Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

"The Religious Divide"

By Rick Garnett

Here's a bit from a Boston Globe op-ed by Cathy Young (of Reason magazine):

BEHIND THE political divide in America, there is also a religious divide. The split is not just between people who believe and people who do not; it is between those who see religious faith as society's foundation and those who see it as society's bane. So far, the debates on this subject have generated more heat than light, as both sides preach to the converted and talk at, not to, those who disagree.\

. . .  Each side in the faith wars is angry and afraid. Secularists see a creeping theocracy in attempts to outlaw same-sex unions, abortion, and stem cell research and to promote government funding for faith-based charities. Believers see assaults on their values everywhere from education to television and movies. Non religious Americans feel they are a beleaguered minority; in fact, more than half of Americans hold a negative view of people who don't believe in God. Religious Americans feel, also with some justification, that they are held in contempt by intellectual and cultural elites (remember Ted Turner's reference to Catholics as "Jesus freaks"?)

Unfortunately, the current polemics only reinforce these fears. Religious people see atheists who are hateful and intolerant toward faith, to the point of wanting to ban it; secularists see champions of religion who promote hostility toward non believers and wield religion as a political club. Under these circumstances, there is little prospect for dialogue or true understanding -- only for more shouting.

Pope Benedict on Religious Freedom

By Rick Garnett

Here (thanks to Amy Welborn) are some most excellent thoughts on religious freedom from il Papa:

Religious freedom is not only the individual right of each person to profess and display one’s faith, but it is also the collective right of families, groups and the Church itself, and engages civil power to “create conditions favourable to the fostering of religious life, so that citizens are truly able to exercise their religious rights and fulfil their respective duties.”  The cordial meeting between the Pope and the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, gave occasion to Benedict XVI to reinforce the concept of religious freedom and to reaffirm the respect due to it by States, as occurs in Italy and other countries.

. . .  "It would however be reductive,” the Pope went on to say, “to consider that the right of religious freedom is sufficiently guaranteed based on the absence of violence against or interference in personal convictions or when it is limited to respecting manifestations of faith that occur in the ambit of places of worship.  Not to be forgotten in fact is that ‘the  social nature of man itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion: that he should share with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community’ (ibid).  Thus religious freedom is not only a right of the individual but also of the family, of religious groups and of the Church herself (cf Dignitatis humanae, 4-5.13) and the exercise of this right has an influence on the multiple ambits and situations in which the believer finds himself and operates.  An adequate respect for the right to religious freedom implicates, therefore, the engagement of civil power to “create conditions favourable to the fostering of religious life, in order that the people may be truly enabled to exercise their religious rights and to fulfill their religious duties, and also in order that society itself may profit by the moral qualities of justice and peace which have their origin in men's faithfulness to God and to His holy will’ (Dignitatis humanae, 6).”

Now, regular readers will note the consonance between the Pope's statement and the work of a certain blogging law professor (ahem).  Accordingly, I have decided to borrow a bit of magisterial authority, and canonize, sua sponte, this man.  I'll also be issuing a motu proprio, or bull, or some other document, banning the liturgical use of songs written by Marty Haugen and Bernadette Farrell.  And . . . I'm just gettin' warmed up. . . .

Charity and Justice

By Rick Garnett

Notre Dame philosopher John O'Callaghan passes on some thoughts about our recent discussion about charitable giving:

While I support taxation that, among other things, puts wealth to the use of ameliorating poverty, it is important to distinguish the apple of taxation from the orange of charitable giving.  The discussion has tended to throw taxation and charitable giving into the same basket, in order to ask, "who does more for the poor, liberals or conservatives?".  But the government's use of the wealth of my neighbor to ameliorate poverty is not a charitable act on the government's part, or my neighbor's part simply because of his participating in it.  It may be an act of justice--but it certainly isn't in any ordinary sense a charitable act.  And when I place my wealth at the service of the common good through taxation I may be participating in an act of justice.  But as such it is no more a charitable act on my part than it is for my neighbor, even if I do it willingly and he unwillingly.  Government putting the wealth of the community to the use and service of the common good, even wealth that is possessed privately according to human law, is a primary task of government required in justice by the natural law.

Charity, on the other hand, is an infused theological virtue--the love of God and the love of neighbor in God.  Acts of charity need not be conceived of along strictly individualist lines, as if individual persons cannot enter into voluntary communities, and act charitably in common.  And being an act of charity does not necessarily exclude being an act of justice.  So, perhaps as an individual citizen, informed by that theological virtue, one can participate in the just acts of government.  But given the condition of our modern desacralized political communities, to equate the just acts of government with charitable acts would be to attribute grace to the activities of government in pursuit of justice.  But that would appear to resacralize the modern state in a way that I suspect most of your readers, even your liberal readers, would want to avoid.  To entrust the gift of charity to the managers of the modern state empties it of its supernatural power, a practical argument for subsidiarity if there ever was one.

So it would still seem to be the case that conservatives, according to the study mentioned, are indeed more charitable than liberals, charitably assuming of course that those acts identified by the author of the study do in fact proceed from the theological virtue of charity.  And as you pointed out, conservatives also pay their taxes.  But in the end, does it matter who has the upper hand in serving the needs of the poor, the conservatives or the liberals?  Consider the words of St. Robert Bellarmine: "it matters little whether one goes to hell for lack of justice or from lack of charity."

Much Ado About Nothing?

By Eduardo Penalver

Apparently, Brooks found in an October 2003 article that religiosity has a much greater impact on charitable giving and volunteering than political affiliation.  (I can't find an on-line version of the article, but you can find a shorter version of it here.) In fact, Brooks says that intensity of political feeling matters more than what one actually believes (e.g., strongly conservative and strongly liberal give more than more wishy washy types).  If religiosity trumps politics, then this strikes me as altering some of the fundamental meaning of the book's findings.  It suggests that the most significant factor at work is religiosity and not ideology and that the comparison of religious conservatives to secular liberals is a red herring intended to stir up debate (and publicity for the book), but does not tell us much about either conservatives or liberals.  In any event, I've ordered the book from Amazon and will report back when I've had a chance to read it.

The Shame of Darfur

By Michael Scaperlanda

As a follow-up to Susan's post, my colleague, Allen Hertzke wrote an article entitled The Shame of Darfur, which was published in First Things in October of 2005.  Here are the opening paragraphs:

"In April 2005, a striking celebration occurred in Washington to mark the signing of a peace accord between rebel groups of southern Sudan and the Islamist regime in Khartoum, ending Africa’s longest and bloodiest civil war. In a packed room in the Longworth House Office Building, Sudanese exiles mingled with the American officials and religious leaders whose efforts helped halt Sudan’s two-decade genocidal war against its non-Muslim population.

The event marked a triumph for both the Bush administration and the faith-based human-rights movement that has burst on the American foreign-policy scene in recent years. But the triumph was muted, for the Sudanese government in Khartoum has now turned its attention from the southern part of the country to the western, undertaking massive ethnic cleansing in the region known as Darfur. And so far, neither America’s religious community nor its government has acted with the same vigor in addressing the crisis."

The full text is here.

Catholic Response to Darfur

By Susan Stabile

I received the following from a MOJ reader:

"I am reaching out to you as a resource or a guide to assist me in understanding the Catholic response to the atrocities in Darfur.  I read a blog by Greg Sisk in the Mirror of justice, however the link to his contact information is broken.  I am very concerned about the lack of public attention the Pope has called to this issue.  I do realize he has made statements (last known in January of this year) in regard to the need to intervene in Darfur, but it is not enough.  I do not hear about this issue at Mass and other than donating to Catholic Relief Services I do not know how I can help.  The church and the Pope have the power to intervene in Darfur through a public campaign on the issue - however for all intent and purpose we seem to be silent as thousands are murdered.  Please advise how we as Catholics can take action on this issue."

Any thoughts for our reader?  I confess I share the frustration that more outrage is not being expressed (by everyone - Catholics and non-Catholics) over what is happening in Darfur.

The Heart of the Matter

By Rick Garnett

In the December 2006 issue of First Things (not yet available on line), there is a short piece by John F. Crosby, "The Witness of Dietrich von Hildebrand," discussing the launch of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project.  Crosby quotes a short review by Hildebrand, "The Struggle for the Human Person," which includes this:

All of Western Christian civilization stands and falls with the words of Genesis, 'God made man in His image.' 

We could also say, I think, that "all of Catholic legal theory" stands and falls with these same words.  (Note:  the same issue of First Things includes a great essay by Mary Ann Glendon, "Looking for 'Persons' in the Law."  Check it out.)

Why (Some) Conservatives Give

By Rick Garnett

An interesting and moving response to my "Who Cares?" post from Harry Hutchison, explaining that at least some religious conservatives feel a Gospel-based spiritual and moral obligation to engage in charitable giving as a response to apparently intractable social problems. I certainly don't doubt that among some religious conservatives (such as Harry) that sentiment is absolutely genuine -- I would not make that concession about all conservatives, by the way -- but that it is again besides the point (pace Greg). For all the spiritually informed personal generosity of some religious conservatives, their political and economic philosophy reflects a willingness to tolerate a much greater degree of social inequality and poverty than leftish political and economic philosophies. Assuming that is true (and I know, of course, that it is debatable), then the fact of a somewhat higher rate of personal charitable giving by conservatives is interesting, but not important, because it doesn't really achieve the kind of change that would actually help ameliorate inequality and policy. It also doesn't establish that liberals are really smarmy hypocrites, which I am sure will be one of the ways in which the Brooks study will be read. I should add, furthermore, that this whole debate seems to be focusing on a red herring, ie the accusation allegedly thrown by liberals at conservatives that they don't "care" about the poor. I would put that claim on the same absurd level as the charge sometimes thrown at liberal Catholics that you "don't care about the lives of the innocent unborn, but you do care about the lives of guilty murders."  Both accusations grotesquely oversimplify complex issues and positions. I'm sure that some, and maybe even most conservatives "care" at some level about the poor, but what matters is how they care. and whether that translates into social policy and action that will actually do something to address the needs of the poor in a structural way.

Mark:

I read with interest your recent post "Who Gives More? –Who Cares." I concede as I must that you know more about Catholic Social Theory than I shall ever know. Nevertheless, I am troubled. You apparently, describe the charity of conservatives as a rationalization that covers an enormous amount of relative indifference to the human cost of policies (or non-policies) that result in worsening the lot of the poor. On the other hand, the Holy Father states that God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him." . . . .Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice . . . but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." The Encyclical continues by suggesting necessity of loving of God and loving our Neighbor. The connection between the two constitutes an unbreakable bond. Consistently with that intuition, Jesus in responding to a certain lawyer in Luke 10 gives us the story of the good Samaritan. In my view, this story does not separate us into conservative or liberal camps by demonstrating the indifference of conservative Samaritans and the concern of liberal ones. My understanding of that story is that we, (all of us) must give to the needy. How that is expressed is obviously a big question but I think that if "conservatives" are actually giving to the poor and the needy that constitutes important evidence that they are, however imperfectly, beginning to live out the commands of Jesus and the Holy Father however intractable the social problems and social structures appear to be.

Charitable giving bears witness to the lot of the poor and to ourselves as we respond to the injunctions of Jesus and the admonitions of the Holy Father. I hope that is something we can all care about. Although, I concede that one life can be seen as simply one more data point in a sea of data, and without getting overly personal, my life represents a living symbol of the power of individual conservatives (at great personal cost) motivated by Christian charity to rescue lost souls like me.

Conservatives and Taxes

By Eduardo Penalver

Rick says:

After all, whether they support redistributive policies or not, religious conservatives pay their taxes, just like "wealthy liberals"; they just give away more on top of that.

Fair Point.  Except that, in the states where religious conservatives predominate, taxes are lower (as are government services).  In states were "wealthy liberals" live, taxes (and services) are higher.  Compare, for example, South Dakota (45th highest tax burden) or Alabama (46th) or Tennessee (47th) or Oklahoma (40th) with, say, New York (2nd) or Hawaii (3rd) or Rhode Island (4th).  So it's not clear to me at all, to quote Rick, that "religious conservatives" pay taxes "just like 'wealthy liberals.'"  As long as the increment that religious conservatives donate to charity does not exceed the difference in tax burden, then I believe my point stands.  Interestingly, nothing in the descriptions of the book I've seen on-line says anything about the absolute magnitude of the giving we're talking about.  It's all about the relative rate of giving between religious conservatives and secular liberals.  (As an aside, I've never seen any data suggesting that conservatives are more likely to evade taxes, but, if the Bush administration's policies with respect to IRS enforcement are any guide, there appears to be a constituency for tax evasion among wealthy Republicans.)

Virtue & Biotech IP

By Rob Vischer

David Opderbeck has posted his new paper, A Virtue-Centered Approach to the Biotechnology Commons.  Here is the abstract:

This essay sketches out a virtue ethics / virtue jurispurdence approach to biotechnology intellectual property policy.

The debate over biotechnology intellectual property policy seems intractable. Instrumentalists dicker about how to tweak incentives in order to produce the best mix of innovation and disclosure, without stepping back to ask whether the consequentialist approach is best on a broad scale. Hegelians seem to have little to say about biotechnology, given that researchers seem to bear little resemblance to the artists and poets who most obviously pour their personalities into their work. Postmodern critics offer some trenchant critiques of the current system, but suggest few alternatives that could be realized in contemporary biotechnology.

Perhaps the biotechnology “thicket” has as much to do with these conflicting underlying philosophies of intellectual property as it does with individual patent rights that must be cleared to conduct research in this field. Virtue ethics may illuminate a path forward. By situating biotechnology as a community dedicated to human flourishing, and focusing on the practices that move that community ever towards its goal, the assumptions and language we use to describe biotechnology intellectual property policy may begin to change. As these assumptions begin to change, perhaps a move towards a more open community of biotechnological science will also become more tractable.

Rob

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