Ideological Freedom And Related Legal Wording

Abstract

In practical discourse, we can find out legal wording that is associated with ideological freedom and applied interchangeably: freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and religious freedom. In this essay, our aim consists in determining which the proper use of each expression is. For this purpose, we have observed: how the concept of ideological freedom is established in some legal systems; how it can be differentiated from religious freedom clearly but not from freedom of conscience on account of a vague material scope of validity; and why these difficulties move from conceptual to legal areas. In order to propose a convenient use to the latter expressions, we draw on BERLIN’s two concepts of liberty.

Keywords

• ideological freedom
• freedom of thought
• freedom of conscience
• religious freedom
• conscience objection