Original scientific paper
Equality and non-discrimination: Values Underlying the Prevention of Discrimination
Tonči Matulić
; Catholic faculty of theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author explores the meaning and significance of two conflicting concepts in the context of ethical and legal evaluation in society: equality and discrimination. In order to present materials systematically and logically, the paper is divided into five parts. In the first part the author explores the evaluative meaning of the concept of discrimination and delimits legal and illegal discrimination. On this basis, possibilities of egalitarianism and democracy as social models for the realisation of the principle of non-discrimination are analysed. In the second part the author presents important historical stages in the development of the idea of equality as the basic constitutional category ensuring the ethical basis of non-discrimination. In the third part the author discusses modern development of ethical views against discrimination, especially in the second half of the twentieth century, based on well-known international agreements and the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia. The fourth part explores the ethical foundations of equality as a value preceding the constitutional order, whose beginnings can be traced back to the Christian understanding of man created in God’s image. In this context special attention is paid to the relationship between the original Christian view of equality and philosophical translation of equality into the secular language necessary for the organization of state and society. Tensions arising in the process are critically elaborated in the light of democratic culture of public debate. In the last part of the article, the author gives a critical analysis of some aspects of the Croatian Law on the Prevention of Discrimination as the starting point of this article.
Keywords
discrimination; principle of non-discrimination; equality; Christianity; human dignity; fundamental human rights; constitutional order; state; public morality; democratic culture
Hrčak ID:
32725
URI
Publication date:
26.2.2009.
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