I cannot speak for those whom Michael P. calls Robby's "confreres in the Republican Party," and I'm actually not sure what Catholic social theory says, specifically, about the precise contours of financial-sector regulation, but certainly *I* would welcome more transparency in the operations of the Administration and Congress (neither of which is, at present, in the control of Robby's confreres). Michael, what do you think CST has to say about the matters discussed in the Simon Johnson piece? As Dennis Miller (or Foghat) might say, "talk to me, baby!"
Saturday, May 29, 2010
So, what *does* Catholic social theory have to say about that?
A different question about the Arizona case
I am not sure whether or not the procedure approved by Sr. McBride in Arizona is best regarded as "intentional" killing of the innocent or, indeed, whether -- even if it isn't -- it is well regarded as justifiable or "fair." Here's another question, though: Given all the givens, was there any good reason for Sr. McBride to approve this procedure at a Catholic hospital? I have not read anything that leads me to believe that the procedure was immediately necessary to save the mother's life. Assuming for now it wasn't, then shouldn't the fact that the procedure approved was (at the very least) plausibly regarded as immoral -- combined with an appropriate desire to avoid creating a scandal or causing confusion among people who are not schooled in the intricacies of these difficult questions -- have resulted in a different decision by Sr. McBride?
UPDATE: Cathy Kaveny brought to my attention this story, which reports that:
[The mother] was 11 weeks pregnant with her fifth child, and she was gravely ill. According to a hospital document, she had "right heart failure," and her doctors told her that if she continued with the pregnancy, her risk of mortality was "close to 100 percent."
The patient, who was too ill to be moved to the operating room much less another hospital, agreed to an abortion. But there was a complication: She was at a Catholic hospital.
So, the question I asked -- which, in my view, remains an important question at a general level -- does not seemed to be presented in this particular case. Thanks to Cathy for the pointer.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Christianity and Libertarianism
Over at the America blog, Michael Sean Winters -- with whom MOJ readers are familiar -- has this new(ish) post, discussing Christianity and Libertarianism. In it, he engages (appreciatively) Robby's recent post, in which "libertarianism" is characterized as a "heresy." Winters writes, among other things, that:
The problem is not just libertarianism, in which the difficulties are most obvious, but extend also to the modern, Western liberal state. (Here, "liberal" is intended in the Lockean sense of the word, not the partisan sense of the word.) Because, in Catholic anthropology, the idea of "personal autonomy" is not a "truth," not at the beginning and not at the end, and linking it with a Catholic notion of freedom is enormously problematic. . . .. . .
The problem for libertarianism . . . is that it starts at the wrong place. It is not a truth run amok. It is a falsehood masquerading as a truth. Yes, human freedom is a good thing, but what is freedom? I do not see how you can reconcile negative freedom with Christian anthropology. The "freedom of the children of God" of which St. Paul writes is not autonomy.
So, we only skate around the difficulties. The problem, of course, is not just philosophical. I love the practical consequences of the First Amendment as much as the next person, but I worry that it is built on a faulty foundation, that it derives from ideas about the human person and human dignity that do not cut the anthropological mustard, and like everything built on a faulty foundation, it may not be as sturdy as it seems. We can keep the issues fuzzy, but at the end of the day, the fact of the Incarnation calls into question the very idea of autonomy. I submit this is the central issue in our Western culture today and the point at which the Church remains the most counter-cultural influence in the West: How do we rescue human freedom and all the manifest good that flows from a politics in which human freedom is valued, from the nasty Enlightenment influences that require the privatization of religion? It is no small question and hats off to Professor George for raising it.
This is important stuff, and I invite my colleagues (and MOJ readers) to weigh in. Two quick thoughts of my own: First, I think "negative freedom" is reconcilable with (and, indeed, can serve well) the Christian understanding of human flourishing and common good, so long as the negative-freedom claim is (something like) "generally speaking, unless they have a sufficiently compelling reason, governments ought not to interfere with the plans and projects of persons and societies. Rather, persons and societies - generally speaking -- ought to enjoy the (negative) liberty to be free from such interference." This claim is, I suppose, "libertarian", but not in the misguided ("heretical") sense of making deep claims about autonomy.
Second, with respect to the First Amendment: It is possible (indeed, it is common) to think about, interpret, and apply the First Amendment as if it were a philosophical statement about the nature of truth (e.g., "it can only be found through the operation of an unregulated marketplace of ideas") or human flourishing (e.g., "no one is any position to judge whether or which ideas and statements are damaging or harmful"). But, it can also be understood, in a more pedestrian way: "Generally speaking, the government is an unreliable, or even untrustworthy, regulator of the search for, and debates about, truth. So, we disable the government from regulating speech not because there is no truth, or because ideas never cause harm, but only because the government-speech-regulation cure will too often be worse than the disease."
Other thoughts?
Michael's "deep waters"
With respect to this recent post by Michael P.:
Um, those are deep waters, and generalizations are perilous ...
Rick writes: "For me -- more than, I think, for Michael [Sean Winters] -- it is . . . a departure from justice, when our Supreme Court overreaches to invalidate even unjust immoral enactments of politically accountable representatives."
Rick, I don't have time to go into it now, but I can imagine situations--in my lifetime if not in yours--when it would not have been a departure from justice but a just act for SCOTUS to overreach.
Kent Greenawalt and I will be discussing just that issue at the Second Circuit Judicial Conference, in New Paltz, New York, on June 3.
No doubt it was the press of time that caused Michael to imagine that I lack his appreciation for the depth of the relevant waters. I hope he will find the time, though, to "go into it" soon, describe the situations he has in mind, and tell us more about decisions that are well characterized both as "overreaches" and as "just." (Brown, by the way -- which was, I admit, not decided in my lifetime -- is not such an example, because it was not, in my view, an "overreach" for the Court to hold that legally mandated racial segregation in our governments' government's schools violated the Equal Protection Clause, properly understood.)
My use of the word "overreach" was intentional: that is, I did not say (and, obviously, do not think) that it is unjust for the Supreme Court to invalidate immoral enactments of politically accountable representatives. Rather -- and in keeping with the theory of judicial review that Michael embraces in his recent books -- I said and think that the Court should not "overreach" even to secure policy outcomes that Michael and I believe are just (e.g., the abandoning of LWOP sentences for juveniles).
Thursday, May 20, 2010
"Slow Learners at the Ninth Circuit"
Just to torment Br. Perry (well, not just to torment him), I have to call MOJ readers' attention to George Will's recent column about the Ninth Circuit's (lawless) decision in the Winn case, which purported to strike down Arizona's (very successful) school-choice program. Keep your eye on this one. What the Court does with it should tell us a lot about the future of the Zelman decision, and about the future of Catholic schools that serve low-income kids. The lawyers seeking to save the program are seeking "summary reversal"; let's hope the Court does just that.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Updike's 'Seven Stanzas at Easter'
This poem, by John Updike, is probably known to the rest of you . . . but it was new to me. Very powerful:
Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was His flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.
- John Updike
I'm reminded of Flannery O'Connor's great line: "If it's just a symbol, to hell with it."
Friday, May 14, 2010
A great story about my former student
"The object of religious faith"
Prof. Bradley Lewis (CUA) notes, in a recent Letter to the Editor in the Washington Post, that "the object of religious faith is not the experience of God; it is God." Nice. It reminds me of another observation -- I'm not sure whose: Christianity is not about an ethic, it's about a real encounter with Jesus Christ.
UPDATE: D'oh! As a reader kindly pointed out to me this morning, I almost certainly heard this observation from the Pope:
That Christ opens the door to freedom is easily forgotten when Christianity is reduced to a system of rules to follow just to avoid damnation. As Ratzinger noted in a 2005 funeral [RG: for Fr. Guissani] homily, "Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas, or a moralism. Christianity is instead an encounter, a love story." The solution to the problem of moralism is an emphasis on love: "God is love and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16). According to Ratzinger, morality is fundamentally about the true and lasting fulfillment found in loving God, neighbor, and self.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Paul H. responds to Robby G. re: Elena K.
Check out Paul Horwitz'srecently posted thoughts, at Prawfs, responding to Robby's:
. . . Cornyn does say that a nominee's personal views on abortion (and other subjects) are irrelevant, and George doesn't disagree with that, as I understand him. Cornyn goes on to complain, however, that Democrats have insisted that nominees "swear allegiance to certain views with regard to abortion." In context, this seems to mean not just personal views, but legal views. He adds that "Senators should consider judicial nominees on the basis of their qualifications and commitment to applying the law as it is written -- regardless of their personal views on abortion or Roe."
The fact that Cornyn brings in both Roe v. Wade and "the law as it is written" complicates matters in both directions. On the one hand, a personal view on Roe is distinct from a personal view on abortion; it's arguably more a jurisprudential view than a purely moral and personal one. Cornyn seems to suggest that questions or votes along these lines are off the table -- that whether one thinks Roe was wrongly decided (at the time, he was thinking about Republican nominees) or rightly decided is not a proper basis for a yes or no vote. On the other hand, what are we to make of the phrase "the law as it is written?" If Kagan says she is committed to upholding the precedents of the Court, does that make her a sound nominee under Cornyn's criteria because she is committed to applying the law as it is written? Or is the question whether she is willing to strike down precedents that don't accord with the law as it is written in the Constitution itself -- which, on Cornyn's view, presumably doesn't include a right to abortion? . . .
Thanks to Paul and Robby for the exchange.
Fruits of Thought, in response to Michael and Mark Lilla
Michael posted, here, two paragraphs from a recent article by Mark Lilla, on the "Tea Party Jacobins." Lilla wrote:
"We are experiencing just one more aftershock from the libertarian eruption that we all, whatever our partisan leanings, have willed into being. For half a century now Americans have been rebelling in the name of individual freedom. Some wanted a more tolerant society with greater private autonomy, and now we have it, which is a good thing—though it also brought us more out-of-wedlock births, a soft pornographic popular culture, and a drug trade that serves casual users while destroying poor American neighborhoods and destabilizing foreign nations. Others wanted to be free from taxes and regulations so they could get rich fast, and they have—and it’s left the more vulnerable among us in financial ruin, holding precarious jobs, and scrambling to find health care for their children. We wanted our two revolutions. Well, we have had them.
Now an angry group of Americans wants to be freer still—free from government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well-being; free from problems and policies too difficult to understand; free from parties and coalitions; free from experts who think they know better than they do; free from politicians who don’t talk or look like they do (and Barack Obama certainly doesn’t). They want to say what they have to say without fear of contradiction, and then hear someone on television tell them they’re right. They don’t want the rule of the people, though that’s what they say. They want to be people without rules—and, who knows, they may succeed. This is America, where wishes come true. And where no one remembers the adage 'Beware what you wish for.'”
These paragraphs, Michael suggested, offer "food for thought." And indeed they do. My thoughts about the first paragraph are: "Prof. Lilla is right, and he makes a point that we here at MOJ -- echoing, of course, Pope John Paul II's Christian humanism, and frequent emphasis on authentic, as opposed to ersatz, freedom -- have made often." My thoughts on the second paragraph are: "Too bad. After making a good point, Prof. Lilla descends immediately into unfair and simplistic partisan sniping." Here's hoping MOJ will always be a place that more resembles Lilla's first paragraph than his second.
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