Thursday, January 27, 2005
Rob asks: "On what other basis [besides the presence of WMD tagged for use against the US] could the conflict in Iraq possibly be considered a just war?" Could the 2003 invasion of Iraq be considered a continuation of the 1991 war with the 2003 invasion caused by Saddam's failure to meet the conditions for cease fire? I don't know the answer to the question or whether, even if the answer is yes, such a move satisfies the just war criteria. Any thoughts?
Michael S.
Two years ago Michael Novak offered this defense of the Iraq war, and it largely turns on the assumption that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that he desired to use those weapons against the United States. There's certainly a debate as to whether the presence of WMD would satisfy just war requirements, but I'd like to clarify a different point. Can we all agree that, if the intelligence accurately revealed (what turned out to be) the absence of WMD, then the just war requirements would not have been satisfied? In other words, without a good-faith belief that WMD were present, the invasion of Iraq was immoral, right? On what other basis could the conflict in Iraq possibly be considered a just war?
Rob
Sr. Joan's NCR essay seemed more like an emotional anti-American (or at least anti-government) diatribe than a reasoned argument against the war. Just as the pro fetal stem cell research crowd used Christopher Reeve and Mary Tyler More as a ploy to appeal to the emotions of Americans, Sr. Joan uses the horrible tragedy of one 12 year old Iraqi girl and her family to suggest that the United States views the children of Iraq as our enemy and defines bravery in this war and this century as the courage to kill children and their civilian parents: "We are killing children. The children are our enemy. And we are defeating them." "My government has the courage to kill children and their parents. And I'm supposed to be impressed."
Couldn't this same picture be painted in any war? I am sure that similar tragedies occurred in the revolutionary war, the Civil War, and our war against Hitler and Nazi Germany in World War II. In short, Sr. Joan's essay might be an expose on the horrors of war or may be a partial argument in favor of pacifism, but it is not an argument against this war or even how this war is being waged.
Sister Joan does cite United Nation's statistics suggesting that the number of civilian causalities in war have risen from 15% in WWI to 65% in WWII to 75% in the mid-90's. Several questions and one observation arise from her use of these statistics. First, the observation - these statistics don't tell us anything about United States' inflicted civilian causalities in the Iraqi conflict since that conflict post-dates the statistics. Second, are these figures accurate? Third, are these worldwide statistics and do they include conflicts in which there is no U.S. presence? Fourth, do they include causalities inflicted only by Americans or by all combatants and non-combatant aggressors? Fifth, has the nature of fighting (at least by technologically advanced countrys) changed to reduce civilian causalities (i.e., guided precision bombs v. carpet bombing)? Sixth, has the nature of fighting changed to increase the potential for civilian causalities (i.e., the use of woman, children, and un-uniformed personnel as aggressors)? Seventh, does the United States do better or worse than other nations in limiting civilian causalities?
In the end, Sr. Joan's essay denigrates the acts of bravery and courage of soldiers who are being asked to put their lives on the line in the hope that Iraqis will be able to obtain political liberty.
We can argue about whether it was prudent or just to enter into this war and we can argue about the structure and speed of an exit strategy, but these issues and the consequences of the choices made are too serious for blatant play for emotion and visceral reaction.
Michael
Here's an excerpt from a recent speech by Rocco Buttiglione, given a few months ago at the "Congress on Catholics and Public Life" (and here is a news story about the event, from The Tablet).
Catholics have the right to hold positions in the European Union. Are
we able to conceive of a form of prohibition of exercising public
office by Catholics because of their Catholicism? Because of the fact
that they take the position which the Church has? Some say that the
Catholic position on sexuality is aberrant and I do not want this to
become grounds for discrimination at the EU or in regard to holding
public office. But a catholic who says that perhaps it is possible
that homosexuality would be a sin can be discriminated against. I
found myself in a position in which I clearly had to decide with
respect to whether I would keep my position, between my faith (or if
not my faith at least the doctrine of my faith) or to accept being
discirmated against. For my faith I was able to sacrifice a seat in
the EU, which is not such an important thing. Ultimately, this is what
happened.
I don’t know if God would give me the courage to offer my head for
my faith, like St. Thomas More, I hope I am never in a position to
find out, but to the point of a seat at the commission, I can. But
there is a problem, it is a problem concerning the nature of
democratic institutions, because behind this we have the underlying
problem of liberalism and what it means to be liberal/free, and what
it means to have a liberal constitution or a liberal democracy in
Europe today. We have two visions, one which I consider to be
effectively liberal and the other, which I consider to be an
antiliberal perversion of liberalism. In the first vision, the State
does not have an efficacious vision as such, the State does not think
about producing the values which are necessary for civil life. The
State knows that values need to be produced by others: churches and
the culture; values are produced in the sphere of culture; and thus,
the State has a positive attitude before the sphere of culture, it
recognizes the role of churches in society and accepts the role they
exercize. The other vision is a more continental European vision, it
is the vision of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau thinks that the State
should produce its values, that we need a civil religion and the
revealed religions, revealed in quotations marks, must be subject to
this state religion. This was the beginning of classical
totalitarianism, because Marxism, Fascism and National Socialism were
the civil religions of the Europe of yesterday. And today, what is
happening? What is happening is that there is a section on the left in
Europe with the tendency to affirm a new civil religion, a new
religion that affirms that it is not permitted to have strong ethical
convictions, and that democracy must base itself on relativism, and
that relativism means that there is no distinction between good and
bad. I think that this is wrong, I think that our democracy needs a
different foundation and that foundation is the Christian notion of
freedom, Christian and also liberal with respect to freedom, which
means that I have the right to think that you are wrong and at the
same time I am ready to give my life so that you may have the right to
be wrong, because if you have what is good not through your own
freedom, but imposed from without, this would not have moral value, it
would have moral disvalue.
Respect for the human person and his rights is the basis of an
authentic democracy. Cultural relativism is not an adequate foundation
for democracy. I would like to quote two very important authors who
hold this point of view. The first is a great expert on
totalitarianism, Benito Musolini. Benito Musilini wrote that fascism
is the polital expression of the most modern currents of contemporary
philosophy, that is to say, of relativism. Because if there is not an
objective truth that we must respect, then each individual will have
the right to utilize whatever power he has: physical power,
intellectual power, the power to manipulate through media
communications, in order to impose on others his vision of the
world. And this is not exactly what we consider to be democracy, this
is the beginning of totalitarianism. . . .
Rick
We've been remarkably silent on the question of the war in Iraq. Joan Chittister's National Catholic Reporter column this week, titled "What the rest of the world watched on Inauguration Day," contrasts the percentage of wartime casualties in World War I (15%) with that today (75%) and tells the horrific story of one family destroyed last week. She ends with the questions: "Who or what will free us from the 2st century's new definition of bravery? Who will free us from the notoin that killing children or their civilian parrents takes courage." The entire column can be read here.
John DiGregorio from Albequerque, New Mexico has this to say regarding Rick's and my postings on the question whether we should care about the economic effects of human rights:
"To the question: Should we even care about the economic effects of various forms of human rights? It depends entirely on what human right is in question. Some believe that every worker has a right to a living wage. There is no way to even determine what a living wage is without delving profoundly into economic issues. Some believe that every person should be able to worship according to their personal religious beliefs without fear of coercion or oppression. In this case, economic considerations are very probably inappropriate."
Susan
Rick asks whether we should ever care about the economic effects of various forms of human rights. Here is my initial thought (admitting that I read only the abstract of the piece that prompted his query and not the piece itself).
Clearly it is not necessary to make a case for human rights on economic grounds; economic value is not a necessary or relevent condition for saying a human right exists. But I think it may overstate it to say we should never care about the economic effects. That is to say, it may be that some means of effectuating basic human rights have more postive economic effects than others. I'm not convinced there is a problem with considering economic effects as we determine how to effectuate human rigths.
Susan
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Susan asks us to consider "what it means to be a Catholic law school." At Notre Dame, where I teach, we are certainly invited to think about (indeed, we can hardly avoid thinking about) this question. I cannot pretend to have a great answer, but I am inclined to think that a satisfactory answer has to incorporate, in some way, the fact -- and the implications of this fact -- that Christianity is true.
I do not mean to be glib; obviously, there is a lot more to say. Still, I cannot help thinking that -- for all our wrestling with mission statements, fostering engagement, facilitating conversations, and "asking the questions" -- a Catholic law school has to reflect, in all that it does, a commitment to the fundamental truth that Jesus is Lord, and to (what seems to me to be) the obvious corollary that this truth matters and makes a difference. The precise implications are of this truth are, of course, the subject of disagreement among faithful and reasonable people of good will. But I wouldn't think that a law school could meaningfully claim to be Catholic that was unwilling to start from, and build upon, this truth claim.
Rick
Here is the abstract of an interesting-sounding paper (thanks to Larry Solum), "The Economic Effects of Human Rights":
Economists are often skeptical concerning the economic effects of various forms of human rights: it has been argued that basic human rights can make the legal system less efficient but also that extensive social rights are incompatible with market economies. It is argued here that basic human rights are a precondition for other kinds of rights such as property and civil rights and that they are thus efficiency-enhancing. Four different groups of rights are identified. It is asked what effects they have on welfare and growth. The transmission channels through which the different rights affect welfare and growth are identified by estimating their effects on investment in both physical and human capital and overall productivity. Basic human rights have indeed a positive effect on investment, but do not seem to contribute to productivity. Social or emancipatory rights, in turn, are not conducive to investment in physical capital but do contribute to productivity improvements. None of the four groups of rights ever has a significant negative effect on any of the economic variables here included.
So, here is a deliberately provocative, non-rhetorical question: Should we even care about the "economic effects of various forms of human rights"? Why or why not?
Rick
I just finished reading a book about Ignatian Spirituality that observed that "When Ignatius agreed to found colleges, he was providing (in modern terms) 'graced' institutions through which the word and kingdom of God could be spread more widely. He also recognized that people in positions of responsibility and power influenced the structures of society, even to the extent of controlling them, and so were able to make those structures and institutions 'graced' or sinful means of promoting or hindering the kingdom of God."
Reading that caused me to reflect again on a question many of us have considered and some have written about - the question of what it means to be a Catholic law school. Although I recognize that different institutions will have different answers to that question, I hope that it means that we seek to be 'graced' institutions in the Ignatian sense of the term.
I'd be interested in hearing from others concerning the extent to which their schools think and talk about this question at an institutional level.
Susan
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