Like Steve, and Marc, I attended last week the (second) Annual Law and Religion Roundtable, in Chicago, which was organized by Nelson Tebbe, Paul Horwitz, and me, and generously hosted by Andy Koppelman and Northwestern University. It was a great event -- many interesting, provocative, engaging papers; good friends and fellowship; and a beautiful city. I'm sure other MOJers who were there will chime in, too (hint, hint), but I agree with Steve about the two (related) questions / themes that seemed to run through the event: (1) "Is religion special?" and (2) "How should we think about the religious freedom of groups / communities / associations . . . churches?" As you might guess, the upcoming Hosanna-Tabor case came up often.
Two quick thoughts: First, I think we should never be *too* confident in our ability to identify clean lines between "religion" and "the secular" -- let alone "religion" and "nonreligion." I do not know what "nonreligion" is. To be sure, there's no getting around the fact that we have to construct (even if we cannot identify) categories of religion's "free exercise" and "establishment" in order to interpret and apply our Constitution, but the idea that we can distinguish between, say, "religious" reasons for legislation and "moral-but-secular" reasons seems implausible to me.
Second, with respect to Steve's statement that "religious claims for exemptions should clearly be honored over general liberty claims, but I see no good argument for honoring religious claims for exemptions over non-religious claims of conscience." I guess, for me, it depends on what is meant by "over." I think that the First Amendment gives us good reasons for treating "religion" and "religious" claims of conscience (see above, though, re: "religious") over other "conscience"-based claims. The latter category, it seems to me, will be taken seriously by, and accommodated to the extent possible by, a decent political community, not because they are the same as religious claims, but because such a community should, to the extent possible, avoid causing pain and suffering to its members.
I thought readers might be interested in hearing about what looks to be an important and impressive gathering at the University of Notre Dame:
Some of the world’s leading experts across a variety of relevant disciplines are coming to the Notre Dame Law School for a weeklong “Workshop on Adult and Non-embryonic Stem Cell Research” June 27 – July 1.
In conjunction with the workshop, an afternoon lecture series, “Alternate Visions of Stem Cell Research: Scientific, Ethical, Legal & Theological Dimensions” will be open to the public from 4 – 5 p.m. each day in the Patrick F. McCarran Court Room in the Law School’s Eck Hall of Law.\
Notre Dame Law Professor Carter Snead and Emeritus Professor Phil Sloan (of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Notre Dame’s Program of Liberal Studies) will co-lead the workshop and are hosting the week’s public events, which are part of a University-wide effort to develop a center for high-level interdisciplinary work on the various dimensions of human developmental biology. Professor Snead will deliver a public lecture on Thursday, entitled “The Legal and Public Policy Dimensions of Stem Cell Research.” Numerous entities throughout the wider University . . . have endorsed the initiative, which seeks to demonstrate that respect for the equal dignity of every human being (from conception to natural death) and a commitment to excellence and rigor in research are both integral and complementary goods necessary to pursuing the proper ends of biomedical science, most richly understood.
As the premier American Catholic research university, Notre Dame is ideally suited for this work. It has strong departments in biology, engineering, law, theology, philosophy, and the history and philosophy of science with individuals in each component with expertise in all aspects of stem cell research. Moreover, given its distinctive Catholic mission, Notre Dame offers a unique voice to this domain of inquiry.
The university is grateful for the many participants in this inaugural event, including Dr. Donald Landry, M.D./Ph.D. (the Chair of the Department of Medicine at Columbia University) and Dr. Carlos Cordon-Cardo, M.D./Ph.D (Chair of the Department of Pathology at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City), as well other top academics from both University of Notre Dame and other elite universities in the U.S. and abroad. Finally, we are thankful for the interest and participation of the Holy See, including especially the involvement of Msr. Melchor Sanchez de Toca, M.A., S.T.D, D.Phil (Undersecretary for the Pontifical Academy for Culture) and Rev. Tomasz Trafny, S.T.D., D.Phil. (Executive Coordinator, Science Theology, and the Ontological Quest (STOQ) Project; Head, Science and Faith Department, Pontifical Academy for Culture).
As Wesley Smith reports (here), a federal district court judge has issued an opinion blocking Indiana's recently enacted effort to withhold state funding from Planned Parenthood. In my view, the opinion is unfortunate, and mistaken. Richard Stith, asks, at the University Faculty for Life blog, a question that, it seems to me, often gets overlooked:
The best reason not to fund Planned Parenthood is never mentioned in the newspapers. (Could it also have been overlooked in the briefs?)
Numerous undercover investigations have shown that Planned Parenthood prefers money to the interests of women. But even without that evidence, it would be unwise to entrust pregnancy prevention and pregnancy counseling to Planned Parenthood as long as it is profiting from abortion. No organization that is supposed to prevent pregnancy, or counsel pregnant clients on their options, should be making money from a particular post-pregnancy outcome, i.e. abortion. Fair and neutral pregnancy prevention and counseling will be much more likely with organizations or agencies that do not have such a built-in conflict of interest. (German constitutional law, for example, requires the separation of abortion counseling from abortion provision, and South Dakota has wisely moved in this direction recently.)
The above rationale should easily withstand both constitutional and regulatory challenges, for it focuses solely on benefits to clients, not on the pros or cons of abortion.
Good Lord, set in thy Church strong and mightly pillars that may suffer and endure great labours, which also shall not fear persecution, neither death, but always suffer with a good will, slanders, shame and all kinds of torments, for the glory and praise of thy holy Name.
By this manner, good Lord, the truth of thy Gospel shall be preached throughout the world.
Therefor, merciful Lord, exercise thy mercy, show it indeed upon thy Church.
My friend and colleague, rock-star sociologist of religion Christian Smith, recently came into full communion with the Catholic Church and has a new book, available at Amazon, called "How To Go from Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in Ninety-Five [get it?] Difficult Steps." I read the book in draft, and loved it. It has, I think, as much (maybe more) to teach (or remind) and challenge Catholics as it does to help curious Evangelical Protestants. It's not a polemic, by any stretch, and isn't really "apologetics", though it does have an Apologia Pro Vita Sua dimension. Highly recommended.
Yours, thanks to the modern miracle of SSRN: John Finnis, "Philosophy of Law: An Introduction." Here is the abstract:
This Introduction to my 'Philosophy of Law: Collected Essays Volume IV' (Oxford University Press 2011), published in the United Kingdom in early April, and in the United States in early May 2011, introduces the volume’s 22 published and unpublished essays, and follows the volume’s division into four Parts: Foundations of Law’s Authority; Theories and Theorists of Law; Legal Reasoning; and the Two Senses of “Legal System.” The first half of the Introduction is, in effect, a brief new essay on the foundations of the positivity of positive law, revisiting issues taken up in chapter I of Natural Law and Natural Rights and issues involved in the so-called sources thesis and in the labeling of theories as “positivist.” Later parts of the Introduction indicate some patterns emergent in the volume’s many essays on particular theorists and theories; review the bearing of the “one-right answer” thesis on legal reasoning and some prime examples of judicial misreasoning; and the relation of the idea of “legal system” to issues around the emergence of independent states in the British Empire, and around Britain’s absorption into and subjection to the European Union. The Introduction, like the volume, intersects with the Introductions to, and contents of, each of the other volumes in the five-volume set, which is published just before the second edition of Natural Law and Natural Rights, reformatted to accompany the set and incorporating a 65-page Postscript. The Collected Essays are I Reason in Action, II Intention and Identity, III Human Rights and Common Good, IV Philosophy of Law, V Religion and Public Reasons. Each volume includes the index for the set, and the author’s bibliography.
I'm not the bigggest David Brooks fan, but I thought his op-ed, "It's Not About You," from a few weeks ago, about the right message to send to new college grads, was very thoughtful, and very "Catholic" in theme. Especially this, from the end:
Today’s grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they’ll discover that the tasks of a life are at the center. Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.
At First Things, Joseph Knippenberg (reasonably) reacts uneasily to a recent NLRB decision requiring a Catholic university to permit a labor union to attempt to organize its adjunct faculty. His post includes links to the relevant decisions.
Our own John Breen just delivered, here at Notre Dame, at the annual conference of University Faculty for Life, an (I thought) devastating critique of the argument -- often associated with Justice Stevens -- that regulations of abortion violate the Establishment Clause because they depend on (what can only be) a "religious" premise. In due course, I hope John will post the paper here at MOJ!
