Monday, February 18, 2013
It is a sign of maturity that the Mirror of Justice has reached a point in its history in which we are circling back to earlier discussions from several yearas ago. In reading recent posts about the Pro-Life movement and whether it is too strongly connected to conservative or Republican politics and should instead become more affiliated with liberal or Democratic politics, I was reminded of earlier discussions along these lines. Way back in May of 2005, shortly after attending a Pro-Life Progressive symposium here at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, I posted my thoughts along with those of several others.
In the hope that what I said then may have some continuing relevance for today's discussion, I share a few excerpts from my 2005 post titled "Pro-Life Progressivism: Avoiding the Pitfalls" (the whole post is available here):
As an observer of the Pro-Life Progressive discussion, I was a
sympathetic outsider looking in with great interest. I am sympathetic
in that I too yearn for a pro-life witness from the political left. I
remain an outsider in that I do not agree with every element of the
progressive agenda, at least on the means to the ends * * *. I look inside with great interest because of my fervent wish
for an ever-larger and diverse witness for life; indeed, because of the
powerful message for life that would be sent thereby, I’d be tempted to
vote for a genuinely pro-life liberal candidate for public office—even over a conservative of comparable pro-life credentials—despite my
doubts about other elements of the progressive platform.
Having thus acknowledged my perspective, and having listened
carefully to (most of) the presentations at the symposium, I thought I
identified three potential dangers that could undermine Pro-Life
Progressivism as an authentic pro-life movement.
First, a few participants exhibited an unseemly tendency to
depreciate the value of electing pro-life candidates to office and to
denigrate pro-life accomplishments. The argument that pro-life
candidates (at least of the Republican variety) abandon the
anti-abortion cause once elected to office is overstated, objectively
false, begs the question of why offering progressive pro-life candidates
would serve any practical purpose, and often appears to be a
thinly-veiled excuse for ignoring even the most egregious of
pro-abortion records of liberal candidates so as to justify casting
votes for them.
One of course can and should criticize Republican leaders who
sometimes fail to place pro-life issues on the front-burner and fully
exercise the bully pulpit of public office to speak against the culture
of death. But one legitimately can urge even more attention to the
scourge of abortion without denigrating hard-fought victories for the
pro-life movement. We must recognize that the battle for life will be
won mostly through small successes that build upon each other.
At the
federal level, pro-life members of Congress have been able to enact a
prohibition on the grisly practice of partial birth abortion and
continue to fend off the persistent efforts of the pro-choice left to
subsidize abortion-on-demand through federal spending. * * * At the state level, pro-life legislative
successes continue to multiply, from ensuring greater information to
women in trouble, protecting the rights of parents, and providing easier
access to alternatives to abortion. While these pro-life successes are
not yet the bountiful harvest for which we all pray, the basket is by
no means empty.
If those who claim to be building a pro-life progressive movement
belittle the hard work of those who for many long years have labored
hard in the political vineyard and reaped many victories over the
concerted opposition of the party that claims to speak for progressives,
this newly-formed progressive voice simply will not be in solidarity
with the pro-life movement as a whole.
Second, while some participants persuasively argued that Pro-Life
Progressives are better situated to seek common ground with skeptics on
the question of life, including those on the pro-choice side, such fora
for dialogue must be entered with caution lest they be abused by
abortion advocates who disguise themselves or their agenda. The
dialogue must be conducted with integrity and always with fidelity to
the cause of life. * * *
More than one participant in the symposium emphasized that, while
constituting a welcome beginning, changes in the rhetoric on abortion by
certain liberal political figures must be accompanied by meaningful
action. While the action that should be expected was not made concrete
(which brings me to my third concern below), it at least indicated that
more than one member of the Pro-Life Progressive movement is attuned to
the risk I describe above.
Third, the Pro-Life Progressive movement, while presenting itself
both as a sincere opponent of abortion and broadly progressive on
economic and international matters, seemed rather short on specifics
about how to advance the pro-life cause beyond words. Indeed, more than
one speaker raised doubts about whether anti-abortion legislation—with
the eventual goal of prohibiting any violent taking of unborn human
life—ought to be pursued.
All of us agree that the culture must be
changed if we are to realize our hope of one day placing abortion
alongside slavery and genocide as universally-acknowledged intrinsic
evils. Moreover, some of us will be called to devote our time and
talents to reaching hearts and minds, rather than to engaging with
politicians and judges. But the pro-life movement as a whole cannot
stand by and fail to take such action as is possible now. We must save
as many lives as we can today, even if limited restrictions on abortion
and enhancement of alternatives are all that can be legislatively
achieved at present.
Interestingly, the same symposium participants who were quick to
dismiss pro-life Republicans as inconsequential based upon a supposedly
inadequate legislative agenda were also the ones who seemed most
reluctant to forthrightly endorse legal constraints on abortion as part
of the new movement’s platform. If this cognitive dissonance is rooted
in an underlying timidity about pro-life politics or an unwillingness to
unite with other pro-life activists across the political spectrum in
seeking always to accomplish whatever is politically possible, then it
will be difficult for this new movement to sustain itself as truly
pro-life as well as progressive. * * *
I do not mean to suggest that any one of the three dangers mentioned
above, much less all three in concert, were manifested in a dominating
way at the Pro-Life Progressivism symposium. But each emerged from time
to time. Nor do I think it inevitable that the Pro-Life Progressive
movement will succumb to these temptations. Any nascent political
movement will be less than fully formed and internally coherent at its
birth. Mapping the pitfalls, so that they may be avoided, ought to be
welcomed as advancing the cause.* * *
If Pro-Life Progressivism is truly to be a fourth political
alternative in the country (along with conservatism, libertarianism, and
secular liberalism), then it must be authentically pro-life as well as
genuinely progressive. Should it succeed in becoming a viable part of
the political landscape, while remaining true to its pro-life soul, we
all would have great cause to rejoice.
Greg Sisk
Ronald Dworkin died last Thursday. I
met him twice, but I doubt he could have picked me out of a lineup.
Nonetheless, he had an enormous influence on my scholarship. Simply put, much
of my scholarship has been directed against his. I do not mean this as a cheap
shot. Dworkin was a scholarly giant writing squarely in the Kantian tradition,
but I rebel against that tradition, or more precisely, a significant part of
it.
It was Dworkin who first drew me
into an interest in political theory. He wrote an essay on liberalism many
decades ago in which he argued that liberalism was committed to the view that
the state should be neutral about the good life. My reaction was that this was
not the liberalism I knew and appreciated. The state had never been neutral about
the good life, never would be, and never should be. Even more important
Dworkin’s thesis (which was qualified and refined over the years) was set in a
larger theory claiming that moral and political questions could all be resolved
by reference to fresh deductions from a small set of premises. My reaction has
been that free speech, for example, clashes with too many other values and
interests to hope or expect that the right answer to these problems could ever
be found by deductions from a small set of premises. To be fair, Dworkin
conceded that a right like freedom of speech could be limited if it conflicted
with another right, but the criteria for determining the content of a right
were too elusive for my tastes. Over the years, I realized that I had a temperamental
objection to grand theory. It was not just that I thought grand theory was
pragmatically unrealistic. I did not want grand theory to succeed. It was too
simple; too pat; too abstract; too rationalistic; and it insufficiently appreciated the passion, the earthiness, the romance and mystery of
moral life.
At the same time, I realized that
those who write in the tradition of grand theory have reasons of temperament to
want it to succeed that go beyond pragmatic considerations, and I wrote about
that (The First Amendment, Democracy, and Romance, Ch. 4) after giving a talk
at NYU, the home of grand theory either in the realm of political theory like
Dworkin or in the realm of ACLU free speech liberalism (NYU was the ACLU’s most
important law school home many decades ago). My talk was not well developed,
but the defensive reaction I received even from ordinarily gentle folk who
fiercely resisted my psychological speculation showed me I was on to something.
(In fairness, Larry Sager was enormously helpful).
If I disagreed with Dworkin on much
and am grateful that he inspired me to fight against him, I agreed with much as
well. One does not have to be a devotee of grand theory to recognize the
importance of equality, dignity, and autonomy, and Dworkin championed all three
in eloquent and thoughtful ways. Similarly there are many areas where
instrumental arguments are out of place, as Dworkin so frequently argued. Even
more important, Dworkin brilliantly argued that law is not just a set of rules,
but policy arguments and moral principles are a part of law. Indeed, as I interpret
him, Dworkin claimed that there was always a right answer not only to legal problems, but also to moral and
political problems. This was the part of his theory that I most appreciate: moral
skepticism is not an appropriate foundation for liberalism; it is an incoherent
and psychopathic basis for law and politics. I think this is an area
where Mill and Dworkin (and Catholic social theory) come together though Mill laid more stress on our
fallibility in determining what the right answer might be.
Dworkin was an eloquent champion of
civil liberties and a public intellectual. He was an important moral,
political, and legal theorist. He is gone. But he has left a body of work that
will be influential for a long time to come.
