You might have heard about the case of Tim Nicholson (Eco Employee wins bid to appeal) — in short, his views on climate change have been afforded much the same protection under Employment and Equality Regulations as religious beliefs. I was a little surprised to learn that ‘philosophical beliefs’ are protected in this way. Interestingly, something called the Employment Appeal Tribunal has attempted to say just what a philosophical belief is. Here’s their definition (fromwww.shoosmiths.co.uk)
‘The EAT recognised that there must be some limit on the meaning of ‘philosophical belief’ for the purposes of the Regulations, and set out guidelines for determining such a belief:
- it must be genuinely held
- must be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available
- must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour
- must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance
- must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others
- does not need to be a fully-fledged system of thought, provided that it satisfies the conditions set out above (in other words it does not need to amount to an ‘-ism’)
- must have a similar status or cogency to a religious belief but it need not be a belief shared by others
- does not need to govern the entirety of a person’s life, it could relate to one specific aspect, for example vegetarianism
- although political opinion would not be protected as a belief under the Regulations, a political philosophy or doctrine such as socialism, communism or free-market capitalism might qualify. The EAT considered that a racist or homophobic political philosophy would be excluded from protection due to the need for the belief to be ‘worthy of respect in a democratic society and not incompatible with human dignity’
- a philosophical belief which is based on science as opposed to religion, for example, Darwinism, would equally qualify for protection under the Regulations.’
Did they get it right?
Generally good, but, possibly inevitably, a bit simple and prompting many further questions.
For instance (just a few initial things off the top of my head):
‘must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance’
Seriousness and importance are perhaps a given for the individual who is bothering to make a case based on their beliefs, but I think cogency and cohesion extremely subjective: I’m sure I’m not the only person of a philosophical and atheistic worldview who can see almost universal failings in religious beliefs regarding these categories, though I imagine many religious would make the assumption - and be surprised or indignant otherwise - that everyone agreed with their view that their beliefs were of course cogent and cohesive.
‘must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others’
Again many, including myself, would argue that plenty of religious beliefs are incompatible with human dignity and do conflict with the rights of others, viz. the Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality for instance. It is true that many cases I’m aware of - Lilian Ladele for instance - the rights of others have trumped the imagined right to discriminate from a religious perspective, but I fear this won’t always be the case.
More generally there is the question of how, who or what defines the belief as something ‘weighty or substantial’ or not, or whether it is ‘genuinely held’. Presumably this is where the relative merits of individual cases are important, over and above the general principles outlined here.
Doesn’t item 4 potentially contradict item 2? If “cohesion” implies logical cohesion, it seems that the belief must be rational according to 4, but not based on evidence (”present state of information available”), and therefore *not* rational according to 2.
What part of this definition would prevent a relatively benignly insane person’s beliefs from being considered more worthy of legal protection than beliefs held by those who are able to back theirs up with credible evidence and well reasoned argument?
Religion and postmodernism are executing a deadly pincer attack, will science and rational inquiry escape!? Tune in next week…
“wins his bid to appeal” is rather different from winning an appeal. It’s not prima facie frivolous in other words. When the fine forensic minds get down to dicing the details an update would be interesting. Right now it’s not a story.
I have just posted an entry on my blog about this case. I published a letter in the Guardian last week opposing it but I am genuinely interested in how people approach the matter.
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/swfuller/entry/the_dawn_of/
Philosophical belief is a contradiction in terms. To philosophize is to question all presuppositions and convictions — one’s own in the first place.
Thanks for that, Steve Fuller. (Some interesting comments in there too.) I take it you think this ruling tends to push us in the direction of dogmatism — did you say social and political gridlock? Hadn’t thought of that.
I’m still not sure what to think. I’m as green as you like and for tolerating all sorts of views, but I do wonder about protecting beliefs which meet the mentioned criteria. There are lots of stupid genuinely held coherent cogent etc beliefs, for one thing.
In everyday life, I don’t mind the proliferation of stupid beliefs precisely because the legal system doesn’t encourage people to hold on to them indefinitely just so they can get some opt-out clauses from their jobs. One imagines there is always hope of ‘conversion’ to something more sensible, and that in any case even people with stupid beliefs would use their discretion as to how and when they affect their interaction with others.
However, if the court ruling holds, then I imagine many will take an active interest in developing publicly recognized demarcation criteria for stupid and non-stupid beliefs, only the latter subject to legal protection.
The gridlock I have in mind would come from, say, the concentration of people with certain sorts of legally protected beliefs whose employers would need to accommodate by raising the costs of their operations, which in turn would drive them into financial ruin. At the moment, a strong Green needs to decide for himself whether to let principles always dictate his job choices. Now he will have the court’s backing, so that if he is already employed in a Green unfriendly place, the employer will need to accommodate him.
Steve Fuller is spot on and, as James Garvey says, there are lots of “stupid genuinely held” beliefs. Why should employers, or anyone else, be forced to accommodate these?