often associated with a specifically liberal and Christian tradition, mid-twentieth century Britain can be said to stand at the centre of that tradition. Sri Lanka represents a particularly fraught post-colonial South Asian counterpoint, wracked by nationalist violence, and influenced by ethical traditions associated with forms of Hinduism and Buddhism. Soviet Russia represents a further contrast, a totalitarian regime, where atheism was the dominant ethical language. Finally, the project will return specifically to international human rights institutions, examining the history of the category of conscience in the UN human rights system. This project will be ground breaking, employing novel methods and analytical insights, in order to producing the first comparative analysis of the cultural and political salience of claims of conscience. In doing so, the research aims to transform our understandings of the limits and potentials of attempts to protect freedom of conscience.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitution d’accueil
EH8 9YL Edinburgh
Royaume-Uni