There has been a lot of discussion about and coverage of the recent conference, “Erroneous Autonomy: The Catholic Case Against Libertarianism,” which was sponsored by Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies. (Robert Christian provides a very helpful summary of the presentations, here.) From what I can gather, the participants made a number of important points. At the same time, as I suggested a few days ago in this post, I continue to think that the ongoing critique by some Catholics of "libertarianism" as inconsistent with the Church's social teaching would be more valuable and effective if it were more careful to avoid invoking and attacking straw men (Paul Ryan's favorite books notwithstanding, it is not the case that "laissez faire", "unfettered" capitalism or Randian objectivism exists anywhere or is a live political option in the United States) and to disinguish consistently between "libertarianism's" unsound (and inconsistent-with-Catholicism) anthropological and philosophical premises, on the one hand, and specific policies that some self-identified "libertarians" support. If this distinction is not recalled and observed, it becomes easy to dismiss, perhaps in a partisan way, specific policies that are justifiable on entirely Catholic grounds and that owe nothing to an unsound anthropology or to "erroneous autonomy" simply because the label "libertarian" is attached to them by some.
If my Twitter feed is any guide, my raising these concerns is taken by some as an expression of support for "libertarianism" or as a disagreement with the Church's social teaching. But, at least readers of MOJ should know that it is no such thing. In academic writing (here) and in probably hundreds of MOJ posts over the last decade -- including my very first post ("Law and Moral Anthropology") -- I have endorsed the moral anthropology of Redemptor Hominis and rejected the one of Atlas Shrugged, and I have insisted that all legal and public policy questions should be seen as depending crucially on accounts of what it means to be human. In the spirit of "throwback Thursday," here's a quote from that first post (February 2004!):
One of our shared goals for this blog is to -- in Mark's words -- "discover[] how our Catholic perspective can inform our understanding of the law." One line of inquiry that, in my view, is particularly promising -- and one that I know several of my colleagues have written and thought about -- involves working through the implications for legal questions of a Catholic "moral anthropology." By "moral anthropology," I mean an account of what it is about the human person that does the work in moral arguments about what we ought or ought not to do and about how we ought or ought not to be treated; I mean, in Pope John Paul II's words, the “moral truth about the human person."
The Psalmist asked, "Lord, what is man . . . that thou makest account of him?” (Ps. 143:3). This is not only a prayer, but a starting point for jurisprudential reflection. All moral problems are anthropological problems, because moral arguments are built, for the most part, on anthropological presuppositions. That is, as Professor Elshtain has put it, our attempts at moral judgment tend to reflect our “foundational assumptions about what it means to be human." Jean Bethke Elshtain, The Dignity of the Human Person and the Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries, 14 JOURNAL OF LAW AND RELIGION 53, 53 (1999-2000). As my colleague John Coughlin has written, the "anthropological question" is both "perennial" and profound: "What does it mean to be a human being?” Rev. John J. Coughlin, Law and Theology: Reflections on What it Means to Be Human, 74 ST. JOHN’S LAW REVIEW 609, 609 (2000).
In this post, Michael Sean Winters -- who has been focused on the conference's theme for a while and in many posts and articles -- quotes me:
I agree with Michael Sean that conversations about public policy should be couched in terms that treat ideas like "competition" and "consumer choice" as means and mechanisms. But, it's worth remembering that they are, often, very effective means and mechanisms. To the extent they are, let’s use them! Sometimes, “libertarian” (or "free market" or "non-state" or "private ordering") policies are the better ones, not so much because of imperatives connected with deep anthropological premises or because of an idolatrous attachment to autonomy, but because . . . they work better (at bringing about human flourishing and common good, properly understood).
He then says, "Garnett expects the adjective 'effective' to carry a lot of water. 'Effective' at what? As I noted before, it is worth asking the question whether our current economic system does not create spiritual poverty at the same time that it creates material wealth, and if this co-creation is acceptable to a Christian."
I do not disagree at all, and I don't think Michael Sean's observation undermines or is inconsistent with my point and with the concerns I've been raising, which is not a particularly "big" one: Some policies, which are supported by "libertarians" or to which the label "libertarian" is attached are sound policies which Catholics can and should support, which are consistent with the Church's social teaching and with Christian anthropology, and which are "effective" in the sense that they accomplish worthy goals (i.e., goals that Michael Sean and I, I am sure, would often agree are worthy) in an efficient way and without unintended or undesired consequences. And, some policies that are framed in terms of "communitarianism" or "solidarity" or the preferential option for the poor are, notwithstanding this framing, unsound and unwise policies , , , and sometimes inconsistent with the Church's social teachings.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
I enjoyed this essay, by John Haldane, called "Francis, Benedict, and MacIntyre," which is up at Ethika Politica. Here is a taste:
MacIntyre shares with Benedict and Francis three central beliefs: first, that contemporary Western culture is at sea when it comes to thinking about the foundations of morality; second, that it is characterised by a pervasive relativism; and third, that this relativism is not only “cognitive” but is also affective and practical.
I want to end this short discussion by suggesting that there is a fourth belief that unites the Popes and the philosopher . . .
The fourth belief is that to persuade those with whom one is in wholesale disagreement about the nature and content of morality it is not enough simply to state one’s position, or even to argue rationally for it; one has also to expose the confusions and contradictions involved in the thought of the other side. . . .
"Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy," is the title of this piece in the Times, about the decision by Bowdoin College to cease "recognizing" the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship because the Fellowship has "refused to agree to the college’s demand that any student, regardless of his or her religious beliefs, should be able to run for election as a leader of any group, including the Christian association."
The piece is fair and informative, I think. But, the policy it addresses is unwise, unfair, and contrary to its own purported goals of respecting pluralism and diversity. And, as I have argued elsewhere, it reflects -- as do many other applications of the antidiscrimination norm to religious groups and associations -- a common but dangerous (to pluralism) misunderstanding of wrongful "discrimination." There is nothing that a government-run university in a secular, liberal political community should regard and treat as "wrong" about a non-state association taking that association's mission, purpose, character, practices, aims, etc., into account when setting policies about membership and leadership.
Here is an interesting post, by Thomas Kidd, called "Anti-Catholicism: The Defining Religious Principle of Early America?" Among other things, Kidd discusses Owen Stanwood's The Empire Reformed: English America in the Age of the Glorious Revolution. (ed.: The "Glorious Revolution" was neither glorious, nor a revolution. Discuss.) He closes with this:
When Americans debate the role of religion in the American Founding, they’re often given two stark choices – either it was a religious founding in which religion worked for good, or a secular founding in which secularism worked for good. But in anti-Catholicism, we see a third type of role that religion played in early America, a species of religious opinion that was, from a modern perspective, less than constructive. Their anti-Catholicism may have been understandable, given the background of the Reformation, the serious theological concerns that birthed it, and the interminable wars prompted by the religious alliances of European states. Just ask French Protestants, the colonists would have reminded us, what happens when a Catholic state takes away Protestants’ very right to exist. (Catholics had evidence of such nightmare scenarios, too.)
But for evangelicals today who have grown to appreciate our Catholic friends’ advocacy for life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty, as well as their defense of doctrines such as Christ’s divinity in an era of liberal Protestant heterodoxy, the pervasiveness of early American anti-Catholicism makes one wince. Yes, Christianity played a major role in the founding of the colonies, and of the new American nation, but we should not assume that their religion was always a force for good. . . .
At "Cornerstone," the blog on religious freedom of Georgetown's Berkley Center, I have an essay about the likely result in Hobby Lobby/Conestoga: "Kennedy, the Perennial Swing Vote, and the Likelihood of A Narrow Ruling." The title pretty much summarizes it. I think the fears that any ruling upholding Hobby Lobby's religious-freedom claim will reflect a libertarian, Lochner-type "trash government regulation" approach are greatly overstated, because there are principled narrow ways to reach that result:
We can’t be certain which way Kennedy, and therefore the Court, will go. My point is that the Court can sustain the companies’ challenges on narrow grounds that will not pose any threat to the broad range of commercial regulations. I hope, and I think the chances are good, that the Court will do just that.
Monday, June 9, 2014
Despite the occasional snarky comment (from both sides), thoughtful public citizens of Catholic faith from both sides of the political spectrum earnestly desire a society in which people thrive, economically, socially, and religiously. We all want to see children enjoying a quality education. We all want to see young men and women of all races and from all backgrounds have an equal opportunity to succeed in life. We all want to see the unfortunate have access to housing, nutrition, and health care.
From the most part, what divides us are not first principles but a disagreement as to what works. (I say, "for the most part," as I do think there is some distance between the left and right on the independent value of freedom of choice -- that is, a freedom from even the well-intentioned directives of government.) Or, to put it in terms of Catholic teaching, the primary question is one of prudential considerations. And that, in turn, depends largely on evidence about how policies fare when translated into the real world.
Aaron Renn, an urban analyst, writes in City Journal about Rhodes Island as "The Bluest State." As Renn describes it, "Rhode Island has the full complement of blue-model orthodoxy: high taxes, high social-services spending, powerful unions, and suffocating regulation." And the result? 
Small wonder that Rhode Island scores poorly in most business-climate surveys—47th in the Small Business Survival Index and 46th in the Tax Foundation’s rankings of business-tax climate.
Its blue-state enthusiasms have done the state serious damage. Depending on the month, Rhode Island has either the worst or second-worst unemployment rate in the nation: 9.3 percent, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. Since 2000, the state has lost 2.5 percent of its jobs, and what jobs it has created are mostly low-paying. The job situation is so dire that entire local economies have become dominated by the benefits-payment cycle. In Woonsocket, for example, one-third of residents are on food stamps.
On top of this, real incomes have remained "stagnant for decades" and housing is "prohibitively expensive."
Renn's prescription?
Rhode Island has to reduce the size of its government—paring back taxes, spending, and regulation, and doing so over the long haul until it has a fiscally sustainable system that doesn’t strangle its economy. And somehow, the state’s leaders and residents need to rethink their views on development and free enterprise.
You can read the full article here.
