Further thoughts on Autonomy, (Not) Separatism

Thank you Rob for clarifying your position. And, I agree with much of what you say, especially: “Catholic teaching's transformative power is most clearly evidenced within the human person, not the legislative corridors. So far from proposing that we separate from society, I propose that we invest ourselves more deeply in it -- we should be targeting the hearts and minds of our neighbors, not with the aim of capturing the mechanisms of collective power, but with the aim of changing lives.”

I want to tease out the arguments and their implications a little further.

First, Rob suggests that “that we seek to turn intolerant liberalism into a conception of governance more in keeping with value pluralism.” This language of “value pluralism” strikes me as a concession to cultural relativism – you have your values and conceptions of the good (common or not) and I have mine, but we mutually agree to give each other a sphere of autonomy to develop our non-privileged conception of the good. This public (as distinct from “state”) viewpoint can allow only a very thin conception of the individual, and ultimately, as I argue elsewhere, cannot, in the long term, support a system that respects the dignity and freedom of the human person. What is needed, IMHO, is a publicly recognized thicker conception of the human person, a realistic anthropology of the human person that will also support a system that respects the dignity and freedom of the human person. Joseph Carens, in his book, “Culture, Citizenship, and Community: A Contextual Exploration of Justice as Evenhandedness, makes a case (at least in my reading of the book) that liberalism develops (and can develop in healthy ways) within cultures that have thick conceptions of the human person so long as a respect and a measure of freedom is provided to those with different visions of the good.

Second, addressing Rob’s points three and four, I agree with him to a large extent. In Paragraph 17 of Gaudium et Spes, the Church says: “It is, however, only in freedom that man can turn himself towards what is good. … For God willed that man should ‘be left to his own counsel’ so that he might of his own accord seek his creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him. Man’s dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward towards his goal by freely choosing what is good.” Like Rob, and for the same reasons, I view attempts to use state power to limit and/or prohibit abortion as fundamentally different from attempts to use state power to criminally prohibit same-sex sodomy (or contraception, etc).

Third, so often discussion of imposing or proposing Catholic perceptions of the common good center narrowly on whether to seek state sanctioned punishment of specific acts that constitute individual moral weakness or failure. But, as Rob implicitly articulates, there is so much more to the Catholic proposal. In fact, his vision of subsidiarity, grounded in Catholic anthropology, is a proposal that he desires, if I understand him correctly, to have adopted or at least respected by juridical authorities. In his recent post, Vince writes: “Why does American culture see human beings as disposable? Why do we worship material comfort and personal perfection, and damn those who can't keep up or who are inconvenient, to marginalization, despair, and in some cases, death?” Much of the work needed to turn this situation around and build a Culture of Life involves, as Rob points out, non-legal prophetic speaking aimed at changing hearts and lives. But, there is a limited role for Catholic legal theory to propose structures, institutions, and particular laws that will make it easier to see the humanity of others. Se for example, Rick's recent post on the possibilities of the New Urbanism and the unintended effects of suburbanization.

Michael