Later this week the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis will host an important conference devoted to exploring the future of pro-life progressivism. I cannot attend, but I'm hoping that readers or co-bloggers who attend will report on the proceedings, as this conference seems as closely related to the ongoing conversations at MoJ as any academic conference in recent memory.
In particular, I hope that participants will at least attempt to formulate some answers to a tough question I've been asked. Shortly after the election, I was speaking with a friend in the Midwest who was lamenting the choice she faced when voting for President. I relayed our talk of a "Seamless Garment Party," and her mood changed immediately. Not only did she offer on the spot to make a sizeable financial contribution to such an endeavor, she identified several neighboring families who would back the party with maximum effort. She then asked, "So when is this party going to start up?" I hemmed and hawed, of course, muttering about how academics like to talk about things a lot, hoping to inspire the doers who pick up the baton later. She was not satisfied, and asked, "Given the obvious need, why doesn't anyone start a Seamless Garment Party?" I did not have a good answer.
The Democrats have made some well-publicized statements about expanding their pro-choice tent, and President Bush makes friendly gestures on certain social justice issues. But would both major parties take "seamless garment" claims more seriously if voters could register their discontent on election day? Could an SGP platform be constructed in a way that would keep holders of the many divergent perspectives on Catholic social teaching together? If not, would the SGP still serve a purpose if it was built on only a few core, non-negotiable issues?
Finally, to the extent we decide that the SGP is not a viable or prudent path, does that signal our acceptance of the current two-party split-the-baby division of the Church's web of social teaching? Or does it signal our belief that the teaching is not well-suited to real-world politics? Or is it simply laziness, timidity, or something else?
Rob
UPDATE: There's some interesting and provocative reader comments on this post over at Open Book.
Friday, March 4, 2005
Cornell law prof Brad Wendel has an interesting post on Legal Ethics Forum about the levels of deception practiced by lawyers, building off Harry Frankfurt's essay "On Bullsh--." (MoJ has thus far been an obscenity-free zone -- far be it from me to buck the trend.)
Rob
It was only a matter of time. In case your conference calendar has a gaping void, consider it now filled: the first Christian Blogosphere Convention a/k/a GodBlogCon 2005. Panels include "Blogging Christian Philosophy" and "Christian Homeschool Blogging," but alas, no place at the table yet for Catholic legal theory.
Rob
Thursday, March 3, 2005
As we've noted previously (see here and here), public policy on stem cell research increasingly appears to consist of a frantic money grab by states. Now New York is jumping into the action:
State lawmakers from both parties yesterday proposed spending at least $100 million a year for stem cell research, joining a growing number of states moving to fill the void left by President George W. Bush's ban on federal funding to expand the studies.
Advocates believe stem cell research holds promise for treating diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes. They fear New York is in danger of losing top scientists to states willing to fund it.
"We know they are actively being recruited," said Maria Mitchell, president of the Academic Medicine Development Company, which represents medical schools and research institutes.
Any role for ethical considerations? If we change some words around, we could be reading an argument to justify the construction of a new convention center. Bioethics may give the "race to the bottom" among states a whole new slant.
Rob
Monday, February 28, 2005
Following up on Michael's post, here is more coverage of the controversy sparked by the choice of language used to condemn gay marriage in Pope John Paul II's latest book. (Thanks to CT for the link.) The author asserts that:
The Pope condemns the Third Reich for removing the rights of Jews and holding them up to contempt, but in his condemnation of homosexual unions and his associating them with evil, he could be accused of contempt for the civil rights of another community.
The Church, of course, would defend its opposition to full equality for gays within the political sphere on the ground that even notions of political equality must be constrained by an authentic conception of the human person. But can meaningful distinctions be drawn in non-religious terms between the claims of gays and members of minority religions to full participation in the political life of the community? Or is the Pope's labeling of gay marriage (and civil unions, I assume) as "evil" akin to Bishop D'Arcy's vision of academic freedom (posted earlier by Rick):
Freedom in the Catholic tradition, and even in the American political tradition, is not the right to do anything. Freedom in the Catholic tradition is not the right to do this rather than that. That would be an entirely superficial idea of freedom. Freedom in the academy is always subject to a particular discipline. It is never an absolute. The parameters of the particular discipline guide research.
Freedom is the capacity to choose the good. In “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” John Paul II makes it clear that a Catholic university “guarantee its members academic freedom, so long as the rights of the individual person and of the community are preserved within the confines of the truth and the common good.”. . . It is in opposition to the highest understanding of academic freedom. For freedom which is not linked to truth is soon extinguished.
However appealing this vision of human freedom might be, it certainly is not a vision that is accessible to members of the academic community who do not share in the Church's conception of the human person. Stated bluntly, the Bishop's explanation amounts to saying, "Of course you're free to explore new ideas, as long as those ideas comport with the Truth." And exactly who defines the Truth, including every nuance and new application, in a rapidly changing world? I am not contesting the authority of a Catholic school to limit the freedom of its employees in order to maintain and protect its institutional identity, but I am contesting Bishop D'Arcy's insistence that limiting freedom to the pursuit of Church-defined "Truth" can be equated with "academic freedom."
So both episodes leave me with a sense of skepticism toward the compatibility of the chosen language with the broader accessibility of Catholic social thought. Can we construct generally accessible portrayals of gay marriage as "evil" without sacrificing the moral anthropology's central grounding in human dignity? And can we define academic freedom as extending only to the limits defined by a religious conception of reality? Are these instances where the day-to-day implementation of Catholic social thought has not caught up with the aspirational norms driving the Church's engagement with the world?
Rob
Friday, February 25, 2005
Law profs Brad Wendel (Cornell), John Dzienkowski (Texas), and John Steele (a lecturer at Boalt) have started a legal ethics blog. Today they've posted an interview with me about the integration of faith and legal practice. I'd welcome feedback from readers and co-bloggers.
Rob
