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This paper reinvestigates the question of liberal neutrality. We contend that current liberal discussions have been dominated-if not hijacked-by one particular interpretation of what neutrality could imply: namely, exclusive neutrality, aiming to exclude religious and cultural expressions from the public sphere. We will argue that this is merely one among several relevant interpretations. To substantiate our claim, we will first elaborate upon inclusive neutrality by formulating two supplementary interpretations: proportional neutrality and compensatory neutrality. Second, we will argue that inclusive proportional neutrality is the most appropriate interpretation in many contexts. Our discussion highlights the fact that some political disputes should not be seen in terms of the antithesis between liberal neutrality and illiberal alternatives but, instead, as a clash between various valid but incompatible interpretations of what liberal neutrality may imply.

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Law and bioethics WIBREN VAN DER BURGThere is probably no other field in which law and ethics are so strongly intertwined as in biomedicine. Legal and ethical doctrines on topics like informed consent have been developed through close cooperation between lawyers and ethicists. The work of ethicists is in many ways both oriented towards the law and influenced by the law. Ethicists act as expert witnesses in courts or as advisers on legislative issues, for example, on the regulation of embryo research. In countries where ethics committees or review boards are legally recognized, they seem to have a semi-judicial status. Conversely, legal concepts, like the right to privacy, dominate moral discussions.Because bioethics and health law are so strongly connected, every bioethicist must have a basic understanding of law. For instance, when an ethicist is asked for advice on legislation, he or she should take account of the institutional character of law, which has its own dynamics, restraints and societal functions. Take, for example, a discussion of prostitution in the context of AIDS policies. Here the practical problems of enforcement and the possible side-effects of legal prohibition alone might produce such bad consequences that the more principled arguments against legal moralism become superfluous. LawA general and neutral definition of law seems to be impossible because in various respects law is a highly variable and diverse phenomenon. Of course, a number of defining characteristics have been suggested, especially some criteria that would distinguish law from morality. Among those criteria are the connection of law with political authority or with sanctions, the existence of certain kinds of procedures and the emphasis on external acts rather than on motives. However, as Judith Shklar (1964) has argued, none of the differential features suggested is found in all legal systems or practices, nor are they always absent in morality.Nevertheless, these and other less than general characteristics are important for a full

for their helpful comments on previous versions of this article, and Jacqueline Brand, Alma Besic, Lieske Bottema and Haris Sabanovic for providing assistance with the research in various ways. This article is part of a series. In a second article, we hope to discuss the various purposes for which doctrinal scholars can use philosophy. 2In the Common Law tradition, the focus on doctrinal research is less dominant than in the Civil Law tradition (Van Gestel, Micklitz & Rubin 2017;Kumm 2009).