As we start the new school year, it's a good time to read this very nice piece by my former student (and current Catholic-school teacher), Matt Emerson, at Patheos. The essay is called "Catholic Education Matters." Indeed, it does.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
"Catholic Education Matters"
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Natural Law, "positivism", judging, etc.
This paper, by Michael Baur, is relevant to a number of MOJ posts and conversations about the role of judges, the extent to which they should (or must) identify and enforce the natural law, the work of Hadley Arkes and others, etc. Among other things, Baur confirms as sound the view of my friend, Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, that there is a "third way" (between "positivism" and "aggressive" natural-law thinking) according to which:
judges may not look beyond the positive law in order to enforce what, in their own minds, is required by the natural law; however, judges working within the American tradition may legitimately appeal to natural law moral principles in their legal decision-making, since this sort of appeal is consistent with strict reliance on the positive law itself insofar as natural law moral principles are built into—or embedded within—American positive law itself. . . . UPDATE: Link added. Sorry for the oversight!
"The Failure of Liberal Bioethics"
Ross Douthat reflects, here, on the recent (very troubling, I thought) NYT Magazine piece on "selective reduction." He observes:
From embryo experimentation to selective reduction to the eugenic uses of abortion, liberals always promise to draw lines and then never actually manage to draw them. . . . [T]hey find reasons to embrace each new technological leap while promising to resist the next one — and then time passes, science marches on, and they find reasons why the next moral compromise, too, must be accepted for the greater good, or at least tolerated in the name of privacy and choice. You can always count on them to worry, often perceptively, about hypothetical evils, potential slips down the bioethical slope. But they’re either ineffectual or accommodating once an evil actually arrives. Tomorrow, they always say — tomorrow, we’ll draw the line. But tomorrow never comes.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Waldron on "Equal Moral Status" and "Right Reason"
This paper, by Jeremy Waldron, might be of interest:
Does ‘Equal Moral Status’ Add Anything to Right Reason?
Jeremy Waldron
New York University (NYU) - School of Law
July 29, 2011
NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 11-52
Abstract:
This paper explores the possibility that the principle of basic equality might be explicated by reference to the idea that humans constitute a "single-status" community. It explores some difficulties with the idea of status in its original legal habitat. These difficulties include skepticism about status fostered by John Austin and others. The paper attempts to answer this skepticism, and it concludes (along with Jeremy Bentham, who in this respect disagreed with his disciple) that once one takes a dynamic view of a legal system, the idea of legal status is not an eliminable idea. The paper then examines the distinction between what I call "sortal-status" and "condition-status." Sortal status works from the idea that law recognizes different kinds of human being: racist and sexist legal systems are characterized by sortal-status concepts. Condition-status recognizes that persons may get into various scrapes, situations, conditions, and vicissitudes, or pass through certain stages, that are marked by status distinctions. (These include infancy, alienage, felony, bankruptcy, matriage, military service etc.) Once one makes this distinction, then the idea of a single (sortal) status society becomes a promising vehicle for expressing ideas about moral equality.
"On Truth and Trade"
There's an interesting conversation, here, at the Dappled Things blog, about capitalism, distributism, economics, and the "Catholic vision of the Good Life." Specifically, the question posed is whether "capitalism" or "distributism" is the "economic system that is most compatible with a Catholic understanding of the good life." Profs. Robert Miller and John Medaille respond. Check it out!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
"Religion and the Cult of Tolerance"
Bill McGurn has a piece in the Wall Street Journal today, about the Hosanna-Tabor case (and other important things). Check it out.
Finnis-fest at Notre Dame
One of the many gifts that have come my way, thanks to my position at Notre Dame, has been the chance to work with, learn from, and get to know one of our time's truly great scholars, Prof. John Finnis. To mark the occasion of the publication, by Oxford University Press, of a new five-volume (!!) collection of his essays, Notre Dame Law School is hosting an all-day conference to celebrate John's life and work. More info is here. And, why not buy the books?
Sunday, August 7, 2011
"Standing, Spending, and Separation"
I (finally) got around to posting on SSRN a (relatively) recent paper of mine, called "Standing, Spending, and Separation: How the No-Establishment Rule Does (and Does Not) Protect Conscience." Here's the abstract:
The First Amendment’s “Establishment Clause” is widely thought to protect “conscience.” Does it? If so, how? It is proposed in this paper that the no-establishment rule does indeed promote and protect religious liberty, and does safeguard conscience, but not (or, at least, not only) in the way most people think it does, namely, by sparing those who object from the asserted injury to their conscience caused by public funding of religious activity.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation - a case in which the Justices limited taxpayer standing to bring Establishment Clause claims - reminds us of the importance in our constitutional law and tradition of structural devices that preserve individual liberty and, in so doing, helps to illuminate the real relationship between nonestablishment and the liberty of conscience: Nonestablishment and church-state separation protect conscience by committing us to the idea that there are, and ought to be, multiple, rival authorities. Protecting and respecting the freedom of conscience requires protecting and respecting the competing associations, institutions, and authorities that both clear out the space in which consciences are formed and engage in the formation of consciences. A community that cherishes the freedom of conscience will allow non-state formers-of-conscience to flourish, will acknowledge their appropriate independence, and will not aspire to remake them in its own image.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
"Good without God"
Jerry Coyne writes, in this op-ed, that "[a]s atheists know, you can be good without God." What the piece is actually about, though, is not the not-very-interesting question, "Can an atheist be 'good'?" (Of course he or she can), but rather, "does morality come from God?" Coyne says:
But though both moral and immoral behaviors can be promoted by religions, morality itself — either in individual behavior or social codes — simply cannot come from the will or commands of a God. This has been recognized by philosophers since the time of Plato. . . .
Then, after citing examples from the Bible and other religious texts in which God appears to command or will bad things, Coyne writes:
When religious people pick and choose their morality from Scripture, they clearly do so based on extrareligious notions of what's moral. . ..
And then:
Secular morality is what pushes religion to improve its own dogma on issues such as slavery and the treatment of women. . .
And so on. The question that is not, it seems to me, really acknowledged or engaged is whether, if there were no God, "secular morality" would be true. As a number of learned people (Perry, Wolterstorff, etc.) have suggested, it is not at all obvious that, for example, the claims proposed in human-rights discourse have any foundation (though they certain sound nice and yield good results) if it is not the case that we are made and loved by God.
More challenges to the Freedom of the Church by / in China
"China to defy Vatican," the Telegraph recently reported, "with seven new [state-picked] bishops." This little bit of the story caught my eye:
Asked if the new candidates were approved by the Holy See, [Liu Bainian, president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the government body which runs the Chinese Church] said: "There's no official channel for communications, but we cannot delay the election of our bishops because it is important to spread the gospel. We hope that the Vatican will respect the outcome of our elections."
Interesting that the president of a "government body" in China is emphasizing the importance of spreading the Gospel. One might not have thought this was a high priority for that nation's government.
Rocco Palmo has more on the story, here:
Even if secularism and challenges to religious expression in society rate as key concerns on the ecclesial radar in Europe and the Americas, the Chinese drama that's flared in fits and starts over recent years rises to a threat level practically all its own. Because, in a nutshell, while many Westerners have come to be alarmed over external hurdles perceived to limit the presence of faith and the rights of believers in the public square, in the world's largest country, the church is unable to merely exist according to its own determination, its internal governance carried out under the close supervision of the state -- and, often, contingent upon the latter's approval. . . .
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