I am not sure if anyone's blogged it, but C. John Sommerville's essay, earlier this summer, in the Chronicle of Higher Education, called "The Exhaustion of Secularism," is well worth a read. George Marsden's excellent book, "The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship," features prominently. Here are Martin Marty's thoughts on the piece. And, here is a link to the book (available in September) from which it is taken.
Saturday, August 5, 2006
The Exhaustion of Secularism
Friday, August 4, 2006
Tax Policy, Progressivity, and Catholic Social Thought (Part One): Baseline Principles
As evidenced in our recent thread on Mirror of Justice about the estate tax, the invocation of “progressive” taxation as a canonical precept of Catholic Social Thought is repeated so often as to have become something of a mantra (if you’ll forgive my introduction of semantical religious syncretism). The underlying principle (“fair tax = good tax”) has considerable force to it, when genuinely understood, empirically verified, and qualified by other factors and principles. However, when cited by advocates on one side of a particular debate about taxation, the supposed progressivity standard frequently is misstated, overstated, or uncritically employed.
What looks progressive or regressive in the abstract simply may not be such in the actual application of a specific tax to real people and activities in a complex society. Progressivity is not a trump card or substitute for careful contextual analysis. When evaluating any scheme for procuring revenue to the government, progressivity (or more precisely, proportionality) is but one factor (an important factor to be sure) among many others to be considered (including economic disruption, consistency with dynamic social, cultural, and economic conditions, positive and negative incentives, reduction in liberty, etc.). And the progressivity of a tax is no answer at all to the ultimate question about the prudence of any proposed enlargement of the public fisc, which requires us to consider the wisdom of any expansion of government that may contract or suppress other beneficial social, cultural, and economic activities.
In three posts over the next few days, I will suggest and invite critique of certain general guidelines for evaluating tax policy in the light of Catholic Social Thought. In doing so, it is not my intent to focus upon or highlight any specific tax controversy or insist upon specific answers to any debate. Rather, in these three posts, I will suggest (1) baseline principles drawn from authoritative Church teaching about taxation; (2) the absolute necessity for empirical evaluation of the real-world impact of any tax upon real people before drawing conclusions about tax equity; and (3) prudential considerations involving other important principles and the secondary effects of taxation upon society.
The authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church about taxes are rather simple but often neglected in economic and political debates, even among those interested in Catholic Social Thought.
First, and most fundamentally, tax evasion is wrong. See Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶ 2436 (1994) (“It is unjust not to pay the social security contributions required by legitimate authority.”). (Michael Perry recently highlighted the “tax cheats” aspect of this subject). Beyond the dishonesty and fraud involved in evading the required report about taxation, complying with the tax laws is part of our obligation to support the common good, that is, the “social security” of the society in which we live.
Second, taxes should be collected from those who have the capacity to pay, a vital corollary of which is that those with no capacity to pay should be exempt. See Pope John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Mater et Magistra ¶ 132 (1961) (“In a system of taxation based on justice and equity it is fundamental that the burdens be proportioned to the capacity of the people contributing.”) While the pertinent papal encyclicals make no claim to infallibility, certainly we can agree upon the baseline proposition that a tax that is regressive in nature, falling more heavily upon those who can least afford it, simply cannot be squared with Catholic teaching regarding the preferential option for the poor.
Third, excessive taxation is improper, by draining the productive energies of the economy, dangerously expanding the power of the government, and unfairly confiscating the resources of those who have earned them. See Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum ¶ 47 (1891) (“The right to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man; and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether. The State would therefore be unjust and cruel if under the name of taxation it were to deprive the private owner of more than is fair.).
Fourth, no one may claim that any particular political proposal bears the magisterial imprimatur of the Catholic Church. Every economic proposal, of which tax policy is but one example, must be evaluated in light of prudential considerations, well-grounded in the context of the society in which it is proposed. See John Paul II, Centesimus Annus ¶ 43 (1991) (“The Church has no models to present; models that are real and truly effective can only arise within the framework of different historical situations, through the efforts of all those who responsibly confront concrete problems in all their social, economic, political and cultural aspects, as these interact with one another.”).
Fifth, in evaluating any proposal to create government program, regulate the economy, or tax economic activity, the ultimate goal is not aggrandizement of government, control of private economic activity, or forcible creation of artificial equality, but rather bringing about “a society of free work, of enterprise and of participation.” See John Paul II, Centesimus Annus ¶ 35 (1991). Politics is not the end but only a tool toward the end of a free society with opportunity for all. Liberty as well as opportunity is an essential element of this vision.
Greg Sisk
"Treating Both as Neuters"?
I'm not saying anything here about the "imaging Christ" rationale for the male-only priesthood. But it seems to me that there is a fallacy in C.S. Lewis's argument (quoted by Bill Castle in Rob's post) that
[t]o say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters.
But surely this doesn't follow. In supporting the equal eligibility of men and women for any profession, one could be saying (in whole or in part) that women and men as different sexes would each bring distinctive contributions, perspectives, and natural or experience-based qualities. Far from "neutering" persons of the two sexes, this argument affirms the differences in qualities but adds that both sets of qualities are valuable for the position in question. It's my sense that many of those who want to see women priests think that women would offer distinctive qualities that would bring important aspects of the priesthood to the fore that tend not to be brought out with an all-male cohort. To put it in terms of recent legal theory, Lewis's criticism addresses only "sameness feminism," not "difference feminism."
Again, it can still be that some particular difference between men and women -- e.g. that Christ was male -- is dispositive for the question; that's a separate dispute. I just don't think that Lewis's "neutering" argument works.
Tom
Thursday, August 3, 2006
God Speaking Through Gender
On the subject of women priests, Bill Castle passes along this essay in which C.S. Lewis writes:
Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity….
The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters.
Bill comments that this issue "boils down to the idea that God created men and women, and that He revealed Himself in the male gender (both as God the Father and Son and a human person of the male sex), and that He did both with purpose deeper and more essential than the legal fictions involved in the classification of all persons as neuters."
Rob
Eberle on public reason
MOJ-friend and philosopher Chris Eberle sends these thoughts, regarding the recent posts here on public reason, religion, Professor Stone, and Professor Leiter:
[Professor Leiter wrote]: "To put it (a bit too) crudely, reasons are 'public' largely in virtue of a head count, not in virtue of their having more robust epistemic foundations."
[C]onceptions of public reason vacillate between (what I call) populist and epistemic conceptions of public reason. Often the advocate of a given conception doesn't distinguish clearly between the populist versions (of Professor Leiter's "head count" variety) and the epistemic versions. And you can get a sense of that in his formulation: public reasons are those that are the "kinds of reasons acceptable to all reasonable people in a pluralistic society." Is "reasonable" an epistemic category? Is it a moral category of sorts: "be reasonable, you can't take the big slice and leave me the teensie one!"? What does "acceptable" mean? Presumably, not that a kind of reason is *in fact* endorsed by all the reasonable folks. Perhaps, it means that a kind of reason *would be* endorsed by the reasonable folks *if* they were adequately informed and suitably rational. (That's one prominent conception.) But in that case, we might be very far from a head count version, since this counterfactual conception of what makes for a public reason might be consistent with no actual citizens endorsing any of the kinds of reasons that would be endorsed by all the adequately informed and rational folks. Indeed, it might be (hard to tell) consistent with the view that religious reasons are public reasons, since we might all endorse religious reasons if we were adequately informed (and so knew that the Koran is God's inspired Word!)
Conceptions of public reason typically begin by sounding so very commonsensical and then, under pressure of the very pluralism to which they in some sense respond, get very complicated, as their advocates have to make use of all kinds of epistemic epicycles and counter-factual deferents to make them "work." I try to lay this out systematically, and in gory detail, in the end of my book, which contains a chapter on the populist and a chapter on the epistemic conceptions of public reason.
Evening in the Palace of Reason, pt. II
Last December, I posted about what I then predicted would be a fascinating book, "Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment," by James Gaines. Well, I just got home from a week's trip to Alaska, during which I (finally) finished the book. I was right! Few books are perfect (I think Gaines is not precise enough when pushing the "faith v. reason" thing), but I still give it two thumbs up. Here's a bit, from the last chapter:
The modern world is a creature of both the Enlightenment and Romanticism but completely the offspring of neither. . . . [T]he tension continues between reason and faith, ratio and sensus, Frederick and Bach. In this struggle, Frederick usually seems to have the upper hand. The world of the early twenty-first century has no trouble knowing Frederick: that mocking, not-really-self-effacing skepticism, the head-fake toward principle during the headlong rush toward the glamour of deeds. His mask and his loneliness are all too familiar. Bach is more of a stranger, a refugee from "God's time" displaced to a world where religion can be limited to a building and a day of the week, or dispensed with altogether. . . .
The beauty of music, of course, what sets is apart from virtually every other human endeavor, is that it does not need the language of ideas; it requires no explanation and offers none, as much as it may say. Perhaps that is why music coming from a world where the invisible was palpable, where great cosmic forces played their part everywhere and every day, could so deeply move audiences so far from Bach's time. . . . Bach's music makes no argument that the world is more than a ticking clock, yet leaves no doubt of it.
America's "Fundamental Goodness"?
Here's the passage from Senator Brownback's speech on American exceptionalism and our "fundamental goodness":
[I]deas and ideals live on, picked up by the next generation, the next Reagan, the next King, and while some battles have already been won, others remain to be fought. When Reagan traveled the country for General Electric, as I noted, in the '50s, he would often speak about this characteristic of uniqueness to American, American exceptionalism. As I noted, this great nation made up of people from all over the world had a special place and a special destiny for mankind. . . .
But what is the basis for this American calling, this American exceptionalism? I believe it is in our fundamental goodness, and that if we lose our goodness we will most surely lose our greatness. Certainly we have our problems and often get things wrong, at least for a while, but then some movement based on goodness and fixing what's wrong will start up and not stop until the problem is eliminated.
There are many good exhortations in the speech, and as I said it's great to see Christian conservative leaders out in front on Darfur, Congo, prisoners, etc. But it's hard to read a reference to America's "fundamental goodness" without thinking that the doctrine of original sin is being overlooked here, with potentially bad consequences. (Without going into detail here, I'd assert that most of the big mistakes the nation has made in Iraq and the anti-terrorism campaign have stemmed from a failure to take into account original sin.) It's hard to inject some sober recognition of the limits and dangers that inhere even in good causes without undermining the vision of moral possibilities that inspires people to act for such a good cause in the face of opposition. But the two have to be there.
Tom
Forgiveness, Repentance, and Faith-Based Prison Programs
In another response to the question about criminal punishment, forgiveness, and the state, MOJ friend Matt Donovan sends this Weekly Standard story about Sam Brownback, evangelical-turned-Catholic and potential 2008 presidential candidate, periodically giving a Bible study at a state prison (and spending a night in a cell) as part of the Inner Change Freedom Initiative.
Leaving Building 4, Brownback goes to the spacious (9,167 square feet) Spiritual Life Center, recently built to accommodate a growing inmate demand for religious programs. On its website, the Kansas Department of Corrections describes the center as providing "opportunities for inmates from diverse faiths to develop and restore relationships with God, their families, and crime victims." In a conference room, Brownback engages a dozen inmates in an hour-long conversation about their post-prison hopes. He tells one who calls him "Mr. Brownback" to change that to "Sam." And "Sam" it is. To another prisoner he says, "Your experience sounds like my own. You don't recognize temptation when you should." A prayer by Brownback closes the meeting, and then the senator retraces his steps to Building 4 and then to G-pod, cell 42, where, locked down, he spends the night.
You might not expect someone weighing a presidential run in 2008 to spend a dozen hours
in a state prison; it's not exactly the best place to go in search of campaign dollars or volunteers. But once you grasp Sam Brownback's political vision, his visit to the Ellsworth Correctional Facility seems less odd.
Earlier this year, Brownback gave a lecture at Kansas State, his alma mater. He chose as his topic "American exceptionalism"--the idea, as he explained it, that our country is a "special place" and that it has a "special destiny for mankind." Brownback said that the source of American exceptionalism lies in "our fundamental goodness," and that while we have had our problems and "often get things wrong," we eventually find our way, because "some movement based on goodness and fixing what's wrong" starts up and doesn't stop until the problem is fixed. Like the abolitionist movement, which settled in Kansas "with a heart to end slavery." And the civil rights movement, which sought to end segregation. Those movements, said Brownback, fought for "the inherent dignity" of every person, for "righteousness and justice." In our time, he continued, we must carry on this fight by reaching out to people who need help--"the poor and dispossessed," including prisoners and their families. We need to defend the dignity of people "no matter where they are, no matter what they look like, no matter what their status." And not just here at home. Brownback pointed to the sub-Saharan region of Africa, where he said 60 percent of the children have malaria; to Darfur, where the genocide continues; and to the Congo, where "an estimated 1,000 preventable deaths" occur every day.
I know that I'd disagree with a number of Brownback's political positions; and yes there are real constitutional questions if the Inner Change Freedom Initiative is the only or dominant life-transformation program in the prison. But shouldn't everyone across the political spectrum recognize that it's unusual and valuable for a politician to care enough about prisoners to spend any time with them and to call attention to these so-often-forgotten people? You sometimes hear critics refer to the most intensely religious Republicans -- Brownback, Rick Santorum -- as the "nut case" Republicans, in contrast to the moderates. They're right: it is nutty to spend your time visiting prisoners who can't vote, or (in Santorum's case) to push against the business-lobby types that dominate the executive-branch roster of his party for more money for anti-poverty programs (that include faith-based or other personal-transformation emphases).
Now the questions. I'd like to put John McCullough, who asked about this topic originally and does good work with expunging criminal records and helping ex-prisoners, in conversation with Senator Brownback and see what the two say to each other. I wonder what Brownback's position is on expungments of criminal records -- or on the laws that disenfranchise felons permanently or long after their sentence has ended. My sense is that Brownback's party overall has had a pretty "non-compassionate" record of supporting the strictest and long-lasting disenfranchisement laws. I also wonder what other kinds of social supports would be very helpful for ex-offenders -- job retraining etc. -- but face opposition from those on Brownback's side of the aisle who tend to be negative on social spending. In his references to sub-Saharan Africa, Brownback implicitly recognizes the importance of material aid as well as personal transformation; does that show up in his budget priorities [addition here] in general, not just regarding Africa?
On the other hand, I imagine that the challenge Brownback might raise is to ask how we have confidence that repentance and personal transformation really have occurred in a person during prison. Aren't efforts like the Inner Change Freedom Initiative -- assuming there are some secular counterparts, and that we avoid Establishment Clause concerns -- a precondition to wiping the legal slate clean? In writing this, I see a number of rehabilitation-oriented programs listed on the expungement clinic website: looks great. Isn't Brownback right that a faith-based program like Innter Change Freedom Initiative is an important contribution to this cause? Shouldn't we try to keep these programs, structuring them in a way to minimize the concerns about government-imposed religion, rather than toss them out altogether?
Separate from all this, there's the stuff from Senator Brownback about "American exceptionalism" and our "fundamental goodness." That deserves a separate post, since this one is already so long.
Tom
Becker on Big Box retail
Apparently, the City Council of Chicago has passed an ordinance that makes Chicago the largest city in the United States to impose special wage and fringe benefit requirements for "big box" retailers. Gary Becker has an interesting post on the matter, here.
What Lies "Beyond Gay Marriage?"
A few days ago I commented on the statement, "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage" (and Martha Fineman responded). Now Robert George praises the statement's signers for their intellectual honesty in admitting that "what lies 'beyond gay marriage' are multiple sex partners." Jonathan Rauch replies to George here. (HT: Dale Carpenter)
Rob
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