“In the aftermath of Pussy Riot punk prayer, a section on the freedom of conscience in the Russian criminal code has been renewed and the norm appeared aimed at protecting “religious feelings”. This clause, although extremely controversial, indicates the important trend. By granting the right to protection of religious feelings, legislature not merely positively discriminated “believers”, it replaced rationally definable harm with emotional hurt.
The talk focused on the growing role of emotions both in decisions that affect human rights and on possible the re-conceptualization of the freedom of religion in a situation when, as O. Roy puts it, “freedom of religion is both defined as a Human right and is perceived as a threat to Human rights”.”
Andrey Menshikov graduated in Philosophy from the Ural State University (Ekaterinburg, Russia) and Medieval Studies from Central European University (Budapest, Hungary). He defended his PhD dissertation on Nicolas of Cusa’s theory of toleration at the Ural State University (2006). He was a fellow at Boston University (2004), University of California Berkeley (2007), Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (2007-8) and is now involved in research projects on political philosophy (religious freedom) and intellectual history (philosophical reflection on war and collective violence) supported by the Russian Science Foundation.
Seminar with Andrey Menshikov was held in dialogue with UNIRI CAS SEE fellows at the University campus in Rijeka on December 6, 2019.
