Monday, March 14, 2005
Got back Saturday from a terrific conference at St Thomas Law organized by Tom Berg entitled "Can the Seamless Garment Be Sewn? The Future of Pro-Life Progressivism." It was interesting to discuss these issues in a state where there actually is a pro-life progressive tradition, and to do so after the Common Ground conference the previous weekend in DC on "Religion, Law and Politics." This flurry of activity did not necessarily convince me that there is a politically viable pro-life progressive movement, but each certainly intensified the discussion, and showed that there are serious and subtle issues to be considered.
The panels were very well balanced. The first one included nice articulations of the CE of L as a philosophical basis for PLP (sorry about the acronyms, but my fingers hurt!) by the well-known Sidney Callahan, and by John Carr of the USCCB. They were countered by Susan Appleton, a law prof from Wash U who argued that a prolife position that criminalized abortion cannot be squared with the human dignity of women as understood in progressive thought. Kevin Schmiessing of the Acton Institute did not have any trouble with the prolife part of PLP, but did not think progressivism was very Catholic (especially "progressive" versions of Catholic Social Thought). I don't know which I disagreed with more. Later, John O'Callaghan, a philosopher from ND, gave an unusually sophisticated and subtle version of the non-equivalence critique of the CE of L. I ended up speaking towards the end of the day, and tried to respond to all three critiques.
1. In response to Prof. Appleton, I argued that the left has gone astray, and departed from its own core commitment to the oppressed, by refusing to recognize that the unborn have as much a claim to human dignity as women, and that it must seek justice for BOTH mother and child. This would include at least a restrictive legal approach to abortion and a much stronger social safety net for the poor and minority women who are getting most of the abortions. The left cannot avoid that conundrum by dismissing the personhood of the embryo or fetus, and by fetishizing choice as the only aspect of a woman's dignity. I thus believe that the prolife argument can be squared with secular progressive values. While the antiabortion movement has drawn force from those who are also committed to the preservation of patriarchical authority and subordination of women, the prolife argument does not depend upon those values philosophically, and is also put forward by many who share feminist values.
2. Our readers already know what I think about the Novak-Acton line, so I won't reiterate that here.
3. The non equivalence argument, which attacks the coherence of the CE of L by distinguishing between the intrinsic evil of abortion, and the more complex and contingent moral calculation associated with making decisions about war, poverty etc., draws too sharp a distinction between principled and prudential decisions that are made about these problems. I expanded upon the argument I made at the CGI conference, and posted last week, re the prudential issues generated by the moral evil of abortion in a pluralistic democaracy and the principles implicit in the social and economic issues that limit our ability to dismiss all disagreements about them as matters of prudence.
I'll post my paper when I've finished revising it (and making up the footnotes!). If people are interested in following up on this post, I'll add some details re the other presentations, especially re the political questions. Our fellow blogista Greg Sisk was in the audience, and may have some thoughts.
-Mark
A California trial-court judge has ruled that California's marriage laws -- which define marriage as between one man and one woman -- are unconstitutional, under the California Constitution's equal-protection clause. In the judge's view, the distinctions drawn and classifications created in the laws "do not rationally relate to a legitimate state purpose. . . . [N]o rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this State to opposite sex partners."
Rick
Sunday, March 13, 2005
In its coverage of Saturday's Wisconsin church shootings, The New York Times dove right into the heart of the story, in its view: the crazy beliefs of the church, especially the church's "end times" beliefs:
The church's "pre-millennial" view of history, which asserts that humankind is moving inexorably toward the "end times," when the world will go through a series of cataclysms before the second coming of Christ, is not uncommon among evangelicals. Dr. Meredith preached in a recent sermon broadcast internationally that the apocalypse was close, warning members to pay off credit-card debt and hoard savings in preparation for the United States' coming financial collapse.
But James R. Lewis, author of "The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects and New Religions," said such focus on the end of the world "doesn't make them violent."
"All traditional, conservative religious groups have an end-time belief, even peace groups like the Amish and the Mennonites," said Mr. Lewis, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Steven's Point. "It is radically unfair to say that because they have a belief in the apocalypse, they are prone to violence. They shouldn't be stigmatized on basis of theology."
I appreciate the gracious opportunity afforded by The Times for Mr. Lewis to disassociate a belief in the apocalypse from any murder committed by an individual holding such a belief, but exactly who (besides the reporter) was making such an accusation in the first place? Perhaps the journalistic reasoning goes like this: reasonable folk recognize that mass murder makes no sense; reasonable folk recognize that a belief in a divinely ordained end to human history makes no sense; therefore, the two must be connected. Is this part of the mainstream media's effort to take religion more seriously?
Rob
MOJ readers may be interested in Judge John T. Noonan Jr.'s review of a new book by Robert F. Drinan, SJ: Can God and Caesar Coexist? Balancing Religious Freedom and International Law (Yale University Press 2005). For the review, click here. Strangely, as of this morning, I can't locate Drinan's book either on amazon.com or on the Yale University Press website.
Within the next few weeks, I expect to post a new paper here, titled: The Morality of Human Rights: A Nonreligious Ground? Meanwhile, though, consider this:
"SURPRISINGLY, the Weberian vision of a modernity characterized by 'specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart' applies much
more to modern Europe than to present-day America. Europe today is a
continent that is peaceful, prosperous, rationally administered by the
European Union and thoroughly secular. Europeans may continue to use
terms like 'human rights' and 'human dignity,' which are rooted in
the Christian values of their civilization, but few of them could give
a coherent account of why they continue to believe in such things. The
ghost of dead religious beliefs haunts Europe much more than it does
America."
--Francis Fukuyama, "Thje Calvinist Manifesto," New York Times Book Review, March 13, 2005, page 35.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
The following piece appears in today's New York Times. It sometimes seems that science and religion converge rather than diverge (i.e., some science and some religion). To read the whole piece, which is quite interesting and provocative, click on the link below.
In New Book, Professor Sees a 'Mania' in U.S. for Possessions and Status
By IRENE LACHER
OS
ANGELES - Aldous Huxley long ago warned of a future in which love was
beside the point and happiness a simple matter of consuming
mass-produced goods and plenty of soma, a drug engineered for pleasure.
More than 70 years later, Dr. Peter C. Whybrow, the director of the
Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of
California, Los Angeles, has seen the future, and the society he
describes isn't all that distant from Huxley's brave new world,
although the soma, it seems, is in ourselves.
In his new book, "American Mania: When More Is Not Enough" (W. W.
Norton & Company), Dr. Whybrow argues that in the age of
globalization, Americans are addictively driven by the brain's pleasure
centers to live turbocharged lives in pursuit of status and possessions
at the expense of the only things that can truly make us happy:
relationships with other people.
"In our compulsive drive for more," writes Dr. Whybrow, 64, a
professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioral science, "we are making
ourselves sick."
[To read the rest, click here.]
Friday, March 11, 2005
What, I wonder, should we think of this recent essay, "iPod World: The End of Society?," by Andrew Sullivan? We agree, I imagine, that law both reflects and shapes culture. We also agree -- given our shared interest in "Catholic Legal Theory" -- about the importance of "solidarity" and "community" as more than just buzzwords. So, is it relevant to law and legal theory that:
Americans are beginning to narrowcast their own lives. You get your news from your favorite blogs, the ones that won't challenge your own view of the world. You tune into a paid satellite radio service that also aims directly at a small market - for New Age fanatics, or liberal talk, or Christian rock. Television is all cable. Culure is all subculture. Your cell-phones can receive email feeds of your favorite blogger's latest thoughts - seconds after he has posted them - or sports scores for your own team, or stock quotes of just your portfolio. Technology has given us finally a universe entirely for ourselves - where the serendipity of meeting a new stranger, or hearing a piece of music we would never choose for ourselves, or an opinion that might actually force us to change our mind about something are all effectively banished. Atomization by little white boxes and cell-phones. Society without the social. Others who are chosen - not met at random.
Human beings have never lived like this. Yes, we have always had homes or retreats or places where we went to relax or unwind or shut the world out. But we didn't walk around the world like hermit crabs with our isolation surgically attached. Music in particular was once the preserve of the living room or the concert hall. It was sometimes solitary but it was primarily a shared experience, something that brought people together, gave them the comfort of knowing that others too understood the pleasure of that Brahms symphony or that Beatles album.
Rick
Returning to the issue -- touched on in recent posts by Michael Perry and me -- of the Court's recent decision invalidating the imposition of the death penalty for crimes committed by juveniles, commentators Stuart Taylor and Jeff Rosen -- both center-left death-penalty opponents -- have published short essays outlining their concerns regarding Justice Kennedy's opinion and methodology.
Rosen writes:
Roper v. Simmons is indeed embarrassing. Social conservatives view it as the latest symptom of the internationalization of the culture wars, with U.S. courts striking down traditional practices in the name of purported international moral values. But there is a liberal case against Roper as well. It is analytically sloppy and glib in its attempt to impose an international consensus where none in fact exists. And liberals should be wary about relying too heavily on international consensus. To the degree that foreign authorities do agree about moral values in other cases involving basic rights, they tend to be far less consistently progressive than liberals assume.
Taylor agrees:
[S]hould the meaning of our Constitution be determined -- and should democratic governance be set aside -- by what Scalia calls "the subjective views of five members of this Court and like-minded foreigners"?
And if international standards are to be our guide, what of the facts that -- by decree of the Supreme Court -- the United States alone broadly bars prosecutors from using illegally seized evidence; is one of only six countries to allow abortion on demand until the fetus is viable; and is quite exceptional in requiring strict separation of church and state?
Rick
