[Thanks much to Robby for this, in response to my post.]
May I venture some thoughts on the questions you posed about judging positions without judging persons holding the positions? You ask:
Can
we disagree with one another, sometimes fundamentally about important
issues (the morality of same-sex unions, e.g., or the prudence of using
the criminal law in this society at this time, to deal with the moral
tragedy of abortion), without our "judging" one another--judging the
position, yes, but not one another? Should we even aspire to do so?
The answers, I think, are "yes" and "yes." "Yes" we can; and "yes" we should.
On
the question whether we should aspire to avoid judging others, we have
an express teaching from the highest of all authorities. Jesus's
command that we "judge not" (lest we ourselves be judged) is recorded
in St. Matthew's Gospel. On the question whether it is possible to
fulfill the command, it seems to me that Jesus would not give us a
command if it is impossible (even with God's grace) to comply with it.
Obviously it is challenging command, because our emotions, and not just
our rational faculties, are inevitably engaged when we argue and
debate--especially when our arguments and debates concern profound
issues of right and wrong. But I suppose that is just the way things
are in this vale of tears. So we must all do out best, and try to
support each other--across the lines of division--in doing it.
But
things do get dicey when we think about extreme cases. Let's use the
standard example, and consider Hitler. He advocated, then committed,
genocide. We rightly judge that to be unspeakably wicked. In doing
so, do we not judge Hitler himself to be unspeakably wicked? I've
always found this a bit puzzling. Surely we cannot avoid judging
Hitler to be a genocidal murderer. That's what he was; there is no way
around it. Surely we would, and should, have supported punishing him
for his crimes, had the allied forces captured him at the end of World
War II. But Jesus's command is categorical. There is no "except in
the case of . . . " clause in Matthew 7:1. There is, then, some
meaningful sense in which we are not supposed to judge even Hitler.
What could that sense be?
Gaudium et Spes
of the Second Vatican Council teaches that "God alone is the judge and
searcher of hearts; for that reason he forbids us to make judgments
about the internal guilt of anyone." But, of course, we do make
judgments of guilt in the context of the criminal justice system, and
plainly the fathers of the Council are not enjoining us against
doing so. As I said, certainly we could legitimately have supported
trying and punishing Hitler for genocide, just as we punished his
collaborators and henchmen. So, again, what does "not judging" mean?
Well,
one thing it means, I suppose, is that we must recognize that it is not
for us to judge the ultimate condition of anyone's soul -- even
Hitler's. That's God's job, and we must not purport to usurp it. The
Church teaches solemnly and authoritatively that no one -- not even the
Pope -- can say whether any particular human individual -- even Hitler
-- is damned. As Germain Grisez puts it, commenting on Matthew 7:1 and
Gaudium et Spes 28, "perhaps, due to invincible ignorance or
lack of freedom, they are not internally guilty; perhaps they are." At
the same time, plainly we sometimes have an obligation to defend what
we believe are moral truths, even if in defending them we offend those
who believe and act contrary to them.
Of
course, Hitler was not a person of goodwill. The kinds of disputes
that prompted your question are disagreements among people of
goodwill. It is a lot easier to avoid judging people when one
acknowledges that--however misguided one judges their positions to
be--they are people who are sincerely seeking the truth and trying to
act in accordance with it. This in itself provides a certain kind of
"common ground" between the interlocutors. And it generates certain
norms of conduct for them. Above all, I think, there is a norm of
reciprocity which requires debaters to treat each other with civility
and respect.
I published a piece in the Harvard Law Review
a few years ago in which I explored the application of this norm in the
context of great moral debates in our national history, especially the
debate over slavery in the 19th century and abortion in our own time.
What I wrote has direct relevance, I believe, to the questions you have
posed:
"People
ought to respect the principle of reciprocity whenever they find
themselves in disagreement with people of goodwill, regardless of
whether they find the position (or even the arguments) advanced by such
people to be worthy of respect. It is not the worthiness of a position
(or argument) that makes this principle applicable. Rather, it is a
matter of respecting people's reasonableness (even when they are
defending a view that one can only judge to be fundamentally
unreasonable) and their goodwill (even when they are defending
practices and policies that one can only judge to be gravely unjust or
in some other way immoral). By observing the principle of reciprocity
in moral and political debate, one is not necessarily indicating
respect for a position (which one perhaps reasonably judges to be so
deeply immoral as to be unworthy of respect), but for the
reasonableness and goodwill of the person who, however misguidedly,
happens to hold that position. The point of observing the requirements
of reciprocity is to fulfill one's obligations in justice to one's
fellow citizens who are, like oneself, attempting to think through the
moral question as best they can."
Now
this analysis raises a question about how it is that reasonable people
of goodwill can embrace policies and practices that are profoundly
unjust or immoral. That turns out to be a very complicated question,
indeed. As a brute matter of fact, however, it is all too easy for any
of us to fall into moral error; and our basic reasonableness and even
our goodwill cannot provide a guarantee that we won't. Most of us (at
least those of us who are not black) imagine that we would have been
abolitionists in the days of slavery; yet the truth is that only a few
of us actually would have been. How could otherwise decent
people--folks very much "like us"--have supported so horrific an evil?
I offer some reflections on that, and on the question of how reasonable
people of goodwill can today support abortion, in the Harvard Law Review article I mentioned. Citation: 110 Harv. L. Rev. 1388-1406 (1997).
Best wishes,
Robby
Sunday, October 1, 2006
I read the article that Rick called to our attention is his post, and this paragraph leapt out at me:
[T]he Rev. David Hollenbach, [S.J.,] a professor of Catholic theology at
Boston College, defended the guide. "If one were to decide the only
thing that matters in the election is avoidance of war and not to look
at abortion and poverty, that . . . would not wash, and vice versa," he
said. "This cuts against people on both the left and the right."
Compare Robby George (here) and Eduardo Penalver (here). Unless I misread, David Hollenbach concurs in Eduardo's judgment.
Peter Steinfels reviews a raft of recent religion-and-politics books, in The American Prospect.
Steve Smith has posted the paper that he delivered here at Notre Dame last March, for a conference we had on his latest book, "Law's Quandary." Here is the abstract:
Throughout the twentieth century, prominent legal thinkers confidently predicted that law as it has been practiced in the West for centuries was archaic and doomed to imminent extinction. Why did they think this, and why were they wrong? And why was "legal indeterminacy" such a source of anxiety to twentieth-century legal thinkers? This essay, given as a lecture at Notre Dame, suggests that the recurring predictions of law's demise and the pervasive angst about indeterminacy were manifestations of debilitating limitations in the philosophical framework within which twentieth-century thinkers understood law (and much else).
Patrick Brennan put it well: "Quandary sings!"
An interesting story, in today's Washington Post:
A new breed of churches in this region of China has demonstrated a boldness and independence unmatched elsewhere in the country, despite strict government guidelines for places of worship.
Here in Wenzhou and the surrounding province of Zhejiang, just south of Shanghai, a growing number of congregations that began life as house churches -- unauthorized places of worship set up in private, often dilapidated homes -- have recently registered with the government, while continuing to spurn the rules of the official Protestant church in China. Like so many institutions in China, these churches now hover in a sort of legal netherworld.
Check it out.
Thursday and Friday of last week, the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America hosted a marvelous Roundtable on Religion in the Public Square: Religious Traditions Shaping Law and Public Policy. According to the host, the recent Roundtable promises to be the first in a series of annual roundtables that CUA Law will hold on timely topics at the intersection of law and religion. Inter-religious dialogue will be a hallmark of the the series that is initiative of the Columbus School of Law's dean Veryl Miles, who has just begun her second year in the job. Last week's interlocutors included Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, Islamists, Jews, and members of other religious traditions. The dialogue that I witnessed was remarkably candid, respectful, and searching. Everyone I talked to at the Roundtable seemed to agree that every aspect of the event was a real feather in the cap of CUA Law. It is wonderful to see the Columbus School of Law experiencing something of a renaissance in its practical commitment to its Catholic mission, building in fresh ways on its rich and dynamic tradition. Congratulations to Dean Miles and to the roundtable planners Lucia Silecchia, Helen Alvare, Bill Wagner, Ben Mintz, and Bob Destro.
I am surprised by Steve's reaction to my "Respect Life" Sunday insert. It is hard for me to see how the statement could have been fairly read as "striving for political influence," or as focusing too narrowly on abortion, or as unfriendly to dialogue, given that it included these words:
"To be People of Life, however – to live, serve, and proclaim the Gospel of Life – is not only to adopt a platform or take up a campaign. Our call is also to propose to our friends, communities, and fellow citizens the truth about who we are. . . . We are called also to embrace and proclaim the truth that human persons -- the embryo, the unborn child, the elderly and infirm, the guilty and the violent – are 'everlasting splendours,' and so may not be sacrificed for convenience, cost, revenge, or research."
