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The Dogma Lives Loudly Within Me
Amy Coney Barrett.
Like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, I’m a believing and practicing Catholic. I’m even one of those “extreme” Catholics who adheres with all her heart and mind to every jot and tittle of the Church’s teaching. Truly, (if weirdly) Diane Feinstein could say of me: “the dogma lives loudly within her.”
I hold (and am prepared to argue the point on philosophical grounds, in case anyone wants to take it up with me) that abortion is absolutely immoral. It’s never okay to directly intend the killing of an innocent human being, even if that being was conceived through an act of violence. (I hold with the Church that an “abortion” to save the life of the mother is sometimes licit, depending on the circumstances of the case.)
I also hold, as a matter of both faith and moral philosophy, that unjust laws are not binding on the individual. If I were a doctor in, say, China, and my supervisor ordered me to carry out an abortion, I wouldn’t do it. I have an unalienable human right not to do what my conscience prohibits. I might have to go to jail, though, since the PTB in China have established unjust laws.
If I were a Quaker on the Underground Railroad in pre-Civil War Maryland and the local authorities ordered me to hand over a runaway slave I’m harboring, I wouldn’t do it (assuming God gives me the grace to live according to my convictions, despite the cost.) If I were a priest in Canada, and the local government ordered me to “marry” two men, I would say, “That’s a line I won’t cross” and also, “You are way out of bounds pretending to have that kind of authority over me and my Church.”
If I were a cop here in the US, I would not imagine that my pro-life convictions, loud as they are within me, give me the right to arrest someone for getting an abortion. I’m perfectly capable of recognizing the distinction between the meanings of “immoral” and “illegal.”
Personally, I’m opposed to the death penalty. I used to favor it, but Pope John Paul II’s great encyclical Evangelium Vitae changed my mind. (It’s not absolutely immoral, like abortion; it’s easy to imagine cases when it’s called for. But it’s generally a bad policy with bad social consequences.) So, as a private citizen, I advocate in the public square for the abolition of the death penalty. If it were the only thing at stake in a given vote, I’d vote against it.
If I were a Supreme Court Justice hearing a case challenging, say, Texas’ death penalty, though, I would be aware that my job is not to decide whether or not the death penalty is a good idea for Texas. That’s for the voters and lawmakers of Texas to decide. It would be for me to decide whether or not the Texas law is prohibited by the Constitution. If I were persuaded by the lawyers and my own reading of that document and relevant case law that it’s not, then I would have no difficulty finding in favor of Texas’s death penalty law.
If Roe v. Wade were before me, I expect I would vote to overturn it, not because I’m against abortion, but because the arguments underlying it are utterly specious. There is nothing whatsoever in the Constitution that prohibits states from making laws against abortion.
If a case like Obergefell were brought before me, I would understand that the question at issue is not whether or not I favor gay marriage, but whether or not a law defining marriage as between one man and one woman, or a law allowing a same sex couple to marry, is unconstitutional.
All this seems really clear and basic to me. Religion is one thing; jurisprudence is another.
If anyone can think of a concrete example, either historical or hypothetical, where my deep and loud adherence to Catholic dogma would conflict with my ability to do the job of a Supreme Court Justice, I’d be interested to hear it.
Published in General
One would expect God to be the ultimate logical being. No need to succumb to authority when you can just as easily be convinced by the obviously correct philosophy.
This is the sticking point, isn’t it? Who gets to decide what laws are just or unjust? The whole point of the rule of law and not of men is to prevent some from being able to say that such and such is an unjust law, and shouldn’t be followed.
Seems rather implausible that a trauma center would hire a staff consisting entirely of people morally opposed to blood transfusions.
What are you proposing as a solution to this situation? Is there blood (apparently inexplicably) at the hospital and you can steal it and give them the transfusion yourself? That would be permissible.
Are you able to hold a gun to their head and demand they give them a transfusion? Perhaps.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with your last question. There are things that would normally be impermissible that become permissible in “life boat” situations.
He is, hence katievs’ offer to argue the point on philosophical grounds.
Right, there are times that it’s impractical to disobey unjust law, but in the abstract, literal (not hypothetical) unjust laws have no moral authority. The “rule of law” is there to protect us against people who are bad determinents of just law, but that shouldn’t be a deterrent for people that are correct about what is just and unjust law.
Does this make sense? I know it’s really unsatisfying for a lot of conservatives who believe the vast majority of laws are just, if for no other reason, than they were passed properly, and that they fear people who are wrong will go around breaking unjust laws just because they feel like it. In some sense, that’s an understandable fear. I just don’t believe it binds the people who are actually objectively correct about the morality.
But how do you know? What gives you the authority? etc. etc.
It really comes down to the logic giving you the authority. If you possess it, and you are correct, you’re in the right, even though there are plenty of people who think they are doing the same thing but are completely wrong.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to have a constructive conversation, but it just comes off as a fools errand. If the dogma is irrelevant, it doesn’t help your case to start by stating it.
I took the point of the post to be that someone like Justice Amy Coney Barrett who believes Catholic dogma should not thereby be disqualified from the job of a Supreme Court Justice. Her point was that she, like Justice Barrett, adheres to Church teaching, and yet this would not affect her rulings as a justice.
Is there any purpose, then, to law? Or should we just dispense with it entirely and rely on people to follow objectively correct morality instead?
Meh… if you say “I follow explicit catholic teaching to the jot and tittle,” then you are not interested in philosophy, either. You have zero cause to condescend. Apologetics is not philosophy.
also- nobody has an unalienable human right to anything. You make a choice to follow your conscience and accept the consequences. It’s not your “right” to do so, it is merely your principle. A Muslim doesn’t have the “right” to follow his conscience and blow you up, either. Conscience is not a good in itself.
but I agree that good jurisprudence does not conflict with strong convictions; though the liberal justices are good examples of how bad jurisprudence can stem from strong convictions.
Of course unjust laws are binding on the individual. Try using that argument in court, sometime.
fortunately, we live in a country where unjust laws can be changed.
Not at all. She started by appealing to the Catholic Church, not to God. I’m sure she feels they are one in the same… but that is not an offer to discuss philosophy.
Right. Also a country with jury nullification, although good luck using that as an argument.
For a judge, any deeply held beliefs which form your conscience are going to challenge your impartiality.
You can replace “Catholic” with almost any deeply held beliefs or thoughts. They are going to bump up against, and sometimes crash into, the fair interpretation of laws created by other thoughts, beliefs and interests, sometimes vestigial interests and thoughts embedded in the law.
A committed vegan judge, environmentalist judge, or a socialist judge will face (or refuse to face) the same conflict.
Yet only some conflicts will be made issues: a Catholic justice or a libertarian justice (who maybe wrote a 6th grade book report on The Fountainhead) or a Baptist justice (a theoretical possibility).
In the annals of political projection, no one compares to modern leftists when it comes to “othering” and bullying.
Yes, you’re right of course. I had a conversation with my husband right after I posted that comment and he made the same point.
He also tends to think a conscientious Catholic could, even then, judge according to the law, knowing it meant injustice in a given case, or set of cases, on the grounds that a judge has one job: to interpret the law truly.
I see his point, but I doubt I could do it in the example you raise. I think I lack the judicial temperament.
That’s probably the fairest assessment of Chief Justice Taney, the first Roman Catholic on the Supreme Court, who manumitted his own slaves as a young man. The Dred Scott case was decided on explicitly original meaning/original public understanding grounds. Sorry but every worldview or judicial philosophy is a morally complicated animal, even those that I prefer.
Other than Life, Liberty and Property that is.
Those who have conscientious objections to the procedure should never be compelled to give a blood transfusion. That being the case, it would be odd for them to want to be nurses. Amish people don’t join the military.
It would be even odder for a clinic to staff itself with people who won’t perform its central function, especially considering that society is chock full of people who will.
Nonsense. Utter rubbish. Who revived an interest in Ancient Greek philosophy after the collapse of the Roman empire? Irish monks, who painstakingly copied pagan texts between their hours of prayer.
Who carried on the western philosophical tradition from then till the modern period? Mostly Catholics.
How did practically all the great European universities begin? As schools of Catholic theology and philosophy.
Consider how many of the major philosophers and scientists of the western tradition were also ardent believers: Ambrose, Augustine, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, Bonaventure, Descartes, Pascal….
The Catholic philosophical tradition continues unbroken to this day, though it’s mostly ignored by the world.
I’m convinced that time will prove that Karol Wojtyla, known to the world as Pope John Paul II, was the most important philosopher of the 20th century.
If I look to history and experience the opposite of what you say is closer to the truth: To be a Catholic is to be interested in philosophy. Also science. (The history of science, too, is filled with ardently believing Catholics.)
Pope Benedict XVI, a theologian who regretted he hadn’t had more time to devote to philosophy, reminded the world of the great medieval debate between Catholic and Islamic scholars focused on the question of faith and reason. The key difference between the two systems of religious belief then and now is that Catholicism holds that reason is indispensable to faith, that faith relies on reason and must be confirmed in reason to be valid.
I fear have a habit of condescension in the face of dismissiveness. I found Mike’s comment: “Who would want to argue with you…” dismissive. He says he didn’t meant it to be dismissive, but that’s how it came across to me.
Regardless, my parenthetical offer to engage the abortion issue philosophically is grounded on the distinction between philosophy and apologetics, so I’m really tempted to say, “Duh.”
No? Not even to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness? I don’t agree with you on that point.
Right. I granted that in my post too. Sometimes you might have to go to jail. If you live in an unjust society, there are certain positions a conscientious person wouldn’t be able to have…
Islam lacks the concept of conscience and human rights. The western tradition of liberty and the American founding and legal system rely on them utterly.
For some of us Jacques Maritain is a philosopher and Michel Foucault is an intellectual psychopath.
There is a widespread confusion between philosophy and modern louche philosophic temperament I’m afraid.
The temperament is based on modern ersatz virtues — inquisitiveness, openness, tentativeness, relativity — which modern liberals preach but rarely practice.
The real thing is sterner. Based on clear defensible premises, often themselves premised on unyielding religious principles, and proceeding with genuine openness and inquisitiveness, though often arriving at uncomfortable truths that have guided human societies for centuries.
Maritain, yes. Also John Henry Newman, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Josef Pieper, Edith Stein, Elizabeth Anscombe. Prominent modern philosophers and Catholic believers all.
While this is a sound belief, the exception for rape and incest is something that must be included in any new post-Roe state legislation. If not included, overall support for more restrictive laws will dwindle, because the left will champion no exceptions for rape and incest as “See? The end game of the conservatives is to eliminate abortion, period.”
Again, I’m not saying your belief is wrong. What I’m saying is, there will have to be a compromise, but a compromise which will not go over well with everybody . . .
I made a very similar argument in a chat room back in the pre-website days, and was immediately taken to task by a pro-abortionist with the argument that “Why? Are the babies produced by rape or incest less innocent than those who come about in the normal way?” And of course, the answer is no, they’re not.
Legally binding, not morally binding.
Several things: First, is it only the Supremes that may find a law unconstitutional, or may not any Federal Judge refuse to enforce a law because he finds it unconstitutional. Second, and perhaps more to the point, is there anything in the US Constitution as amended, when understood as an originalist perhaps a la Thomas, that might reasonably be considered immoral by the Roman Catholic church, or by which I mean contrary to the law of God as contained in the Bible? Third, and I am totally ignorant here, in the hypothetical case being discussed, may not the judge declare what the law requires without directing obedience to it or directing officers of the court to enforce it?
I would also observe that we are each of us required, when it comes to a matter of contradiction, to obey God rather than men. Judges, court officers, defendants.
Much of law is an attempt to get morality correct, along with a bunch of things to preserve the state. And a lot of law is fine, but if you strongly suspect that a law is unjust, it basically becomes your duty to do your best to eliminate/disobey it.
A lot of things you could do are unpractical. Like breaking the law in a showy fashion in the vain hope that people will notice/care enough to change it while you’re rotting in jail. That’s a terrible idea (and the one advocated the most by people who are, in my opinion, a little too concerned about “rule of law”.) This isn’t to say rule of law isn’t a good an noble idea in the abstract, and should be adhered to as much as possible, but it can be overdone.
A more practical way would be through jury nullification, if that opportunity ever came about for you. Or, to bring it back to the OP, if you are a judge, using moral philosophy to augment the law as best you can, like back in the days of common law.
So, like most things in moral philosophy, if it was easy and obvious, no one would be arguing about it. We’d have it all figured out. But we don’t, and people’s conscientiousness does have a role to play in shaping law beyond the excessively difficult task of convincing people to change it through the legislative process.
You understand that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and William Brennan would agree with this wholeheartedly, right?
I disagree. Maybe those were justifications for a revolution, but they aren’t rights. Far less, unalienable.
It would be some kinda real bad luck to need a transfusion immediately and walk into the only trauma center anywhere where every employee was a Jehovah’s Witness. I hate it when that happens. Only kidding @caroljoy!