Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Church Services Out, "Experience Times" In

By Michael Scaperlanda

A fairly large new church recently opened down the street from our parish.  On Sunday mornings they serve coffee, donuts, and soft drinks before church so that you can take food and drink with you into the auditorium.  Instead of having a church service or worship service, their billboard along I-35 invites the reader to come to one of their "experience times."  According to an interview with the pastor, the local paper reports that the church targets a 28 year old demographic. 

Am I mistaken to look at this marketing of "experience times" as an appeal to a me-centered consumerist mentality, where church becomes just one more experience among many other often disconnected entertainments?  At the very least, the advertisement suggests to me that the focus is on the consumer of the experience and not on worshipping the one true God.

Another observation I have made is that this and other churches with similar appeal all have .com domain names instead of .org domain names.  I don't know the criteria for getting a .org designation and maybe these churches aren't eligible, but to this outsider the .com seems to fit because from their ads they seem to me like commercial peddlars of some form of the Christian message.

Anything to my observations?  Or, can we chalk up my reflections to me being grumpy because most of my kids have left or are leaving for school and I don't get to teach until tomorrow?

Monday, August 20, 2007

Why Does the Objectivity of Religiously Grounded Human Rights Matter?

By Rob Vischer

Fr. Araujo writes that "[t]he subjectivity that flaws the atheist’s conception of human rights is substituted with the objectivity that surrounds God’s existence."  My question is, how can that objectivity be demonstrated?  If it cannot be demonstrated, how and why does it matter to the cause of human rights?  It seems that religiously grounded conceptions of human rights are inescapably subjective and are based, at least in part, on believers' own experiences of the human condition and contrasting interpretations of divine revelation, as evidenced by evolving Christian convictions regarding slavery, religious liberty, women's rights, etc.  I agree that a belief in a God who seeks human relationship provides a firmer foundation than atheism for human dignity, but that foundation simply begins the conversation about the content of human rights.  In that regard, the atheist and believer do not seem that far apart.

Emotion, Informed Consent, and Abortion

By Rob Vischer

Syracuse law prof Jeremy Blumenthal has posted his new paper, Abortion, Persuasion, and Emotion: Implications of Social Science Research on Emotion for Reading Casey.  (HT: Solum) Here is the abstract:

Although abortion jurisprudence under Casey condones State efforts to persuade a woman to forego an abortion in favor of childbirth, the opinion's “truthful and not misleading” language can be read more broadly than it traditionally has. Specifically, even a truthful message may mislead when it inappropriately takes advantage of emotional influence to bias an individual's decision away from the decision that would be made in a non-emotional, fully informed, state. Drawing on the insights of empirical research in the social sciences, I suggest that the sort of emotional information that many States now provide in their “informed consent” statutes can lead to such inappropriate emotional influence, and thus should be examined more closely than heretofore. This broader reading, taking into account empirical research that gives a better idea of individual decision-making, suggests that States' informed consent statutes have the potential to be an impermissible burden on the exercise of a woman's autonomous decision-making about an abortion precisely because they are calculated to bias a woman's free choice, not inform it.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Politics of God

By Michael Perry

For all those interested in the subject of religion in politics.  (Aren't we all?)

Mark Lilla (Columbia University), The Politics of God, New York Times Magazine, Aug. 19, 2007.

To print and read, click here.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Human Rights and Sources

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

I begin by thanking Michael P., Rob, Eduardo, and Michael S. for their stimulating posts on the question of religion (God’s existence and belief in Him) and human rights. My take on the matter is somewhat different from what has been discussed so far.

The subject of human rights is one of vital interest to the law. While many students of the law might focus on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its drafting negotiations as a defining moment, their recognition is much earlier origin. While the language they chose may differ from ours in the twenty first century, the Schoolmen Suárez and de Vitoria acknowledged in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the existence of human rights. Their recognition, however, does not make them the authors of human rights anymore than the drafters of the Universal Declaration.

It is precisely a question of authorship that brings the discussion which has taken place on this website over the past several days to a head. For the atheist who denies God’s being, there can be only one other source, origin, or author of human rights: the human being—or more precisely, the mind of the human being. The idea of human rights for the nonbeliever begins and ends in the human mind. This makes the human being the source of human rights and what is constitutive of them. But, what the human mind can fashion, the human mind can undo. What is constitutive of human rights begins and ends with what the brain can devise. The atheist’s view, his theory, her approach to human rights is seasoned by the subjectivity of the human person, individually and collectively. What is recognized as a human right one day can be abandoned the next day. Why? The answer to this question resides in the fact that there is nothing beyond human nature that defines human rights.

But, if there is an acceptance of God’s existence, there is a different understanding of human nature and, therefore, a very different conception of human rights and what is constitutive of them. The human mind no longer is their author, their source, or their origin. The basis for human rights is the author of human life itself. The subjectivity that flaws the atheist’s conception of human rights is substituted with the objectivity that surrounds God’s existence. The human mind cannot modify, amend, or revoke that which it has not created.

On a related point, the atheist’s morality and moral code of which Rob spoke may be sincere and have a carefully thought theory and intellectual basis, but it is still subject to the caprice of human subjectivity.      RJA sj

Kalscheur on Perry

By Eduardo Penalver

A nice review (technically, a "shorter notice") of Michael Perry's, Toward a Theory of Human Rights, by Gregory Kalscheur (Boston College) in the most recent issue of Theological Studies.  For those without quick access to TS, which is (sadly) not on-line, here is the key passage:

    Perry succeeds admirably . . . by presenting a model of stimulating intellectual conversation.  He engages both philosophers suspicious of the a religious foundation for the idea of human rights (which Perry affirms) and religious authorities who publicly teach on contested moral issues.  He presents his conversation partners' arguments with nuanced fairness, while subjecting those arguments to the rigorous critical analysis that intellectual respect demands.

More on "The Seamless Garment Re-configured"

By Rick Garnett

Nick Frankovich very kindly send me a note, clarifying (for me) his First Things post about which I blogged yesterday.  He writes:

. . . A common claim on the abortion-rights side is that parents who abort their child are acting in the child's interest. Amniocentesis has revealed, say, a severe abnormality, and the family is poor and dysfunctional. The child's life would be painful or degrading to him. The parents are exercising compassion and sound judgment when they decide to exercise for the unborn child his right to die. You and I might disagree, but it's not our child, they point out.

So far that argument may be more rhetorical than legal, but I think it does find support in the legal community. I say that because of the reaction to the Terri Schiavo case. Many of the details of that case are obviously different from those of an abortion case, but in its essentials the reasoning behind support for Schiavo's euthanasia is the same as the reasoning behind the abortion-rights argument I outlined in the paragraph above.

Here is someone who can't speak for herself. She has a right to die.  She also has a right to live. Which right should she choose? Someone has to make the decision for her, because she is incapable of expressing her own wish. The person to decide for her is -- fill in the blank. Most people think it should be a close family member -- spouse, parent, child -- rather than the state.

Now, the above paragraph works as an argument for abortion rights to the same degree that it worked as an argument for euthanasia in the case of Terri Schiavo. The link in the argument that is weak, in my opinion, is the assertion that "she has a right to die."

I happen to think that a person should be able to forgo heroic medical treatment and to choose hospice, although I wouldn't know how to formulate that right in such a way that people couldn't abuse it to abort their children or cut short their parents' life in assisted living or nursing care. Michael Schiavo claimed that Terri had once told him that she would want to die if she were so incapacitated, but, being unsubstantiated, his claim amounted to not much more than a parent saying "I know that under these conditions my baby would rather be aborted than be born."

I'm aware that, strictly defined, the legal basis for abortion rights doesn't cover the right to die or the right to be aborted.  But I don't think abortion rights can enjoy practical, political support unless they're grounded in this substrate of belief about the right to die. . . .

Again, I'm grateful for the note.  A few thoughts:  First, I think that the pro-choice argument outlined in the first paragraph (i.e., "I'm having this abortion for the sake of, and for the good of, the baby, who is facing an uphappy life due to his / her disability") is not, really, one that does much work -- some, yes, but not that much -- on the pro-choice side of things.  It seems to me that the basic pro-choice argument is "I do not want to have a child, and it is my right to be able to act on this not-want."  That is, the paradigmatic pro-choice argument is not, it seems to me, one in which the "proxy for the unborn child's right to die" idea is all that salient.

I also think -- and maybe I'm being naive -- that there is (the Schiavo case notwithstanding) more distance than Nick suggests between the argument that one has a right to refuse unwanted medical treatment and the argument that one has a right to abortion or the argument that euthanasia is morally permissible.

My sense -- which points me in the opposite direction Nick is travelling -- is that the "right to die" feeds on the "right to abort", and its "autonomy" premises, and not the other way around.

What do others think?

Don't miss it . . .

By Patrick McKinley Brennan

The Second Annual John F. Scarpa Conference on Law, Politics, and Culture will be held at Villanova on October 16, and it's now possible to register for the event by clicking here http://www.eventbrite.com/event/68959259

This year's topic is "The Judicial Office in Our Constitutional Democracy: Avoiding Dogmatism on a Disputed Question."  Justice Antonin Scalia will deliver the keynote address, and the other speakers include Professors Paul Kahn (Yale), Jean Porter (Notre Dame), James R. Stoner, Jr. (LSU), and Jeremy Waldron (NYU). 

The early returns suggest that the event is going to fill up, so please register early (and tell your friends)!

The schedule for October 16 is as follows:

8:00-8:45 a.m. - Registration/Continental Breakfast

8:45 a.m. - Welcome: Father Peter Donohue, OSA, President of Villanova University

8:50 a.m. - Welcome: Dean Mark Sargent, Villanova University School of Law

9:00 a.m. - Textualism and Democracy

Jeremy Waldron
University Professor, New York University School of Law

Commentator:

Professor Catherine Lanctot
Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law

Moderator:

Professor Chaim Saiman

10:00 a.m. - Break

10:15 a.m. - Determination and Deduction: How Aquinas Might Distingquish the Work of the Legislator from the Work of the Judge

James R. Stoner, Jr.
Professor of Political Science, Louisiana State University

Commentator:

Professor Michael Moreland
Assistant Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law

Moderator:

Visiting Professor Kevin Walsh

11:15 a.m. - Meaning, Intention, and the Purposes of Law: Judicial Interpretation in a Natural Law Context

Jean Porter
John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame

Commentator:

Michael J. White
Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, Arizona State University

Moderator:

Professor Robert Miller

12:15 p.m. - Lunch (boxed lunches served in Bartley Hall)

1:10 p.m. - Keynote Address: The Role of Catholic Faith in the Work of a Judge

Hon. Antonin Scalia
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States

Introductions by Dean Mark Sargent and Professor Steve Chanenson

Moderator:

Professor Steve Chanenson

2:15 p.m. - Break

2:30 p.m. - Sovereignty and Our Supreme Court: A Holy Alliance?

Patrick McKinley Brennan
John F. Scarpa Chair in Catholic Legal Studies, Villanova University School of Law

Commentator:

Paulina Ochoa Espejo
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University

Moderator:

Professor and Associate Dean Doris Brogan

3:30 p.m. - Charisma and the Foundations of Judicial Authority

Paul Kahn
Ralph R. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities and Director, Orville H. Schell, Jr., Center for International Human Rights

Commentator:

Penelope Pether
Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law

Moderator:

Professor Tiffany Graham

4:30 p.m. - End

4:45 p.m. - Mass, St. Thomas of Villanova Church

"Pope To Condemn Tax Evasion"

By Rick Garnett

Paul Caron reports:

From the Times of London:  Pope Set to Declare Income Tax Evasion "Socially Unjust" by Richard Owen:

Pope Benedict XVI is working on a doctrinal pronouncement that will condemn tax evasion as “socially unjust”, according to Vatican sources. In his second encyclical – the most authoritative statement a pope can issue – the pontiff will denounce the use of “tax havens” and offshore bank accounts by wealthy individuals, since this reduces tax revenues for the benefit of society as a whole. ...

This week the Italian centre-left Government of Romano Prodi began a concerted crackdown on tax evaders, saying that it would target individuals with second homes and other signs of “conspicuous wealth”. If the black economy is included, unpaid taxes amount to 27% of Italy’s gross domestic product. Mr Prodi, a devout Catholic, urged church leaders to speak out on tax evasion, telling the Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana that a third of Italians heavily evaded taxes, which were needed to plug Italy’s huge budget deficit. “Why, when I go to Mass, is this issue almost never touched upon in homilies?” Mr Prodi asked, adding: “If memory serves, St Paul exhorted the faithful to obey authority.”

I hope this document attends carefully to the non-trivial challenge of defining "tax evasion."   I hope it does not suggest that there is a general moral obligation to avoid actions that "reduce[] tax revenues for the benefit of society as a whole."  (The issue, it seems to me, in "tax evasion" should be law-breaking.)  And, I hope it at least acknowledges the possibilty that some tax policies that are motivated by a desire or packaged as efforts to raise "revenues for the benefit of society as a whole" can in fact reduce both social welfare and the well being of the poor.  (The piece above notes that "tax evasion" is making it difficult to "plug Italy's huge budget deficit."  I hope, then, that the document will at least suggest the possibility that waste and overspending by the state raises moral questions, too.)   

St. Elvis?

By Elizabeth Schiltz

On the assumption that Elvis Presley is of such universal interest that this transcends the need to justify as having any relation to Catholic legal theory, I offer this link to "Five Catholic Facts about Elvis."

Previous Articles More Articles

Recent Posts

Categories

Monthly Archive