Contents

• Background and principal aims
• Objectives and methods of the project as a whole and of its individual parts
• Participants and resources
• Results

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Description of Project

Background and principal aims

In Western civilization, the state and the church have been the principal forms for organizing collective efforts and for articulating common concerns throughout the centuries, sometimes and in some areas in cooperation, at other times and in other areas in fierce competition with one another. During the last two centuries a radical change has taken place in Western culture, in which the highly uniform (Christian) societies of the past have been transformed into more fragmented and pluralistic ones. This development has been particularly pronounced in the Northern parts of Europe. When the Christian belief in God, which had formerly been taken for granted as a shared frame of reference, was questioned by many influential modern thinkers, the earlier self-evident ideological superstructure in Western culture was dissolved. A way of describing the results of modern development is to say that, on the one hand, contemporary society has been fragmented into a range of more or less autonomous institutions or enclaves, and that, on the other hand, the individual members of society today tend to lack firm and well-defined ties to collectives or to common causes. As a result we find in Europe today a plurality of values and ways of life.

In a more recent development, the dominant position of the state as the main form of secular organization has been undermined. The state has increasingly been superseded by transnational forms of organization, which are partly held together by common economic or military goals, partly by shared political and moral values. At the same time, the ascendancy of the state has been challenged through the striving for autonomy on the part of subnational regions and ethnic groups. The European understanding of morality in the uniformly Christian era was based on the idea of a religiously founded natural law. This law, lex naturae, was seen as a divine law, given in nature. This natural law mirrored eternal principles, lex aeterna.

On this ground it was easy to legitimate the positive (written) law of the society - as long as it followed the natural (unwritten) law. The relation between morality and the written law was also straightforward: the natural (moral) law was primary and the positive law had to mirror the natural one, and could be critically examined in the light of the naturally given divine law. There was at the same time a tendency to understand this law in terms of norms and rules: Eternal commandments were primary and the individual human being had to apply these given rules to different situations. (Thomas, Luther, Calvin)

From the Renaissance onwards the European intelligentsia was gradually emancipated from a form of thought in which belief in God was taken for granted. In consequence, notions of natural law based on religious belief were replaced by a rationalistic notion of natural law. (Hobbes, Grotius, Pufendorf, Locke, Kant) In the late 19th and in the 20th century this development led to a questioning of natural law even in its rationalistic form. Positive law was understood to need no moral legitimation. (Kelsen, Hart) According to legal positivism, law and justice are not dependent upon any non-juridical considerations for their (juridical and moral) validity. (Hemberg) In moral philosophy, this positivistic view of law has often been coupled with some kind of subjectivist or relativist view of morality, such as emotivism or value nihilism. Although legal positivism was strongly discredited by the development in Nazi Germany, in jurisprudence the validity of the law, both legal and moral, is still often seen to reside primarily in the law itself. This position, however, is considered problematic by most legal philosophers. During the last two decades, on the other hand, various efforts have been made to find a way of formulating a moral foundation for the law and the legal order of society. These efforts are very often put forth in a rationalistic way which tends to make the relation between the user of moral concepts and these concepts themselves an external one, in which certain moral values, such as human rights, are in a way objectified. This moral foundation is thought both to legitimize the legal system as a whole and to provide justification for particular legislative and legal measures. (Rawls, Dworkin, Habermas, Aarnio, Peczenik)

The LARM project aims at studying conceptual problems related to these current debates about morality and law. A central thought that unites the studies in the project concerns a difference between legal language and legal norms on the one hand, and moral language and moral norms on the other hand. A central line of argument will be the idea that what characterizes a moral response is the fact that there is an internal relation between a person's attitude towards the situation to which he is responding and the concepts he would use to describe it. While some legal concepts involve a similar internal relation (concepts such as "fraud", "assault", "recklessness", "malice aforethought"), it is of the essence of legislation that it is capable of stipulating sanctions and regulations in a neutral language which is not directly dependent on preexisting attitudes.

This point can also be expressed by saying that in relation to moral aspects the first person perspective must be internal, which is not necessarily so when it comes to legal questions. Thus we may have no difficulty in understanding a person who says that crossing a street on red is against the law, and yet has no compunctions about doing that him/herself, the way we would find it hard to understand a person who says that it is morally wrong to treat one's mother badly, yet feels no guilt at offending her/his own mother. In this case we would hardly understand what the person meant calling an action by "morally wrong".

A major point of criticism against many of the current moral philosophies which try to provide a justification for the legal system and for particular legal and legislative positions is that they treat this relation as an external one. On the other hand, a number of philosophers have stressed the internal character of moral concepts (Winch, Anscombe, Gaita, Diamond, Nussbaum), and their work is an important inspiration for the philosophical outlook of the LARM project. The so-called "communitarianism" (Sandel, Taylor, MacIntyre) represents another way of critically approaching the modern moral philosophy founded in an autonomous subject. The LARM project also touches upon this line of thought, although it is not of main interest for most of the participants in the project.

Similarly, the project also aims at clarifying the contrast between an external and an internal understanding of morality within the religiously coloured discussion. Within theological ethics, too, the understanding of morality in modernity has been an urgent task. The LARM project intends to focus on some central aspects of the discussion of religious belief in relation to an understanding of morality and of the legal and political order of society. One influential current during the last century was a Barthian revelation-centered line of thought. It stressed the uniqueness of a Christian outlook on morality and on society. Recently this line of thought has been carried forward in an interesting way by the American theologian Stanley Hauerwas. An important problem about this position, however, is its tendency to see the Christian life in isolation from other forms of human life. Another line of thought concerning religious belief and morality stresses an aspect in morality and in understanding society which is seen to be common to every human being. The LARM project focuses on some of these thinkers. (Løgstrup, Levinas, Buber)

Another major problem in current research in the humanities, and in the juridical and social sciences, is the lack of multidisciplinary research on questions of common concern to many academic subjects. Certain interdisciplinary aspects should be considered essential to studies concerning morality and the law. One other major aim of the LARM project is therefore to explore and discuss the terminological and conceptual problems which arise in a multidisciplinary project involving researchers from legal science (international law), philosophy and theological ethics. A practical advantage from the point of view of realising the project lies in the fact that all three subjects are represented in the same university. A third aim of the project is to collect researchers working on different aspects of the same relational questions of legislation, justice and morality. Some participants represent historical approaches. (Korkman and Ewalds) They study important features in the development of certain concepts central to the project. Some others study legal practice, one of them from a philosophical and two others from a jurisprudential angel (Molander, Heikkilä and Scheinin). One participant studies the role of moral reasoning in the legislative process (Forslund). Conceptual problems concerning religious belief, morality, human rights and legal systems are studied by three participants (Slotte, Björk and Kurtén). The framework for a discussion both of law, of just legislation and of morality and religion has changed in Finland due to the membership in the European Union. The LARM project finds it important not to restrict its research to Finland or Northern Europe. Many important challenges to the legal system of today's societies come from the international arena. The project therefore combines some strictly national studies (Forslund) with purely international ones (Heikkilä). The aim is to find better concepts for dealing with cultural pluralism in the attempt to develop legitimate legal systems.

Objectives and methods of the project as a whole and of its individual parts

The main objective of the LARM project is a critical scrutiny of the concepts involved in a number of current forms of discourse (philosophical, legal, political, theological) concerning the state, justice and morality. The issue is cross-disciplinary, which means that an attempt is made to maintain a reflective awareness of the way concepts are understood in the various participating disciplines. Another goal is to contribute to improved communication across disciplinary borders.

The critical study of concepts has two parts. On the one hand, an attempt will be made to articulate and apply an ethical perspective to which the internal character of ethical concepts is central. The insights achieved through this work will in turn make possible a critical scrutiny of various current forms of discourse. On the other hand, various instances of these forms of discourse will be investigated from an historical and empirical perspective, with a view to pointing out some specific ways in which conceptual problems become apparent. These two parts are joined together by a common goal: a critical scrutiny of the concepts used in current debates concerning "Legislation, justice and morality". The participants will follow the methods of their own disciplines. The work of the junior participants will be supervised by their own professors. The department chairmen, all of whom are involved in coordinating the project, will be responsible for supervising the doctoral work of the project participants.

Next follows a detailed description of the individual projects and their relation to the overall goals of the project. An important element in contemporary philosophical views of the relation between morality and the law dates back to the early rationalistic conception of natural law thinking in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the LARM project, Lic. Phil. Petter Korkman is contributing to an understanding of this period.

Lic. Phil. Petter Korkman: Natural Law in Early Modern Philosophy
Korkman's primary contribution to the project is his doctoral thesis, Jean Barbeyrac and Natural Law in the Early Enlightenment, which he will present at Åbo Akademi University in the Spring of 2001. (This work is supervised by Professors Simo Knuuttila and Lars Hertzberg.) Thereafter he will concentrate on three separate publications. First, a general presentation of natural law theory intended for a broad audience. This book focuses in particular on the evolution of ideas on natural law and on international law after the division of the Christian Church in connection with the Reformation, up until the first human rights declarations. These notions, which were developed in a discussion of the modern state, are now becoming more topical than ever, but in relation to problems and questions which transcend the state. New global problems face us (bio-ethics, new information technologies, environmental issues all defy national boundaries), and at the same time the traditional human rights problems require constant revision. The book will be ready for publication in the Autumn of 2002.

Second, an international publication (article) in an international anthology: "Barbeyrac and 'le Souverain des Souverains'". The anthology is planned and edited by Professor Ian Hunter, who also organises the congress Natural Law and Sovereignty in Brisbane, 8-10 August, 2000. This article shows that Barbeyrac defends Pufendorf's so-called "voluntarism". The difference between God and human sovereigns, Barbeyrac holds, is that every human law must be justified, and every human ruler legitimized, by reference to the natural laws imposed on men by God. The binding character of natural laws, however, is internally related to their divine origin. Those who try to provide an external justification of why divine commands are morally binding, by arguing, for instance, that God knows our interests and wishes us well, in no way help us to understand the nature and strength of moral obligation. In fact, when they start discussing the utility of the laws, they have simply changed subject. The article will be ready for publishing in the Spring-Summer of 2001.

Third, Korkman will carry on his investigations on the relationship between law and morality through a series of international articles on natural law theory in the 18th century. These articles form part of Korkman's long-term project, which is to acquire an accurate overall view of the influence of Pufendorfian natural law in the 18th century. Planned articles include: 1) "Thomasius, Barbeyrac and Buddeus: 18th Century Histories of Morality"; 2) "Barbeyrac and Thomasius: the Separation of Law and Morality"; 3) "Kant and the Pufendorfian View of Moral Obligation."
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Petter Korkman graduated in 1993 from the University of Lyon III (France). He became Licentiate of Philosophy at the University of Helsinki in 1999. Currently he is working as assistant in philosophy at Åbo Akademi. Since 1994, Korkman has participated actively in conferences and seminars and has acquired a comprehensive network of contacts, both in Finland and abroad. He has contributed to a number of domestic journals and books, among others to Filosofian historian kehityslinjoja, Petter Korkman and Mikko Yrjönsuuri (Eds.) (Gaudeamus: 1998). Korkman's own article in that book ("Moderni moraali") deals with some of the main changes in the views on morality during the 17th and 18th centuries. He has been invited to take part in Tim Hochstrasser's and Peter Schroeder's (eds.) book Early Modern Natural Law Theories: Contexts and Strategies in the Early Enlightenment (Kluwer, International Archives: 2000 or 2001.) He has also been asked to contribute to the single international academic journal devoted entirely to a historical-philosophical discussion of modern natural law theory, the Grotiana (new series.) This article, "Barbeyrac and Grotian modernity", will be published in nr. 2/2000.
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Although this historical dimension takes up an important perspective on the questions investigated in the project, the main focus of the project is on contemporary issues. However, for many of the participants, knowledge of the historical background is required for an understanding of the philosophical basis of specific solutions. Thus Joakim Molander, among other things, discusses the philosophico-historical background of criminal law as a basis for his critical examination of the utilitarian assumptions of the legal realism.

The public sense of justice (what is called in Swedish "det allmänna rättsmedvetandet") has a recognized role in legal discourse. On the one hand it is thought that legislation and law enforcement should be in accord with the public sense of justice. On the other hand, it is thought that the laws should support and shape that sense. Is the public sense of justice to be regarded as a sociological category which is to be investigated by neutral methods, or do appeals to it embody a moral commitment in themselves? These questions are also connected with the notion that the law (notably the penal code) has an expressive function. Simone Weil, for instance, has written about the penal code in this spirit, but the idea has also been touched upon by some criminologists (Nils Christie, Vilhelm Aubert in the Nordic countries). This discussion has bearings on general questions concerning the justification of punishment, especially the perennial debate between retributivists and utilitarians. A central issue in this connection concerns the relation between culpabiltity in a moral and a legal sense.

Lic. Phil. Joakim Molander will study these questions in his doctoral thesis. In addition he will write two articles on the justification of punishment for international publication.

Lic. Phil. Joakim Molander: The Grammar of Punishment
Molander's thesis is a logical examination of the notion of punishment and its connection to related notions such as crime prevention, correction, rehabilitation, therapy, sin, revenge, justice, penance, and reconciliation. The focus is on describing and analyzing the ethical aspects of the discussions in ethical theory, criminology, literature and political and public debate about the justification of punishment. These discussions may be described as involving a struggle between two forms of discourse. One of these forms of discourse is greatly influenced by utilitarianism and argues that punishment is justified only in as far as it serves the public good. In this line of argument crime prevention, deterrence, correction, and rehabilitation are important concepts. The other discourse has its roots in Roman law and Christian ethics and is retributive in character. In this tradition, concepts such as justice, penance, reconciliation and forgiveness are of crucial importance. Molander shows that the utilitarian arguments have been increasingly prevalent in public debate generally and in philosophy, criminology and jurisprudence in particular since the 18th century, and he notes that the birth and development of prison is closely related to this fact. However, the utilitarian arguments have a somewhat artificial character which becomes apparent in criminal cases which seem to demand justice rather than prevention. When fundamental human rights are violated in a crime people tend to use a moral vocabulary that involves words such as "sin" and "justice". As Paul Leer_Salvesen has found in interviews with 13 murderers even the perpetrators themselves describe their crimes in such words and search for penance and reconciliation through punishment, although they have found that prison cannot offer just that since the institution itself is constructed in order to serve other purposes such as deterrence, discipline, correction and preventive detention. By referring to Leer_Salvesen, Simone Weil and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Molander points out that many of our "old" moral concepts have an important role in any discussion of the justification of punishment.

Furthermore he argues that the justification of punishment cannot be given in an external ethical theory such as utilitarianism or Kantian ethics. Instead every particular criminal case has to be discussed and judged on its own merits. What justifies a particular punishment, then, can only be decided in a moral vocabulary that is internal to the crime that has been committed. In labeling what someone has done as an act of wrong-doing, we are already bringing it under the perspective of a proper object of punishment. The upshot of this is that punishment cannot be morally justified as such (which does not mean that it is unjustified). However particular punishments of particular perpetrators who have committed particular crimes can be justified. Hence the main responsibility for justifying a punishment lies on the court of law that pronounces a verdict in a criminal case. However, the court cannot, according to Molander's argument, justify its verdict by referring, say, to a principle of jurisprudence, since that would mean letting the ethical judgement rest on external considerations. Rather, its judgement can only be based on the circumstances of the particular case.
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Molander has worked on the topic of punishment since 1992. His master's thesis "Begreppet straff" (The Concept of Punishment) was published in Ajatus 51 (1994). In 1996 he finished his licentiate thesis "Not Just Words". Two of its articles were published: "Vad är ett privat språk?" (What is a Private Language?) in Ajatus 54 (1997) and "Dolda avsikter" (Hidden Intentions) in Filosofisk tidskrift 1/1998. Both the latter articles will be included as chapters in the doctoral thesis. Molander has also given lectures and talks about his research at universities in Finland, Sweden and Wales. Molander aims at accomplishing his doctorate degree in 2002.
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The idea of human rights constitutes an interesting hybrid between legal and moral concepts. Today human rights have achieved a legal or quasi-legal status since various legally binding conventions in international law as well as non-binding declarations of human rights have been passed by existing governments or states. Along with human rights the area of public international law is one in which a moral dimension is more prominent than in national legislation. An interesting feature is the tendency in jurisprudence to treat questions of public international law and of human rights as purely juridical questions, while both a more philosophical and a more theological approach regards these phenomena as partly moral in character. The moral aspect concerns the legitimacy of the legal system as a whole. A crucial question is: to what extent is a moral legitimation required for specific legal decisions to be legally valid.
Mikaela Heikkilä's research project belongs to this field.

M. Soc. Sc. Mikaela Heikkilä: The role of the victims of crime in the proceedings before the International criminal tribunals - A Study of the Functioning and Aim of the International Criminal Tribunals
The question of how international criminal proceedings should be conducted suddenly became urgent when the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Former Yugoslavia since 1991 was established by the United Nations Security Council in 1993. After this the international community has witnessed the establishment of the so_called International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In the spirit of the human rights established after the Second World War, the statutes of all three tribunals include detailed provisions of the rights of the accused during the proceedings. These due process rights, aimed at protecting the accused against abuses of power, clearly reflect the common view that a criminal case is first and foremost a settlement between the accused and the state/community of states, and that the accused as the weaker party in the proceedings has to be protected. Interestingly these statutes also include provisions for the protection of victims and witnesses. In contrast to the established rights of the accused, the provisions on the protection of victims and witnesses represent a new feature in public international law.

As the interests of the accused and the victims and others taking part in the proceedings do not always meet, the tribunals are compelled to balance the different interests against one another and decide whose interests should be given priority. The first of the two principal aims of the study accordingly is to examine what position the victim has in the proceedings and how the tribunals balance the different interests by looking at the statutes, rules of procedure and existing case law of the tribunals. What do the international tribunals understand by a fair trial? What are the characteristics of the newly established branch of international law i.e. the international criminal procedural law? The result of this analysis will be discussed in relation to how the procedural law supports the functioning of the material law i.e. international criminal law. The underlying idea here is that a correct (i.e. legitimate) outcome cannot be achieved without a correct proceeding.

The second principal aim of the Heikkilä's study is consequently to discuss the objectives behind the international criminal tribunals and how these objectives are reflected in the proceedings. Is the role of the tribunals e.g. educative, rehabilitative, deterrent, retributive, incapacitative and/or restorative? In contrast to the question of the jurisdiction of the tribunals (the legal justification for their functioning), the question of other forms of justification has been widely neglected. This part of the research project has close links to Joakim Molander's research project on the grammar of punishment. When discussing different views on the aim of international criminal law and international criminal tribunals, special emphasis will be given to how the different views take into account the interests of the victims of crime.
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M. Soc. Sc. Mikaela Heikkilä graduated from Åbo Akademi University (master's degree in political science) in February 1999. Her master's thesis was entitled "The Protection of Victims and Witnesses in Cases Concerning Sexual Assault before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia", and it received the grade eximia cum laude approbatur. After her graduation Mikaela Heikkilä has worked as a project co_ordinator at the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence (former Jean Monnet Unit) at the University of Turku. Heikkilä aims at accomplishing a licentiate degree by the end of year 2002, and the doctorate degree in 2005.
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In moral philosophy the idea of rights as innate properties of the individual has had some currency. Within the current research project it is important to achieve an overview over the ways, sometimes misleading, sometimes illuminating, in which the notion of rights enters into moral thought. One aspect of this issue is the frequent claim that the concept of human rights is actually tied to a certain cultural setting and to views of humanity grounded in certain religions. Pamela Slotte will critically examine the idea of a universalistic global ethic as a theoretical and objective foundation for talk about human rights.

M. Theol. Pamela Slotte: Global ethics as an objective moral foundation of human rights
In 1993, the Parliament of the World´s Religions agreed upon a declaration of a "Global Ethic", which was meant to deepen and strengthen the legal dimension of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) from the perspective of the so-called "human responsibilities". According to Hans Küng, the drafter of the declaration, the legal norms laid down in the UDHR need a moral foundation in order to endure. If conscience, an ethical turn of mind or customs do not motivate a person to comply with legal norms, it is hardly worth laying them down. Consequently, the introductory title of the declaration states that there can be no new global order without a new global ethic.

A "global ethic" means a fundamental consensus on binding values, irrevocable standards, and personal attitudes, without which every community, it is held, will sooner or later be threatened by chaos or dictatorship. This fundamental consensus is seen as a minimum basis for human co-existence and common action and every religious and ethical tradition can contribute to shaping it. The core of the declaration is that every person is of inviolable value. Its two basic ethical demands are that every human being must be treated humanely and the so-called Golden Rule. From these two demands four further directives for human conduct are derived. This minimal consensus is then to be made concrete within the different world religions.

The project "Legislation, Justice and Morality" aims at clarifying the modern understanding of rights and morals. By investigating Küng, Slotte is contributing a religious dimension of interest to the project. Many people are to some extent religious and this has a bearing on their moral self. If one wants e.g. to reach a global consensus on fundamental human rights, as well as criteria for when they have been violated, one has to consider the role of the world religions in one way or another. In her thesis, Slotte is critically investigating the idea of a global ethic, promoted by the declaration, as a theoretic and objective foundation of human rights. After a discussion of Küng and his understanding of the concept "global ethic" she goes on to a more extensive discussion about religion, morals and rights. She compares Küngs notion of global ethic with "human rights" as a moral and legal concept. Furthermore, she analyses the principal questions concerning the relationship between rights and morals, as they are brought to the fore in the relationship between this global ethic and human rights. The questions she poses to her material can roughly be divided into two categories. The first category is concerned with the notion of morality and human beings as moral beings. Here Küng seems to stand for a kind of rationalism that is gaining support in today's society. Therefore, it is important to analyse the fundamental understanding of morals that lies behind and governs the talk of a global ethic. What does the declaration and Küng consider to be the source of genuine responsibility on the part of a human being? What motivates a person to act morally? And does an individual only accept as guiding for her actions that which is motivated by a universal moral principle? Küng seems to draw an analogy between legal rights and morals. This might be a point of criticism, seen from the perspective of the project "Legislation, Justice and Morality", since an aim of the project is to draw into question the idea that morality could be codified. Related to this is also the idea that morality can be given a (normative) foundation. At this point Slotte introduces thinkers like Peter Winch, K. E. Løgstrup, Emmanuel Levinas and Zygmunt Bauman into the discussion. Her research has close connections with that of Svante Ewalds and Mona Björk.

The second set of principal questions concerns the relationship between rights and morality. Are these two different normative systems, or are there essential connections between them? In what way do rights and morality differ from each other as the motive for certain actions? What, according to Küng, constitutes the foundation for the validity of legal norms? This part of the research has links to Petter Korkman´s project. The global ethic promoted by Küng could be understood as a form of natural law conception. Throughout the research, the religious dimension is brought into the discussion with the aim of clarifying the part it may play in the life of the moral human being and in the relation between rights and morals.
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M. Theol. Pamela Slotte graduated from Åbo Akademi University in June 1999. She wrote a master's thesis in Theological Ethics with Philosophy of Religion. She studied the theologian Dorothee Sölle's understanding of religious language. The thesis received the grade of eximia cum laude approbatur. Since the Summer of 1999 Slotte has been working as assistant at the Department of Systematic Theology at Åbo Akademi University. By the beginning of May 2000 Slotte has also absolved a majority of the obligatory credits that form part of the doctorate exam. She intends to absolve the remaining credits within the year 2000. This will partly be done with the help of a four-month scholarship to Erlangen, Germany in the Autumn 2000 granted by Kyrkans Utrikesavdelning (the Foreign Department of the Church of Finland) and the Landeskirche of Bayern, where she also intends to gather material necessary for her thesis. She aims at accomplishing a doctorate degree in 2003.
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Another concept used in legislation is "human dignity". In relation to this concept there is also a need for clarifying possible differences between a moral and a legal understanding of the concept. This is one of Martin Scheinin's aims in the project.
The theme of Professor, Dr iuris Martin Scheinin's research is Legal Regulation of Medical Ethics? and ts end result will be a scholarly article in an international periodical.

Dr iuris Martin Scheinin: Legal Regulation of Medical Ethics?
Human rights law is a specific field of the legal discourse that makes visible the links between law and morality. As for instance Ronald Dworkin (1978) has pointed out, constitutional (and, later, international) provisions on fundamental rights already traditionally make use of moral concepts that may appear vague or open_ended when regarded from a legal perspective. Particularly in areas where social or technological development is rapid, it is evident that an effort to interpret such notions from an originalist position ("what did the Founding Fathers mean by 'cruel punishment'") will fail. Rather, any lawyer who takes seriously the idea of fundamental rights must, according to Scheinin, accept the possibility that moral concepts when used within the framework of law are to be interpreted as invoking a moral discourse. Scheinin will focus on one specific area where law and morality meet, namely international and national efforts to regulate medical ethics through legal instruments. He will focus on the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine (1997), the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights (1997), as well as Finnish legislation, the Act on the Position and Rights of Patients (1992) and the Act on Medical Research (1999). In particular, he will discuss the possibilities and limitations of the law in issues that cannot be reduced to the individual rights of a person. Whereas the protection of human dignity can be seen as an important, even absolute, background value of human rights law, there does not appear to be an individual right to human dignity. The basic question discussed in the study can be formulated as follows: Are instruments of international law or national laws capable of taking human dignity seriously?
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The word "morality" is often used in close connection with concepts like conscience and character. Morality is here taken to be a personal matter. In public debate, however, the word is used in such a way that certain issues (abortion, euthanasia) or certain views (vegetarianism, toleration of immigrants) are considered moral in themselves. What is the relation between these uses of the concept of morality? In the work of Mikael Forslund the issue of which questions are to be considered moral questions will be brought to the fore. His work also brings up other issues such as the role of moral considerations in political life, issues that were first thematized by Socrates and Plato, and which have been discussed by contemporary philosophers like Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil and R.F. Holland.

M. Theol. Mikael Forslund: Legislation and morality
The aim of Forslund's research is to analyse how morality and moral language are understood and used in the work carried out in the Finnish parliament and cabinet in debating and passing new laws. His approach is therefore both empirical and philosophical. The aim of his research is to study an empirical material and he has chosen to narrow his analysis to the new law of genetic engineering (his study accordingly has connections with Professor Scheinin's study), which came into effect in June 1995, and reforms and rules that regulate the support for children and families with children. This was last discussed in the Finnish parliament in 1996. The material for Forslund's study will therefore consist of the discussion-protocols of these laws and also opinions and reports from experts that have been heard during the legislative process. In this material he will study how moral language is understood. It is said that political language and legal language have a moral aspect and that political and legal practices rest on a moral ground. But what is meant by this? Does the claim have a clear sense? Forslund's view is that a political or legal action always has a moral aspect, even though the legislator does not always recognize this. The question then becomes: how can we identify the moral aspect in the legislative process? Forslund will specifically analyse how some words and expressions are used, words that express a strong valuation, but the meaning of which is not specific (for example words like "moral / spiritual leadership", "Christian values, "Christian ethics"). Another aspect of the problem to which he will draw attention, is the use of religious language and its relation to the uses of moral and legal language.

In Sweden Göran Bexell has conducted a similar investigation. It will accordingly be fruitful for Forslund to initiate a theoretical discussion with Bexell and to present the latter's ethical theory. Bexell's ethical theory will be shown to be problematic, since he assumes that it can be universally rational and that it therefore applies independently of the actual context. In Forslund's opinion these assumptions are problematic. Bexell's theory is a deontological theory (in fact Bexell thinks that this is the only possibility for an ethical theory to be well grounded) and Forslund's purpose is to show what consequences this has for Bexell's study of the Swedish legislative process. Forslund will also show how one can accomplish a study of this kind with a concept of morality which is more closely related to what is usually meant by morality in everyday discourse. In order to be able to do this he will turn to philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein and Peter Winch. Concepts that he will discuss and also question in this context are the concepts of objectivity and relativity, plurality and worldview.

Forslund has chosen his material with Bexell's study in mind. Bexell uses material that has a clear ethical aspect. He studies problems like abortion, marriage, genetic engineering and censorship. Forslund will study one law (genetic engineering) that is similar in relevant aspects to the laws studied by Bexell. He will also study a law of family politics that is very different from the problems that Bexell studies. The question then is whether there is a difference in moral terms between the two kinds of law.
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M.Theol. Mikael Forslund graduated in 1998 from the Theological Faculty at Åbo Akademi University and in his master's thesis he studied the relation between legal rules and moral rules. His thesis received the grade eximia cum laude approbatur. Since January 1999 he has been a full-time minister in the parish of Pargas. He is in the beginning of his post graduate studies. He aims at taking his licentiate degree in 2002. In 2003 he will continue working on his dissertation.
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Through Forslund's work the project enters a form of discourse that is more broadly social, and which opens up the question of the role of religion for morality on the individual as well as the social level. The overall aim of the LARM project, that of illuminating possible relations between moral, social and legal forms of thought, also requires a closer study of religious concepts in relation to the morally relevant concepts. Is morality essentially a common human concern, or something that is primarily expressed in the life of the individual? Is the idea of a moral community inevitably connected to a shared religion? M. A. Mona Björk's investigation of the relations between morality and religion aims at throwing light on this issue from a philosophical perspective.

M. A. Mona Björk: Notions of God and notions of morality
The aim of Mona Björk's research is to investigate the relation between religion and morality. Her suggestion is that religion and morality are two different things, that they have different sources, although they are intertwined. This is an old conception, reaching back to antropologically orientated philosophers of religion in 19th and 20th centuries (for example Schleiermacher, Otto, A. Nygren). But the starting point of Björk is mainly in the philosophy of language of the last decades.

From time to time the relation between religion and morality has been the subject of public discussion. Often the worry has been that the moral values we more or less have taken for granted and have had in common will disappear in a post-Christian society. This implies seeing morality as dependent on religion, which for a long time was the traditional view, a view that has been challenged by many philosophers. Elizabeth Anscombe initiated the discussion with her famous essay "Modern Moral Philosophy" of 1958 where she maintains that since we no longer share a common religious background, moral terms like "have to" or "ought to" - the whole idea of moral necessity which has been connected with the notion of a divine law-giver have lost their meaning. The essay brought about a large and still continuing philosophical debate about the foundation of morality, and, in some cases, its relation to religion. Sometimes a similar worry has been expressed concerning the foundations of law. Will the law lose its legitimacy if the underlying Christian values disappear? Will our general law-abiding attitude be enough or will the law lose its authority if we no longer are able to embrace its contents?

One way of conceiving religion is as a set of rules of behaviour, as an external law. Björk wants to suggest another way of understanding religion, that is, not as a set of rules but as a matter of obeying the word of God, where the main point is the internal relation to God. The question is what this means, how the notion of obeying is to be understood in this case and if it is basically different from morality. Similarly, the traditional philosophical way of understanding morality is as applying a series of rules and principles. There seems to be a quest for moral rules in contemporary thinking which nearly assimilates moral reasoning to legal reasoning. The philosophers Björk has chosen to investigate do not belong to the main stream of moral philosophy but suggest a different way of conceiving of moral issues.

Peter Winch does not consider morality to be based on religion. He says, on the contrary, that our moral responses are primary but that for some people religious concepts grow out of them. He describes moral actions both as spontaneous responses to our neighbours and in terms of a kind of virtue ethics. To see someone as a fellow human being is to react to him or her in a certain way. The question is how Winch conceives "seeing" and "human being". The concept "human being" is obviously used in a moral sense in many cases. Björk's suggestion is, however, that the notion is superfluous and in fact expresses a kind of generalization. Emmanuel Levinas describes our moral actions as responses to what could be called a tacit demand issuing from the other's face and to which we are passively exposed. This demand is depicted as a kind of divine authority which we have to obey. However, God is not needed in order to render the ethical imperative intelligible. God does not exist in an external law given by him, nor is God revealed in ethical phenomena. It is only in our own reactions of obedience that the command of God is formulated. The question is what Levinas means by "the face is speaking" and by being passively exposed and how exactly he conceives of the relation between religion and morality.

Iris Murdoch considers our contemporary society to be a world without God but not without morality. She wants to replace the task filled by the concept of God with the concept of the Good. She sees our egoism as the main moral problem which religion traditionally has offered certain techniques for curbing. The question is why Murdoch sees a need to let the notion of the Good take the place of the disappearing notion of God. Björk's contention is that replacing a personal God with the impersonal conception of the Good will inevitably give rise to problems. Søren Kierkegaard may be the philosopher who most explicitly depicts a difference between religion and morality in which religion is described as the absolute. Does this mean that God is above the "moral laws"? To obey God, it might be thought, is to obey an external authority while being good or virtuous seems to be a demand that comes from within ourselves. But is not "the other", according to Levinas's description, also a kind of external authority, and what about Murdoch's conception of "the Good" and Winch's conception of moral necessity? The main problem in this discussion, according to Björk, is the relation between the "external" and "internal". Can God be conceived as an external authority and what would that mean? Could a parallel be drawn to the law as an external authority and in what sense is the law an internal authority? These are the questions discussed in Björk's work.
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M. A. Mona Björk received the Master of Arts degree in 1998 majoring in philosophy. Her master's thesis concerned the philosophical discussion (between Winch, Phillips and others) about the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and was awarded the grade of eximia cum laude. She spent the academic year 1998-99 as an Erasmus exchange student at the University of Wales at Lampeter. She taught courses at the Department of Philosophy between 1996-98, and has received research scholarships from Svenska kulturfonden (the Foundation for Swedish culture in Finland), Kyrkans forskningscentral (the research Centre of the Church of Finland), as well as from the Faculty of Humanities at Åbo Akademi. Mona Björk plans to complete her licentiate's degree in 2002 and then to go on to do a doctorate in philosophy.
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Mona Björk's study, like the next two ones, concerns the question whether the significance of religion is such that an understanding of the central terms in the project in a religious context will differ fundamentally from a non-religious understanding. This question is discussed mainly in relation to a Judeo-Christian tradition. This is an important question in Professor Dr.Theol. Tage Kurtén's study of Stanley Hauerwas' way of putting forward a specifically Christian Ethics. From a different angle, Svante Ewalds's study also deals with this problem.

Dr Theol. Tage Kurtén: An internal understanding of Christian social ethics
In an article soon to be published, Kurtén has problematized the position of some contemporary advocates of a rationalistic natural law position. (Dworkin, Rawls and Habermas) The core of his criticism lies in the distinction between an internal and an external way of understanding on the one hand legal concepts and on the other hand moral ones. Taking his point of departure in the thinking of Peter Winch, he stresses the importance of an internal perspective for understanding moral concepts.

This internal perspective in moral philosophy leads to the question whether this understanding of morality necessarily implies an exclusive theological view on Christian ethics. By an exclusive view is understood a view according to which most aspects of morality could not be discussed in a universal conceptuality. In a pluralistic society an answer to this question is important, when we try to understand the role the Christian religion can play in current Western societies,

In order to get a grip on this question, Kurtén intends to study some ideas of the American theologian Stanley Hauerwas. Hauerwas has, on communitarian grounds, developed a position according to which the Christian community represents a morality of its own. The Swedish theologian Arne Rasmusson has in a recent dissertation studied the political thinking of Hauerwas and of the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. Taking his point of departure in this study, Kurtén intends to investigate Hauerwas's basic view of the church, morality and politics. His intention is to discuss this view in relation to the dichotomy between an internal and an external understanding of moral and legal/political concepts. By focusing critically on a position in which an internal Christian view is elaborated, Kurtén tries to complement Svante Ewalds's work within the project, with its focus on a more universalistic, theological ethical view.

Kurtén intends to publish an article on the subject in Swedish in the scholarly review Svensk teologisk kvartalskrift in 2002 or 2003.
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Dr Theol. Svante Ewalds: Religion, morality and norms in the ethics of K.E. Løgstrup
With his research Svante Ewalds wants to make a contribution to the clarification of some of the central issues of the LARM project by means of an analysis of the ethics of the Danish philosopher and theologian Knud E. Løgstrup. Løgstrup's ethics has lately been receiving increased international attention (MacIntyre, Bauman). In his investigation, Ewalds will focus on the relation between religion and morality as well as between basic moral phenomena and the formation of norms in personal and social life.

In his writings on individual and social ethics, Løgstrup develops an independent ethical position clearly demarcated from a rationalistic as well as a subjectivistic concept of ethics within an existential phenomenological framework. As against both Kant (rationalistic objectivity) as well as Kierkegaard (restriction to subjective existence), Løgstrup maintains that moral responsibility is given with the form of human existence which is set from the start as co_existence with others. The human being is not an isolated autonomous subject, he lives primarily in the world, interrelated with his fellow beings. Since morality is rooted in our concerned existence in interdependence with others, the individual's relation to morality is internal. The fact that interpersonal life has a form that is given from the start sets a limit to subjectivity. The primary ethical phenomena that, according to Løgstrup, condition interpersonal life are "the ethical demand" and "the sovereign life_expressions".

Being both a philosopher and a theologian Løgstrup has a dual perspective on ethics. As a philosopher he wants to develop his ethics out of universal conditions. This ethical thinking, which is based on philosophical-phenomenological analysis, can be designated as an "ethics of interdependence". But as the results of the philosophical analysis of ethical phenomena are interpreted in the light of the Jewish_Christian idea of creation (life as a gift, life as pre_defined in itself) this turns Løgstrup's ethics into an "ethics of creation". The relation between primary and secondary ethical phenomena (virtues, traits of character, norms etc.) is indirect according to Løgstrup. One cannot deduce norms or rules directly from the primary ethical phenomena whether on an individua level or in a social ethical context. Through a process called, by Løgstrup, "formation of ideals" (idealbildning), the primary ethical phenomena exert an influence on the formation of norms relating to both personal, social and political life. The primary ethical phenomena can likewise function as criteria when judging for instance the norms and laws of a society.

Also, Svante Ewalds will investigate in more detail some similarities between Løgstrup and Levinas Levinas's ethical thought has also developed in the framework of existential phenomenology, yet with a Jewish background. Thanks to Hans Lipps, existential phenomenology developed from the solipsism of Heidegger in a direction of dialogue and linguistic philosophy. Under the influence of Lipps Løgstrup makes interpersonality a main theme of his and develops a kind of phenomenological linguistic philosophy. A comparison between the use of the ethical terms and concepts in Løgstrup's existential phenomenology and in his phenomenological linguistic philosophy and the ethical concepts of Peter Winch and Raimond Gaita will be a third task for Ewalds within the LARM project.
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Dr.Theol. Svante Ewalds graduated in 1989 from the University of Helsinki. In 1993 he received his doctorate in theology, with a dissertation on the philosophy of religion of KE Løgstrup. He was awarded Svenska litteratursällskapets i Finland prize for the best doctoral thesis in 1993. From 1993 to 1997 he was director of the diocese Council of the diocese of Borgå. Since then, he has been a minister in Stockholm. Since defending his dissertation he has published one article on Løgstrup's ethics, and has delivered several talks on subjects close to the present project. In the autumn 1999 he was assistant professor at Åbo Akademi University giving among other things a course on "Postmodernity and Løgstrup's ethics".
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Participants and resources

Composition of the research team and division of labour
The project is led by three professors (Kurtén, Hertzberg, Scheinin), who contribute to it, on the one hand, through their own research, and on the other hand by co-ordinating the work of the other participants and by supervising the postgraduate participants. In addition to these, the project group includes one post-doctoral scholar (Ewalds) and six postgraduate scholars. Two of the latter (Korkman, Molander) are expected to obtain their doctorates during the period for which funding is sought, and to continue as post-doctoral scholars. One of the other participants (Slotte) is expected to obtain her doctorate in the course of the project. The remaining three (Björk, Forslund, Heikkilä) are expected to obtain their licentiate's degrees, and to produce a preliminary manuscript for their dissertations. Four of the participants in the project are theologians (Kurtén, Ewalds, Forslund, Slotte), four are philosophers (Hertzberg, Björk, Korkman, Molander) and two are scholars of international law (Scheinin, Heikkilä).

The participants carry out their individual projects within the context of their own disciplines. The project group will meet once or twics a year for common seminars. So far, the group has had three common seminars in 1999-2000. At these, the projects of the individual participants are discussed in relation to the overall objectives of the larger project. A special emphasis is placed on a common understanding of the central concepts. A common anthology in Swedish is planned for publication in 2003, made up of articles by all the project participants. The purpose of the anthology is to present the project as a whole, to bring out the shared understanding of the concepts that has been achieved and the conceptual problems that have been brought to light through the cross-disciplinary work, and to present the results of the individual works in a form that will be accessible to a general public. Since the individual projects will take up clearly distinct perspectives on the common theme, Legislation, Justice and Morality, the anthology will shed a broad light on the main theme of the project.

Other (project related) research activities by the participants in the project
All three senior participants in the project (Hertzberg, Kurtén, Scheinin) have done scholarly work related to the subject of the LARM project. They all three jointly ensure the development of the multidisciplinary approach and the supervision of the younger researchers.

Professor, Dr. Phil. Lars Hertzberg has written articles on questions concerning an understanding of legal concepts. In several articles he has tried to articulate and defend the internal conception of moral notions. His current work, "Grammars of the Will", deals with the moral and legal significance of attributions of will to persons. Professor, Dr. Theol. Tage Kurtén has written on fundamental questions concerning religious belief and morality. In the context of a Nordic project concerning value pluralism and the homogeneity of religious beliefs, he has written an article concerning the moral validation of legal systems. He has also been the editor of an issue of the cultural journal Finsk tidskrift on the theme "Justice and Morality". Since 1990 he is also a member of a Nordic Network on Contextual Theology. Its next workshop will be on "Power in a contextual theological perspective". Kurtén's contribution will be on the conceptualization of power in postmodernity.

Professor, Dr iuris Martin Scheinin has participated in a number of research projects concerning human rights in a legal context. In the context of the Nordic project "The Welfare State and Nordic Constitutionalism", he has written an article about the principle of the dignity of man in Paragraph 1 of the Finnish Constitution. The article is part of a larger commentary on the chapter of rights. Within the project, he will conduct research work aimed both at a scholarly publication and at assisting in the formation and development of the multidisciplinary methodologies within the project.

So far, no joint studies have been carried out by the senior participants. The LARM project, however, has been in preparation for a year and a half.

Although most of the postgraduate participants are at the beginning of their scholarly careers, some of them have already made some contributions to the debate within their disciplines. The published work of Ewalds, Korkman and Molander has been presented above.

Results

The project will result in a number of scholarly articles, by Kurtén (1), Scheinin (1), Ewalds (2-3), Korkman (2), Molander (1), which are to appear in international scholarly journals. In addition, three monographs in the form of doctoral dissertations will be published, one a year from 2001 through 2003. Furthermore, three licentiate's theses will be produced (2002), forming the basis for preliminary manuscripts for doctoral dissertations (2003). The common problems of the project will be presented in an anthology in Swedish in 2003.

In the course of the project the participants will obtain the following postgraduate degrees: Three doctorates (Korkman, Molander and Slotte) and three licentiate degrees (Björk, Forslund and Heikkilä).

It is expected that the project as a whole and its individual parts will contribute to an understanding of human beings as moral beings and of the role of morality in political and legal contexts. The results will enable individual citizens as well as the church and society at large to deal with questions of value in a pluralist and increasingly international social reality.

Åbo, 12 May, 2000

On behalf on the project participants

Tage Kurtén, Professor, Dr. Theol., chief person in charge
 
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