Empirical Legal Studies and Religious Topics

I’ve just returned from an intellectually enriching and research inspiring weekend at the third annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies. The conference is a joint project of the Cornell, New York University, and Texas law schools and was hosted this year at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

The Conference on Empirical Legal Studies at Cornell attracted more than 300 people with the presentation of more than 120 original works of empirical scholarship by a diverse and interdisciplinary array of scholars at dozens of sessions, as well 25 more papers presented in a poster session. Sessions were held on law and psychology, courts and judges, securities regulation, medical malpractice, tax, law and society, CEO salaries, bankruptcy, criminal law and procedure, litigation, corporate governance, international and comparative law, law and finance, property and contracts, employment law, intellectual property, the legal profession, employment discrimination, gender, and race (and this is not an exhaustive list).

As I participated in the conference and attended sessions from dawn to dark, at which empirical work of the highest quality was presented and critically discussed by both an assigned discussant and a well-informed audience, it slowly dawned on me that not a single session was devoted to matters of religion either directly or indirectly (such as religious liberty, religious influences on culture or legal institutions, the role of religious institutions in society, etc.) Looking more closely, I discovered that not a single paper presented at these sessions appears to be have been devoted to that subject.

Now given the wide-ranging diversity of topics that were explored, the welcoming character of the empirical legal studies community, and the inquisitive environment of the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (as well as my personal familiarity with our excellent hosts), the dearth of empirical presentations on religious topics certainly cannot be attributed to the sponsors of the conference or the participating scholars. Rather it served to bring home to me the stark fact that very few of us interested in law and religion or in the relationship of faith to legal subjects are doing empirical work. (Admittedly patting my own back, some of my past (here, here, and here) and ongoing empirical research is about religious liberty decisions in the lower federal courts.) Why is this?

Catholic teaching has always had a solid grounding in the material world, rejecting the Gnostic error that separates the spiritual world from the created physical world. While not neglecting the spiritual element or forgetting that we are in the World but not of the World, we Catholics are openly and joyfully a material bunch. The Incarnation of Christ, the physicality of the Body and Blood of Christ, the Resurrection of the Body –- all are central to our beliefs and rites. We readily find the presence of God in the world that He created. As G.K. Chesterton once said, Catholicism is “a thick steak, a glass of stout, and a good cigar!” Thus, should not we as Catholic scholars be among the first people of faith attracted to the study of what is, that is, to empirical research? And how can we encourage Catholic scholars to become more involved in the empirical legal studies movement?

Greg Sisk