I just posted the paper that was my contribution to BYU's symposium on rights of conscience in health care. Titled Individual Rights vs. Institutional Identity: The Relational Dimension of Conscience in Health Care, it is taken in significant part from my book on the subject. The papers from the symposium will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Ave Maria Law Review. Feedback on the paper (or book) is always welcome.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Individual Rights vs. Institutional Identity in Health Care
The operation of divine grace on Hadley Arkes . . . and friends
Evelyn Waugh described his masterpiece Brideshead Revisited as a story about "the operation of divine grace on a diverse but closely connected group of characters." Yesterday, I had the profoundly moving experience of witnessing the operation of grace on a particular person and a diverse group of people who were connected to each other through him. That person, Hadley Arkes, the Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions at Amherst College, was received into the Catholic Church in a beautiful ceremony in the chapel of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. Enveloped in the love of his many friends and admirers, Hadley was baptized, confirmed, and received his first communion.
Hadley is an outstanding political philosopher and constitutional theorist who has dedicated much of his professional life to defending the dignity and rights of the child in the womb. In remarks after the service yesterday, he explained that his faith in Christ had come through the Church. The Church's moral witness, especially on the sanctity of human life and on marriage and sexual morality---a witness that has in our time made the Church a "sign of contradiction" to the most powerful and influential elements of the elite sector of contemporary western culture---persuaded him that the Church is, despite the failings of so many of its members and leaders, fundamentally "a truth-teaching institution." In teachings that many find to be impediments, Hadley found decisive evidence that the Church is, indeed, what she claims to be.
Speaking of his Jewish identity, Hadley said that he neither would nor could ever leave the Jewish people. His entry into the Church was for him, he stated, a fulfillment of his Jewish faith, and in no way a repudiation of it. Invoking the testimony and authority of the late Cardinal Lustiger of Paris, he declared that he was and would always remain a Jew, though a Jew who, like the earliest Christians, had come to accept Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Hadley's sponsor was Michael Novak, who read aloud some charming verses he had composed for the occasion. The other speakers were Daniel Robinson of the Philosophy Faculty at Oxford University, Michael Uhlmann of the Political Science Department at Claremont Graduate School, David Forte of the Cleveland State University Law School, and your humble correspondent. The chapel was overflowing with people who had come from all over the country. The spirit of joy was extraordinary. Part of the reason for that, I believe, is that every person in the room had become a better Christian as a result of Hadley's friendship, long before Hadley himself entered the Church. More than a few people credited Hadley for their own conversions (or reversions). Like G.K. Chesterton, he spent years leading others into the Church before he walked through the door himself.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
God, Philosophy, Universities
I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the lecture and dinner celebrating the life and work of Alasdair MacIntyre and the 10th anniversary of Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture this past Thursday. The Reverend John Jenkins, President of Notre Dame; Dr. John Cavadini, chair of ND's Theology department; and Dr. John McGreevy, dean of ND's College of Arts and Letters reflected on Prof. MacIntyre's latest book, God, Philosopy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition, with Fr. Jenkins situating MacIntyre's work alongside that of Aquinas and Newman. Cavadini noted that the relevance of a Theology Department (as opposed to Religious Studies) goes much further and deeper than the courses taught in that department. He suggested that the presence of Theology in the university curriculum orients the whole endeavor toward mystery, opening the university up to unity and integration of knowledge.
MacIntyre offered a very moving response to the three papers. His book grew out of his experience teaching a course by the same name (two of my children benefited greatly from the class). He argued that a problem with undergraduate education these days is that it doesn't develop good generalists. Specialists who have not been good generalists first become one-sided, lacking adequate knowledge of their own limitations. In other words, they don't know what they don't know.
MacIntyre concluded that even at a place like ND with a core liberal arts requirement, his students are not well instructed generalists. He offered two reasons for this (he said there were three reasons but I only caught two, so please fill in the gap). First, students look at courses outside of their area of interest as isolated units. Non-math or science majors are apt, for example, to look at the required math and science courses as boxes to check on a degree form, thanking God when the course is done and math and science are in the rear view mirror forever (I plead guilty to this attitude), rather than as an important and integral part of knowledge. Second, the gpa. Students are less inclined to take risks outside of their academic comfort zones because of the need to keep the gpa for graduate school applications.
In response to a student suggesting that this generalist knowledge base couldn't be achieved in a four year undergraduate education, MacIntyre responded that two years of focused study in an integrated curriculum ought to be enough to provide undergraduates the tools to become well instructed generalists.
Friday, April 23, 2010
A wonderful visit to Cornell Law School
I had the honor today of giving the 2010 Frank Irvine Lecture at Cornell Law School. What a pleasure it was to meet in person my MoJ brothers Eduardo Penalver, Bob Hockett, and Steve Shiffrin. They were exceptionally gracious hosts. It was also a pleasure to meet their distinguished colleague in jurisprudence Robert Summers---a scholar from whose writings I have learned a great deal. Over the years, Professor Summers has spent a lot of time in Oxford---where I did my doctorate under Joseph Raz and John Finnis---and he had many marvelous stories of the great figures in Oxford philosophy, including H.L.A. Hart, under whom Professors Raz and Finnis did their doctorates, Yet another pleasure was reconnecting with Stewart Schwab, the Dean of the Law School, with whom I attended college at Swarthmore. My lecture, entitled "Modern Legal Philosophy," was much too long, but members of the audience that assembled in the Moot Courtroom were exemplary in their patience. Here is my opening paragraph:
Although I confess to having chosen my title for today with a view to taking advantage of the resonances it would suggest with Elizabeth Anscombe’s famous paper, my purpose is distinctly different from hers. In “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Anscombe lamented the state of the discipline and sought (with some success, as things turned out) to redirect it to its Aristotelian roots. Modern legal philosophy, as I see it, began badly—precisely because it incorporated some of the key defects in the understanding of practical reasoning that Anscombe identified as afflicting moral philosophy in its then dominant forms. But Anglo-American analytic jurisprudence has in the past sixty years largely overcome these defects and gotten itself on track. An assessment of the condition of modern legal philosophy need not be a lament, nor (I’m glad to say) need the assessor adopt the stance of a prophet recalling the wayward from the path of perdition.
Steve Gilles on Roe's Life-or-Health Exception
I just finished another semester teaching con law and another effort, which always comes toward the end of the semester, to explore the "life or health of the mother" exception that Roe and Casey require for abortion laws even post-viability. It always takes a while to explain how that exception has been construed in some (but not all) later cases to encompass a wide range of effects beyond physical harms. Did the exception ever really go so far as to guarantee "abortion on demand through all of pregnancy," as many pro-life people have claimed, and what's the status of the exception now? From here on it will be much easier for me to think through and teach these questions, because Steve Gilles (Qunnipiac) has written a great article, "Roe's Life-or-Health Exception: Self-Defense or Relative Safety?," 85 Notre Dame L. Rev. 525 (2010), a reprint of which just came in my mail. It's a model of how to work through an issue and identify how the Court's opinions have handled it, mishandled it, dodged it, etc. As Steve says, the article is essentially descriptive, but "it does make one normative claim: that the Supreme Court’s failure to explain the life-or-health exception’s rationale and scope is utterly irresponsible." Read the piece: it's a great resource.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Freedom of association: Not just for Boy Scouts anymore . . .
Some gay rights organizations have stood up for the right of associations to make their own membership decisions, even if not everyone approves of those decisions. Hopefully more organizations will see the danger to group identity posed by the sweeping expansion and application of anti-discrimination norms, now that the focus is on the Gay Softball World Series, not the Boy Scouts. (HT: David Bernstein)
Happy Earth Day!
Apparently Earth Day is big business now, but I'm the last person who should be judging others about the corruption of the day. On certain occasions -- such as the annual post-Christmas-present-unwrapping stupor or the periodic realization that I carry my own Great Pacific Garbage Vortex in the back of my minivan -- I have a sinking feeling that my family's carbon footprint is more akin to a carbon crater or canyon. I gladly spend ten minutes a week sorting our recyclables, but an environmental friendly lifestyle only extends about as far as my personal sense of convenience will carry it. That's my problem, not the government's, but my own sense of environmental ineptitude is exacerbated by the political discourse, which has made environmental causes another Rorschach test for one's overarching worldview. Are "drill baby drill!" and "Earth First!" the only options? While I'm not sure how one is supposed to celebrate Earth Day, I do think it is an occasion for us to reflect on our care for the planet, and Catholics should be at the front of the line when it comes to taking environmental stewardship seriously.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Celebrating Alasdair MacIntyre and the Center for Ethics & Culture
If you are in "Chicagoland", or "Michiana", tomorrow, consider joining the community at Notre Dame as we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Center for Ethics & Culture with a wonderful event:
On April 22, 2010, we will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture. The day will begin at 11:30am with Mass celebrated by The Most Reverend John M. D’Arcy, Bishop Emeritus, in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. At 4:00 p.m. in McKenna Hall Auditorium, we will host a symposium on the widely celebrated new book by our senior fellow, Alasdair MacIntyre: God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition. Commentators include: The Reverend John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. (philosophy), Professor John Cavadini (theology) and Dean John McGreevy (history). Professor MacIntyre will respond.
For registration info, go here.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Inazu on the Freedom of Association
Yesterday, the Court heard arguments in the Christian Legal Society case. This paper, by John Inazu, might make for timely reading:
The Unsettling ‘Well-Settled’ Law of Freedom of Association
John D. Inazu
Duke University School of Law
Abstract:
This article brings historical, theoretical, and doctrinal critiques to bear upon the current framework for the constitutional right of association. It argues that the Supreme Court’s categories of expressive and intimate association first announced in the 1984 decision, Roberts v. United States Jaycees, are neither well-settled nor defensible. Intimate association and expressive association are indefensible categories, but they matter deeply. They matter to the Jaycees. They matter to the Chi Iota Colony of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, a now defunct Jewish social group at the College of Staten Island that had sought to limit its membership to men. They matter to the Christian Legal Society at Hastings Law School, a student group denied official recognition because of its desire to limit its membership to Christians who adhered to its moral code (which included a prohibition on homosexual conduct). Each of these groups sought to maintain an unpopular composition and message in the face of anti-discrimination laws. Each was denied associational protections. Each was forced to change its composition – and therefore its message. Each no longer exists in the form it once held and desired to maintain.
The demise of associational protections is at least partially attributable to the Roberts categories of intimate and expressive association. These categories set in place a framework in which courts sidestep the hard work of weighing the constitutional values that shape the law that binds us. This article exposes the problems inherent in these categories and calls for a meaningful constitutional inquiry into laws impinging upon associational freedom. It suggests that the Court eliminate the categories of intimate and expressive association and turn instead to the right of assembly, which emphasizes the centrality of dissent to associational freedom.
The demise of associational protections is at least partially attributable to the Roberts categories of intimate and expressive association. These categories set in place a framework in which courts sidestep the hard work of weighing the constitutional values that shape the law that binds us. This article exposes the problems inherent in these categories and calls for a meaningful constitutional inquiry into laws impinging upon associational freedom. It suggests that the Court eliminate the categories of intimate and expressive association and turn instead to the right of assembly, which emphasizes the centrality of dissent to associational freedom.
Interesting data about "political" churches
It is often asserted, and -- it seems to me -- widely believed that "conservative" Evangelical churches and congregations are pervasively and distinctively politicized. Maybe not.
First, notwithstanding extensive media coverage of political mobilization within conservative churches, conservative white Protestant churches do not stand out in their level of political activity. Catholic and black Protestant churches, overall, are more politically active than either liberal or conservative white Protestants. About three-quarters of Catholics and black Protestants attend churches that engaged in at least one of these eight political activities, compared to about half of white Protestants, either conservative or liberal (Synagogues’ political activity rates, by the way, are as high as the Catholic and black Protestant rates).
Recent Posts
Categories
Monthly Archive
StatCounter
PageViews
Since February 19, 2008
