CST on the Market, the State and the Law at Villanova

I am emerging from the swamp of the deanery long enough to post this Call for Papers to be presented at the Fifth (mirabile dictu!) Annual Conference on Catholic Social Thought and the Law here at Villanova Law in September 2007. Many MOJ-ers and friends-of-MOJ have presented at or attended these conferences. This year's topic will be one that has engaged several of us on this blog over the years -- what does CST tell us about the relationship of the market, the state and the law? Confirmed speakers include David Hollenbach, who will speak about "Economic Justice for All 20 Years Later," the economist/theologian Daniel Finn, who has recently published "The Moral Ecology of Markets" with Cambridge UP, our own Susan Stabile, and yours truly. But there is plenty of room for other papers and respondent. I hope my co-blogistas and our readers will be kind enough to circulate this call to their colleagues and other interested parties.

VILLANOVA

UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL

OF LAW

JOURNAL OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT

The Fifth Annual Conference on Catholic Social Thought and the Law

Catholic Social Teaching on the Market, the State and the Law

CALL FOR PAPERS

Villanova

University

Conference

Center

Friday, September 21, 2007

The nature and implications of Catholic social teaching on the significance of the market for human dignity, and on the role of the state in the regulation of the market, is one of the most controversial aspects of the social doctrine. Catholic social teaching on these issues can best be described as sui generis and non-assimilable to secular conceptions of “left” or “right,” but both the left and right have claimed that teaching for their own. This has led to fundamentally inconsistent characterizations of Catholic social teaching as either left-communitarian or as supportive of a strong form of economic liberalism. Can both characterizations be correct? Does disagreement over the proper role of the state prevent creation of a coherent theory of how the market contributes to the common good?

Even more troublesome is the argument that the teaching on the market and its relation to the state is so general and abstract, and so deferential to secular/technical knowledge, that virtually all specific questions of economic and regulatory policy should be regarded matters of prudence, and that the social doctrine gives no or little guidance to their resolution. If that is true, then the value of Catholic social teaching in this field is questionable, to say the least. Is such a wholesale deference to prudential judgment consistent with Catholic social teaching’s robust conception of the common good?

These contesting claims about Catholic social teaching have broad implications for Catholic legal theory. Can the social doctrine provide a framework for determining when and how the market should be freed or constrained by law? Can we derive from it a set of normative propositions about the nature and purpose of the corporation that would provide a foundation for the law of corporate governance and social responsibility?  What implications does Catholic social teaching about the market have for the legal structuring of the employment relationship?  These are just a few of the questions that will be considered at the Conference.

The Conference will bring together legal academics, economists, theologians and philosophers. Articles presented at the Conference will be considered for publication in the Journal of Catholic Social Thought, a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal.  Please submit paper proposals or requests for more information to Dean Mark A. Sargent, [email protected] or Professor Michael Moreland, [email protected] at Villanova University School of Law.

Information for those wishing to attend the Conference will be published shortly.