Vallásszabadság és emberi jogok: Jogbölcseleti és teológiai kérdések a bíróságok előtt

Budapest, Ludovika Egyetemi Kiadó - MCC Press, 2024, Nagypál Szabolcs

Szabolcs Nagypál, head of the Law School of Mathias Corvinus Collegium, is both a lawyer and a theologian. In the first part of his interdisciplinary monograph, he examines the links between the Church’s social teaching and human rights, looking closely at the interaction from both sides. Human dignity and divinity are discussed, as well as economics, war, euthanasia, animal rights and the special legal order. The second part looks at the oldest of the human rights historically, which is also the basis of all of them: religious freedom - again, of course, from both sides. The practical stakes of the theoretical questions that arise are that the culture war surrounding the human rights movement - which in the West has now evolved into a question that affects the very foundations and future of our civilisation - is also being litigated in the courts, where legal experts have to decide on religious and theological questions: starting with how we define religion and freedom in the first place.

Ég, Föld, Ember: Vallásközi párbeszéd a természetről

Budapest, MCC Press, 2024, Nagypál Szabolcs (szerk.)

The traditions, teachings and beliefs of the ancient world religions can also provide a powerful message to modern people about the Creator and the supernatural; about creation, the created world and nature. They also tell of human’s mission and innermost being, and of her or his ability to connect the supernatural with the created world and with herself or himself. The link with the supernatural has been associated in different ages with the sky, the image of human looking upwards; nature, the created world, with the earth, which human can cultivate but unfortunately can also destroy. Today, we see that the solution to human’s spiritual difficulties may be to find in herself or himself a naturalness, a connection with the Sky, and to take responsibility for her or his own immediate and wider environment, while remaining in contact, of course, with the Earth. From the point of view of the world religions, the choice of this theme offers a great opportunity to identify common ground and to engage in interreligious dialogue. In the eight essays in this book, representatives of six world religions explain the teachings of their religious traditions on the three basic concepts (Heaven, Earth, Human); Christianity is also presented by Roman Catholic and Protestant authors in relation to the issue.

The Rule of Law and the Extraordinary Situation

Public Governance, Administration and Finances Law Review, 2021, Nagypál Szabolcs, Karácsony András

The various legal theorists dealing with the operation and effect of law have mostly examined situations that can be described as occurring in the usual, regular, normal state of social life. Over the last half century, and particularly since the formation and later enlargement of the European Union, the requirement of the rule of law has emerged as a key topic. The test of the rule of law is as follows: it is necessary to examine in an abnormal situation or, as it were, in an extraordinary situation exactly how it is possible to take political decisions that are of fundamental importance to society while also guaranteeing that these decisions remain within the rule of law at all times The aim of this study is to investigate how and by what constitutional mandate the Hungarian Government deviated from the normal constitutional situation in 2020. The “state of exception” theorised by Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben means the suspension of the law. It is important to understand their views in order to see that the Hungarian situation in 2020 is utterly dissimilar to such a  state of exception. In short, we need to distinguish a  state of exception from an extraordinary situation, because the latter does not imply the suspension of law in general or, more specifically, the suspension of the rule of law, but that parliamentary and government decisions remain within it. The special legal order applied in an extraordinary situation is not in fact a suspension of democracy, still less of the rule of law. On the contrary, it actually falls within both: in a  state of national crisis, this situation is democracy itself and the rule of law itself, and – accordingly – strict laws (both democratic and imposed within the rule of law), or rather laws of cardinal importance, make its conditions and its functioning possible and regulate it.

“Code is Law” and Smart Contracts. Embedding Ethics in Decentralized Ledger Systems

Cybergovernance Tagungsband des 24. Internationalen Rechtsinformatik Symposions IRIS 2021 / Proceedings of the 24th International Legal Informatics Symposium IRIS 2021, 2021, Nagypál, Szabolcs; Costantini, Federico; Ferencz, Bálint

“Smart Contracts” are tools based on distributed ledger technologies deployed in order to increase the efficiency of transactions. Their adoption is growing at an exponential scale due to the undisputable advantages brought by their property of self-executing tasks, yet on the opposite it raises concerns since it does not require any sort of moral scrutiny. In our paper we first address how the current ethical discussion can be framed in Decentralized Ledger Technologies, then we unfold the evolution in legal theory of a decentralized approach – epitomized by the motto “code is law” – finally we focus on “smart contracts” discussing the application of “engineering ethics” or the implementation of “ethical oracles”. At the end we conclude with a few remarks and some perspectives for future research.

Párbeszédtükör: A vallásközi találkozások módszertana

Budapest, L'Harmattan Kiadó - Magyar Vallástudományi Társaság, 2013, Nagypál Szabolcs 

Szabolcs Nagypál’s monography is a great and enormous work. The author’s readership is enormous: the great value of the abundant literature he has mined is that he has made extensive use of the treatises of Asian theologians Samartha, Ariarajah and others, who are little known in Europe. The author’s point of view is very sympathetic: what he says about openness, goodwill, cooperation, clearing memory, mutual forgiveness, the elimination of prejudices and the need for training for dialogue is very true and timely. A particularly important insight is that fruitful interreligious dialogue requires the self-emptying (kenosis) of the participants.