Nadia Kizenko has some interesting, sobering thoughts about the recent Russian Orthodox "reunion" -- and its implications for both political and religious freedom -- in the Wall Street Journal. Professor Ilya Somin adds his (skeptical) reaction here. What should *we* think?
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Russian Orthodox developments
a quick clarification to Amy
The combination prolife-prochoice position I outlined in the entry to which Amy responded is not my own view, though it used to be. Conversations with German friends have made me doubt the effectiveness of teaching respect for life without some sort of penal sanctions for killing (at least hanging unused in the background) as a sign of moral seriousness. I presented that combination position only as one that is morally credible, not as one morally correct.
Media Representations of Religious Voices
Here's an interesting study from Media Matters on the religious voices making their way into the news media. The entire study is available for download (.pdf) here. Here's the summary:
Religion is often depicted in the news media as a politically divisive force, with two sides roughly paralleling the broader political divide: On one side are cultural conservatives who ground their political values in religious beliefs; and on the other side are secular liberals, who have opted out of debates that center on religion-based values. The truth, however is far different: close to 90 percent of Americans today self-identify as religious, while only 22 percent belong to traditionalist sects. Yet in the cultural war depicted by news media as existing across religious lines, centrist and progressive voices are marginalized or absent altogether.
In order to begin to assess how the news media paint the picture of religion in America today, this study measured the extent to which religious leaders, both conservative and progressive, are quoted, mentioned, and interviewed in the news media.
Among the study's key findings:
- Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.
- On television news -- the three major television networks, the three major cable new channels, and PBS -- conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.
- In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.
Despite the fact most religious Americans are moderate or progressive, in the news media it is overwhelmingly conservative leaders who are presented as the voice of religion. This represents a particularly meaningful distortion since progressive religious leaders tend to focus on different issues and offer an entirely different perspective than their conservative counterparts.
(Disclaimer: I have yet to read the report, so I'm not vouching for its methodology or conclusions. I'm fairly certain, for example, that I don't agree with the assertion that "most religious Americans are moderate or progressive." Nevertheless, its summary of media coverage is certainly consistent with my overall impression of media treatment of progressive religious voices.)
Response to Tom on Altruism
Tom, a couple of thoughts on your questions about being “hard-wired” for altruism:
It seems like the reductive read on this research – in which morality and immorality boil down to brain chemistry – is its own distinctive problem that has taken numerous forms – as with the “evolution vs. religion” debate, or the “tension” between faith and science, we need to identify that the problem here is, as theologian John Haught put it, an insistence that science “tells the whole story.” If we can get beyond that insistence, then it doesn’t strike me as strange that there might be some inner harmony between our biological / chemical make up, and the core spiritual and psychological dimensions of human nature.
Re theological resources for dispelling the worries, Trinitarian theology might also be a helpful place to look for an explanation – eg, here’s the beginning of a fascinating section in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church which I think gives a pretty good explanation of why we might be happy when we live for others.
a. Trinitarian love, the origin and goal of the human person
34. The revelation in Christ of the mystery of God as Trinitarian love is at the same time the revelation of the vocation of the human person to love. This revelation sheds light on every aspect of the personal dignity and freedom of men and women, and on the depths of their social nature. “Being a person in the image and likeness of God ... involves existing in a relationship, in relation to the other ‘I'”[36], because God himself, one and triune, is the communion of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
In the communion of love that is God, and in which the Three Divine Persons mutually love one another and are the One God, the human person is called to discover the origin and goal of his existence and of history. The Council Fathers, in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, teach that “the Lord Jesus Christ, when praying to the Father ‘that they may all be one ... as we are one' (Jn 17:21-22), has opened up new horizons closed to human reason by implying that there is a certain parallel between the union existing among the divine Persons and the union of the children of God in truth and love. It follows, then, that if man is the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake, man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself (cf. Lk 17:33)”[37].
35. Christian revelation shines a new light on the identity, the vocation and the ultimate destiny of the human person and the human race. Every person is created by God, loved and saved in Jesus Christ, and fulfils himself by creating a network of multiple relationships of love, justice and solidarity with other persons while he goes about his various activities in the world. Human activity, when it aims at promoting the integral dignity and vocation of the person, the quality of living conditions and the meeting in solidarity of peoples and nations, is in accordance with the plan of God, who does not fail to show his love and providence to his children.
A few years ago I did a brief piece which touched on some of these questions after attending a Metanexus conference on the faith-science dialogue. The argument is not well-developed in the piece, but there are interesting resources in the footnotes. (Can True Altriusm Ever Exist, on p.17 of the PDF linked here).
Amy
Come to Atlanta--to Emory--in October
Emory University
Center for the Study of Law and Religion
Our Invitation
Twenty-five years ago, Emory University founded a program in law and religion as part of its mission to build an interdisciplinary university and to increase understanding of the fundamental role religion has played in shaping law, politics, and society.
In October, the Center for the Study of Law and Religion (CSLR) will celebrate a quarter-century of scholarship and teaching in this important field. But even more importantly, we shall look ahead to the next 25 years to try to anticipate and situate the hardest questions of law and religion that will face us as believers and citizens, as scholars and practitioners, as persons and peoples. Our goal is to plot a course of study that provides the intellectual resources necessary for the world to define and to defuse the most volatile interactions of law and religion.
We would like you to join us in celebrating this milestone at a major conference, From Silver to Gold: The Next 25 Years of Law and Religion, to be held on the Emory University campus.
Wednesday, October 24
8:00 p.m.: Opening Keynote - Emory Conference Center Grand Ballroom
“The Foundations, Fundamentals, and Future of Law and Religion”
-James T. Laney, President Emeritus, Emory University Founder of the Law and Religion Program at Emory University
Thursday, October 25
9:00-10:30 a.m.: The Future of Law and Religion
“World Law and Universal Spiritual Values”
-Harold J. Berman, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Emory University
“The Future of Religion and Equality”
-Kent R. Greenawalt, University Professor of Law, Columbia University
“Prophets, Priests, and Kings: Morality, Religion, and Law in a Pluralistic Society”
-M. Cathleen Kaveny, John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: The Future of Religious Liberty
“A Conscripted Prophet’s Guesses About the Future of Religious Liberty in America”
-Douglas Laycock, Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law, University of Michigan
“The Future Challenges of International Religious Liberty”
-David Little, T.J. Dermot Dunphy Professor, Harvard University
“A Right to Moral Freedom as One of the Futures of the Right to Religious Freedom”
-Michael J. Perry, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Emory University
2:00-3:30 p.m.: The Currie Lecture in Law and Religion
“Against Utopian Legalism”
-Jean Bethke Elshtain, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics,
University of Chicago
“One Center, Many Centers”
-John T. Noonan, Jr., United States Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
4:00-5:30 p.m.: The Future of Law, Religion, and Marriage
“Children’s Beliefs and Family Law”
-Margaret F. Brinig, Fritz Duda Family Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
“Family Law and Christian Jurisprudence”
-Don S. Browning, Alexander Campbell Professor of Ethics and the Social Sciences Emeritus,
University of Chicago
“Religion and the Moral Foundation of Family Law”
-Carl E. Schneider, Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law & Professor of Internal Medicine,
University of Michigan
7:30 p.m.: The Decalogue Lecture: Law, Religion, and the Future of the
African-American Family - Glenn Memorial Auditorium, Emory University
“The Foundational Covenant: Strengthening the Black Family”
-Enola G. Aird, Director, The Motherhood Project, Institute for American Values
“Religion, Education, and the Primacy of Family”
-Stephen L. Carter, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Yale University
“The ‘Marriage Gap’: A Case for Strengthening Marriage in the 21st Century”
-Leah Ward Sears, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Georgia
Friday, October 26
9:00 -10:30 a.m.: The Future of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Legal Studies
“The Future of Jewish Law and Legal Studies”
-Elliot N. Dorff, Sol and Anne Dorff Distinguished Professor of Philosophy,
University of Judaism, Los Angeles
“The Future Contests of Islamic Law and Politics”
-Baber Johansen, Professor of Islamic Religious Studies, Harvard University
“The Unbearable Lightness of Christian Legal Scholarship”
-David A. Skeel, S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law, University of Pennsylvania
11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: The Future of Law, Religion, and Human Rights
“The ‘Law and Morality’ of Human Rights in Islamic Societies”
-Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na‘im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, Emory University
“Human Rights as Divine Entitlements”
-David Novak, Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Toronto
“Can and Should Religion Play a Role in the Struggle for Human Rights?”
-Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University
2:00-3:30 p.m.: The Future of Law, Religion, and International Affairs
“Tolerance in Religion, Law, and Politics: The International Challenge in the 21st Century”
-T. Jeremy Gunn, Director, American Civil Liberties Union Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief
“New Tools; Old Rules: Harmonizing Religious Freedom in the Developed and Developing World”
-Robert A. Seiple, President and CEO, Council for America’s First Freedom
“The Grounds of Basic Equality”
-Jeremy Waldron, University Professor of Law, New York University
4:00 p.m.: The Alonzo L. McDonald Lecture
“Can We Imagine a Global Civil Religion?”
-Robert N. Bellah, Elliott Professor of Sociology Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley
“The Religious Future of Law, the Legal Future of Religion”
-Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago
Response to Richard S. on the meaning of "pro-life"
Richard's analysis on the complexity of a "pro-life" position makes a lot of sense to me - because it grapples seriously with some of the very hard pratical questions. I am attracted to this line: "Nevertheless, we think that, at least for now, the best way to eliminate abortion is not to threaten women but to empower them, not to reduce their choices but to increase them" - but I am also struggling with some of its implications.
I agree that we need to empower women and increase their choices, but am also concerned that a woman's own definition of freedom, choice and power is often permeated and shaped by crushing cultural pressures that make it difficult to be open to life. Should / can the law play any role in shaping or turning around those cultural pressures? Perhaps it comes down to that really hard question, of whether we see law as a teacher of virtue, setting out an ideal; or as a tool for prudently managing and controlling socially destructive or bad behavior.
A comparative analysis also strikes me as very helpful. (Others who are deeper into the scholarship can guide me, I know that Mary Ann Glendon's Abortion and Divorce in Western Law is a good place to start). Perhaps comparative work might also shed some light on these hard questions about the nature of law.
Amy
The Legal Profession as a Blue State
Fordham law prof Russ Pearce has posted his new article, The Legal Profession as a Blue State: Reflections on Public Philosophy, Jurisprudence, and Legal Ethics. Here's the abstract:
What do lawyers and Blue State voters have in common? They subscribe to the view that values do not belong in public discourse and that, as Ronald Dworkin put it, “no person or group has the right deliberately to impose personal ethical values on anyone else.” This view animates both the legal profession's prevailing “hired gun” perspective and the principal political approach of voters who supported the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2000 and 2004 elections. This Essay suggests that this confluence is no accident, for both are grounded in the same public philosophy.
The Essay traces the history of how dominant public philosophies have shaped both jurisprudence and legal ethics. Prior to the Civil War, the republican combination of natural law and empiricism prescribed a distrust of majority rule. Within this framework, a governing class of virtuous lawyers devoted to the public good would protect rule of law and individual rights. Following the Civil War, elite public philosophy began a shift that enthroned empiricism and discarded natural law. From this period through the 1960s, commentators progressively narrowed conceptions of both the capability of lawyers and their governing class role. Eventually, the lawyer's role diminished to that of an "amoral technician."
In spite of this historical trend, lawyers continue to serve as a de facto governing class both through their disproportionate role in formal governance and their day-to-day work as intermediaries between the law and the people. The Essay concludes with a call for lawyers to “revive their capacity as a political leadership class,” even in a public sphere “inevitably full of value conflict and debate.” This would require lawyers both to accept responsibility for their own values and to “develop the ability to promote dialogue among and between people of different values.”
I read an earlier draft of this essay and found it to be a helpful overview of the transformation of our understanding of the lawyer's public role. I would also be interested in unpacking the impact that legal education has here -- i.e., whether our methods of legal education flow from the dominant public philosophy or are an independent source of the profession's presumption of amorality.
Altruism, "Hard-Wired and Pleasurable"?
Scientists, philosophers, and theologians, help us: How should Catholic legal/social/moral thought respond to this research? (Registration may be required to view the link.)
The results [of a NIH survey] were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.
Their 2006 finding that unselfishness can feel good lends scientific support to the admonitions of spiritual leaders such as Saint Francis of Assisi, who said, "For it is in giving that we receive." But it is also a dramatic example of the way neuroscience has begun to elbow its way into discussions about morality and has opened up a new window on what it means to be good. . . .
The research enterprise has been viewed with interest by philosophers and theologians, but already some worry that it raises troubling questions. Reducing morality and immorality to brain chemistry -- rather than free will -- might diminish the importance of personal responsibility. Even more important, some wonder whether the very idea of morality is somehow degraded if it turns out to be just another evolutionary tool that nature uses to help species survive and propagate.
Can one dispel those worries, and be comfortable with the results of this research, if one gives a natural-law account of morality, e.g.: (1) Fundamental morality consists in certain natural-law principles "written on the heart"; (2) the evolution of brain chemistry is the mechanism by which the Creator inscribed the principles in us; and (3) the principles are teleological in the sense of promoting human flourishing? That answer tries to affirm the natural, material element in morality while insisting that it's logically fallacious to reduce morality therefore to the material.
One obvious difficulty with this reconciliation is that the goal of survival/propagation and the goal of "human flourishing" typically described in moral theory seem very different, even if they sometimes coincide. Plus we seem to be hard-wired for selfishness in various ways as well, so the mere fact of hard-wiring won't necessarily tell us much about the distinctive moral sense. I'm sure there are other challenges and answers as well, but I'd be interested in hearing from others who know more about these matters than I.
Tom
Monday, May 28, 2007
A belated response to Amy's May 23 posting
Amy Uelmen, as I understand her, makes the good point that at least some of the Catholic Democrats who signed the recent statement may be sincerely pro-life even if they remain also pro-choice. But in order to show such sincerity, I think two things would have to be in the statement that were not there in any strong form.
There would have to be, first of all, some sort of acknowledgement of the enormity of the evil we face. For example, I would believe someone to be solidly pro-life who said "Abortion is an act of almost unimaginable violence. A typical abortion tears a child piece by piece from his or her mother's womb. And that act is repeated over a million times in America each year. As long as we hold to the precedent set by the institutionalization of abortion, we cannot in principle or in practice well defend the lives of other dependent and vulnerable human beings. Nevertheless, we think that, at least for now, the best way to eliminate abortion is not to threaten women but to empower them, not to reduce their choices but to increase them. Most women do not really want abortion (at least once they truly understand what it is), but feel they have no other choice. We have to provide them not only with the truth about abortion but also with real alternatives, so that each can freely choose life." This is, by the way, is essentially what the German Constitutional Court has twice held: that the unborn child has a constitutional right to life throughout pregnency but the legislator may nevertheless leave early abortion unpunished because candid counseling and maternal empowerment may save more lives than penal threats .
The second crucial element of any truly pro-life position is that it be pro-child, not merely anti-abortion. Opposing (even hating) abortion by promoting more contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies misses the fundamental point. The deep problem is callousness toward the unborn child. To propose contraception as a means to cut down on the numbers of abortions is like proposing a border fence to reduce the number of discriminatory acts against immigrants to the US. Even if contraception and fences do cut down on the number of wrongful acts, they may at the same time heighten the hostility that leads to such acts. (In Germany the birth control pill has long been called the "anti-baby" pill.) A sincerely pro-life and also pro-choice position would do something (like funding ultrasound machines) to help mothers, and all of us, bond with and want to protect those babies who manage to slip through any barriers we put up. The Democratic stement in question does make an important move in this direction, by urging the facilitation of adoption, for example, but in the light of the overwhelming violence of abortion, much more concern for the child victim is needed.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Michael Rossman and friends
Rick, thanks for linking to Michael Rossman's valedictory address. It was an excellent address, and he is, as you report, entering the Society of Jesus this fall. Michael, his friends, and other young people like them give me great hope for the future of the Church and our society.
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