Congratulations to Michael Simons, who has been named dean at St. John's, succeeding the late Mary Daly. This should be especially welcome news for MoJers, as Mike has shown a keen interest in the ongoing articulation of what Catholic legal education can and should mean. He has also been a guiding force behind the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies. St. John's is in very capable -- and mission-friendly -- hands.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
A new dean for St. John's
"A Crisis of Character"
Check out this essay, at Huffington Post, by Prof. Ronald Colombo, connecting the credit crisis (and related downers) with the development of (or failure to develop) the virtues. A taste:
Unfortunately, since morality and virtue are developed over time, via repeated decisions to choose what is right and to forego what is wrong, there is no quick fix to our present problems. Moreover, law can do very little to make people virtuous. Indeed, "coerced virtue" is oxymoronic.
But law can help foster an environment in which virtue can be developed and exerted more readily. We would do well to reconsider our abandonment of "values" education in primary and secondary schools, and should bolster the ethics training of M.B.A. and J.D. candidates in business and law schools. Corporate and securities law could be revised to enhance disclosure of, and shareholder input on, issues of moral concern. Directors and officers could be empowered and encouraged to take moral considerations into greater account, and unshackled from the constraint to operate their corporations with an unwavering focus on maximization of shareholder value. By providing instruction on basic moral principles, by sensitizing market participants to the moral implications of their choices, and by creating more opportunities where moral choice can be exercised, the law can play an important role in helping individuals grow in virtue.
Some, of course, will argue that it's too difficult to cultivate virtue. Simpler and more effective, they will suggest, would be more corporate regulation, stricter enforcement of antifraud legislation, and heavier penalties heaped upon wrongdoers. Such suggestions are certainly worth considering. But even under the best of laws, our resources and ability to prevent and detect wrongdoing will always be limited. Moreover, law's reach is itself quite limited: for regulation has an unfortunate tendency of preventing only a repeat of yesterday's wrongdoing; it oftentimes does little to forestall the wrongdoing of tomorrow. And this is inevitable, given the creativity and persistence of wrongdoers.
We need and can enjoy better protection from future corporate corruption, fraud, and the general dereliction of duty that lies at the heart of the economic calamities we are now facing. This protection lies not simply in a fine-tuning, an overhaul, or even a paring of our regulatory regime. It lies in a more virtuous markeplace. We ought to think seriously about ways in which to bring this about. For when no one is looking , and when no can catch us, or when there is no law to hold us accountable, or no other means of chastisement, the only thing that compels us to do what is right is virtue.
"Learning from Ramsey"
One of my all-around favorite thinkers and writers, Gilbert Meilaender, is the 2009 recipient of the Paul Ramsey Award. Here are his remarks. A bit:
All of us, Ramsey would have said, whatever our particular vocations, are part of this community of discourse. All of us are called to think, as carefully and as thoroughly as we can, about these urgent human problems. And from all – those who disagree, those who work not in the realm of ethics but in the day-to-day struggles of both research and clinical medicine – from all of them the ethicist seeks to learn. But not only to listen and learn. Also to interrogate – and no one ever interrogated the way Paul Ramsey did.
Mary G. Leary on responses to "sexting"
Prof. Leary (CUA) has an essay at Public Discourse that is worth reading.
Catholic legal theory and judicial empathy
With President Obama's coming Supreme Court pick, there has been a lot of talk about judicial empathy. I found Orin Kerr's discussion of the concept to be very helpful. Here's an excerpt:
I think there are two different ways to deal with . . . legal ambiguity. One approach is to see legal ambiguity as cause for judicial weighing. This view sees the role of the judge as narrow. The judge must weigh the best legal arguments on one side and the best legal arguments for the other, and must pick the side that has the better of it, no matter how slight the advantage. If a case is 55/45, them there is a correct answer, because 55 is greater than 45. The position with the greater support in the legally relevant materials wins. Of courser, there may in fact be cases that are genuinely 50.000/50.000, and in those cases, perhaps the judge can pick the side. But those cases are very rare: Even in the hard cases, there is usually one side that emerges as slightly stronger than the other.
That's one approach, at least. The other approach is to see legal ambiguity as cause for judicial empowerment. This view sees the judge as dutifully following the law when the law is clear. But as soon as there is some ambiguity, and the law is unclear, then the judge is free to decide the case however he wants. You don't wait for a case to be truly 50/50 for this. So long as there is some appreciable legal ambiguity, there is no clear "correct" answer. Maybe 70/30 is enough, or maybe even 75/25 will do. Either way, the lack of a "correct" answer means that the judge can rule in a way that furthers whatever normative vision of the law that the judge happens to like.
I think there is a legitimate role for judicial empathy at the trial court level (particularly when pro se litigants are involved), but I get a little nervous about calls for empathy when it comes to Supreme Court nominees. Is there a place for judicial empathy in Catholic legal theory? Does it matter what the context is? Wasn't Brown v. Board of Education driven by empathy, not just the weighing of legal merits? How about Meyer and Pierce? Is the recognition that "the child is not the mere creature of the state" as a rationale for a judicial decision driven solely by legal merit, or something else? And what about abortion? There are lots of Supreme Court decisions that reflect weak constitutional interpretation, but calls for the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade are not just about remedying bad interpretation, are they? Aren't we also asking judges to empathize with the unborn in recognizing the need to overturn Roe?
Peripheral Catholics
For Damon Linker's strong reaction (in the New Republic) to Joseph Bottom's assertion (in the Weekly Standard) that "opposition to abortion is at the center of Catholic culture in this country," see http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/linker/default.aspx.
Cathleen Kaveny links to this at dotcommonweal. In the comments section she says, "So do we have one center that cannot hold? Or two stable centers, of
two very different worlds? What rough beast, its hour come round at
last, slouches toward South Bend to be born? And how do we get off that
awful widening gyre?"
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
A strange take on church-state separation
First Things has the story:
A public school in California brings in a lesbian to speak to the students about her homosexuality. Parents, finding out about it after the fact, ask the school to reveal to them what was said. The school claims that it need not inform the parents as to what transpired in their children’s classes. Why? Because the speaker in question is a minister, hence her presentations at the school are confidential communications under the clergy-penitent privilege.
Interesting times.
Gerson on Putnam on American Religion
I have not read any Harry Potter books, so I've never gotten to enjoy the midnight-bookstore-dress-up-as-Dumbledore scene, but I do get very excited for new Robert Putnam books, though I've never been able to inspire many followers to don bowling shoes and wait at Borders with me. Putnam's new book, "American Grace: How Religion is Reshaping Our Civic and Political Lives," sounds like a must-read for MoJ-types. Here's an excerpt from Michael Gerson's preview:
The politicization of religion by the religious right, argues Putnam, caused many young people in the 1990s to turn against religion itself, adopting the attitude: "If this is religion, I'm not interested." The social views of this younger cohort are not entirely predictable: Both the pro-life and the homosexual-rights movement have made gains. But Americans in their 20s are much more secular than the baby boomers were at the same stage of life. About 30 to 35 percent are religiously unaffiliated (designated "nones," as opposed to "nuns" -- I was initially confused). Putnam calls this "a stunning development." As many liberals suspected, the religious right was not good for religion.
The result of the shock and aftershocks is polarization. The general level of religiosity in America hasn't changed much over the years. But, as Putnam says, "more people are very religious and many are not at all." And these beliefs have become "correlated with partisan politics." "There are fewer liberals in the pews and fewer unchurched conservatives."
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Updates to Call for Papers on "Christian Realism and Public Life: Catholic and Protestant Perspectives"
I've made updates to the Call for Papers for this conference, to be held at St. Thomas in Minneapolis on November 20-21, 2009, and sponsored by the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy.
Paper proposals are now due June 30, with notification by July 20. The committed plenary speakers include Jean Bethke Elshtain (social and political ethics-Chicago), Robin Lovin (social ethics-Southern Methodist), David Skeel (law-U Penn), John Carlson (just war thought-Arizona State), William Cavanaugh (theology-St. Thomas), James Turner Johnson (just war thought-Rutgers), and Jeanne Heffernan Schindler (Catholic social thought-Villanova).
website comparison
Here is an effort to respond to Susan's good question about what I had in mind with my reference to the websites of what I take to be two very different religious communities. I should haven't taken the lazy way out.
Here is the mission/vision of the IHM Sisters--"Urged by the love of God, we choose to work with others to build a culture of peace and right relationship among ourselves, with the Church and with the whole Earth community. The IHM community envisions and is committed to bringing about the dream of God on planet Earth through respect for, nurturing of and promoting the liberation and well-being of all persons and all of nature as God's good creation."
Here is a portion of the Mission of the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist--"By living this strong sacramental and liturgical prayer life, we hope to:
- Attract and form women to be faithful religious serving the Church for the good of souls, especially through the total gift of themselves as spiritual mothers and brides of Christ.
- Establish and support Catholic schools steeped in the rich culture of the Catholic faith to nourish the spiritual formation of youth, their families and society.
- Promote the culture of life and respect for the dignity of each person through apostolic work.
- Respond to the needs of the Church arising in the third millennium through teaching, catechesis and evangelization."
In my view, the IHM site seems more about the sustainability of planet Earth than about the Gospel, which is not to say that environmental issues are not at all relevant to Catholics. It may be that I am overly concerned about the IHM site's references to Jungian spirituality and drum therapy but it seems to me that the site indicates a community that has moved "beyond Jesus." It may be that I am being unfair to the IHM community. As I mentioned, the IHM sisters I met in Monroe were inspirational. I received an email from a reader who spoke in very moving terms about the faith and devotion of IHM sisters who teach at a school in Maryland. My concern is that the community doesn't seem to be sustaining itself. I think that is because there isn't enough of an emphasis on community life and Eucharistic Adoration, and being a bride of Christ.
I'll try to follow up with more of an explanation.
Richard M.
Recent Posts
Categories
Monthly Archive
StatCounter
PageViews
Since February 19, 2008
