tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post4529716423483613208..comments2024-01-22T11:42:42.772+08:00Comments on FideCogitActio : omnis per gratiam: News roundup…Codgitator (Cadgertator)http://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post-89949351463220731422011-03-27T08:14:15.462+08:002011-03-27T08:14:15.462+08:00The news link was an amusing follow up, I'll g...The news link was an amusing follow up, I'll give you that. And I loved your lament about the libertarian slip from legal capaciousness to moral opprobrium. Christopher Ferrara (sp?) has a book about the Church and Libertarians and agrees the latter accord with the Church as far as subsidiary goes, but I think certain issues (such as abortion and marriage) are in the ecclesial order matters of justice, not just polity, but that is the heart of the debate, I realize, a resolution of the problem, as it were, and not a simple solution to it.Codgitator (Cadgertator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post-66839492345060894212011-03-25T21:22:57.233+08:002011-03-25T21:22:57.233+08:00Oh, I had no intention of using that polling data ...Oh, I had no intention of using that polling data to support an argument about what an officially acceptable position would be. Supposedly a great number of American Catholics said that the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist was "just a symbol"; obviously that doesn't change the Church's teaching on transubstantiation. I was more interested in using it as an amusing tag to my last comment about Anglicanism. And yes, I tend to use only modal verbs when it comes to theology.<br /><br />That logical slippage is exactly the sort of thing that I'd hoped to avoid. Of course, one of the things that frequently drives me insane about libertarians is that they slip from "no legislation against X" to "approval of X" or at least "no negative judgment of any kind against X." But it's precisely the difference between legal restriction and moral opposition that I'm interested in here.djrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07752946730851928276noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post-5850800027725682102011-03-25T12:58:07.723+08:002011-03-25T12:58:07.723+08:00I was going to say, "You're still using a...I was going to say, "You're still using a modal verb about your Anglicanism!?" heh<br /><br />Two points: <br /><br />1) The popular acceptance of anti-ecclesial positions is notoriously not a strong factor in Catholicism. "Not a Democracy" etc. You can find data that many Catholics also endorse legalized abortion, but that hardly serves as an argument that Catholic teaching itself endorses it. I think the cases are parallel. And the same holds in spades for contraception. As Sullivan would have it, "The RCC lost that argument in the developed world long ago." And yet, yet––! Clearly it hasn't, in so far as there is a live debate to which firm teaching can be and is applied. <br /><br />2) I also think the "via media" would be to strip marriage of any legal status, i.e., not make it something the state can legislate/stipulate. That, however, seems very unlikely to occur. As it stands, I think there is some logical slippage at play. (L) "Since a Catholic can support the libertarian a-legality of marriage qua purely social operation, therefore a Catholic can endorse same-sex marriage." <br /><br />As Joseph Wood Krutch said, "Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence."Codgitator (Cadgertator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post-77715681020614452762011-03-25T06:50:53.740+08:002011-03-25T06:50:53.740+08:00Or perhaps not:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlanti...Or perhaps not: <br /><br /><a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/03/and-k-lo-wept-ctd-2.html" rel="nofollow">http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/03/and-k-lo-wept-ctd-2.html</a>djrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07752946730851928276noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post-73740495519254403792011-03-23T08:04:50.739+08:002011-03-23T08:04:50.739+08:00I think Ed Feser has become a rather anti-libertar...I think Ed Feser has become a rather anti-libertarian Catholic rather than a post-libertarian Catholic. At least, he certainly seems to endorse strongly coercive state action promoting behavior that he deems to be morally upright, or at least to prohibit behavior that he believes to be morally opprobrious. So I don't think he'd be the best person to ask. It would be rather like asking left-wing Catholics whether a Catholic can support the death penalty. <br /><br />That said, I don't see why a Catholic would have to dissent from any really (as opposed to presumptively) authoritative Church teachings in order to conclude that the modern state is in principle incapable of possessing the political legitimacy to promote and defend the common good through coercive legal sanctions, and therefore ought to be limited to protecting citizens' negative rights. Even Alasdair MacIntyre, who is in no way a libertarian, thinks that the modern state is incapable of possessing genuine political authority. Though he seems to prefer the demise of the nation-state altogether, it would hardly be crazy to think that a minimal state could still be justified and to prefer it to anarchy. Peter Simpson comes to a similar conclusion in his essay 'Liberalism, State, and Community,' and John Haldane seems to offer a qualified 'yes' to the question of his article, 'Can a Catholic be a Liberal?' These guys are hardly heterodox. <br /><br />I do wonder, though, whether the most a non-dissenting Catholic could get out of this would be a justification for <i>privatizing</i> marriage, rather than a move to expand the currently state-sanctioned institution to include same-sex couples. It would certainly seem to be more consistent with a libertarian position to reduce the legal recognition of marriage to the status of property contract and/or legal responsibility for children. But since those kinds of contracts need to be available to and enforced for non-traditionally-married couples on any sane account of the matter, there seems no problem with <i>that</i> much. <br /><br />I suppose the question might boil down, as you suggest, to which kinds of support for which kinds of policies amount to endorsing or promoting same-sex relationships. It would be a mistake, I think, to conclude that any failure to oppose them amounts to an endorsement (at least any failure to oppose them <i>legally</i>). But I'm still not sure that even the current proposals to recognize same-sex civil unions can't be legally supported by non-dissenting Catholics (after all, the civil union more or less <i>just is</i> the kind of contract that the libertarian thinks all kinds of marriage should be). <br /><br />I have only a sort of quasi-academic interest in this argument anyway, since I don't think there are any good arguments at all in favor of categorical moral prohibitions on homosexual acts (if there are, they must rest on revealed truths that could not be known by reason). Even still, a heterodox Catholic who took that view would still want to distinguish legitimate same-sex couplings from <i>marriage</i> on sacramental grounds. But one hardly needs to be a libertarian to think that the state has no business legally enforcing sacramental theology.<br /><br />Perhaps I ought to be an Anglican, then, eh? ;-)djrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07752946730851928276noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post-36485692068973984302011-03-22T17:27:58.121+08:002011-03-22T17:27:58.121+08:00djr:
I'm also generally a pessimist, believe...djr: <br /><br />I'm also generally a pessimist, believe it or not, so I agree too rosy a prognosis for Japan is just as unfounded as too grim a prognosis. But that's why I found such news interesting: I'm also a pessimist about pessimism! I think it's safe to say that virtually everyone has some kind of political interests, so even the most "sober" and "chilling" prognoses need to be taken with a grain of salt, precisely because they may just be the wrenching sound of unseen political gears. <br /><br />As for libertarian allowances for gay marriage, I don't think a Catholic in good standing could actively endorse a measure that promotes values/policies opposed to clear Catholic moral teaching. It follows for many that, without a grounds to support such measures, Catholics in good standing should oppose such policies. I think all libertarian Catholicism could get you is the liberty to refrain from openly opposing the policy, not the dispensation to support it for "para-Catholic" reasons. Actually, someone much better suited to address the topic is Edward Feser, a former atheist, turned libertarian Christian, turned post-(ex-)libertarian Catholic.Codgitator (Cadgertator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post-43504173236646351372011-03-18T09:50:39.309+08:002011-03-18T09:50:39.309+08:00I am not going to believe some guy who tells me th...I am not going to believe some guy who tells me that the situation in Japan isn't a problem when everyone else I can find who is in a position to know tells me that it is potentially a pretty serious problem. Why not? Because the claims of one journalist do not provide me with good reasons to reject the authority of the chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. When that journalist pretty clearly has ideological commitments to dismiss the environmental impact of certain forms of power, I have even fewer reasons to believe him. Even when <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0317/Fear-of-Japan-s-nuclear-crisis-far-exceeds-actual-risks-say-scientists" rel="nofollow">real scientists</a> say that the fears are greatly exaggerated, I have three responses. First, it's pretty obvious that it's being exaggerated; it doesn't follow that it isn't actually bad. Second, when the World Nuclear Association tells me that exposure to 100 millisieverts of radiation a year can give me cancer, and the Japanese tell me that they have detected levels of 400 millisieverts <i>per hour</i>, the last thing in my mind is "was Chernobyl that bad?" If that's how it is, it's bad. Third, I am a pessimist. When things like this happen, it is more reasonable to believe trustworthy authorities who tell me that it's bad than it is to believe wishful thinkers. We'd all love to believe that it isn't bad; we should therefore be suspicious of anyone who tells us that it isn't. <br /><br />Much like the media discussion of global warming, it's one thing to point out that the prospects might not be quite so, oh, <i>apocalyptic</i> as some people would like us to believe. But that's a far cry from showing that there's nothing to worry about.<br /><br />In other news, I am not sure that it is contrary to Catholic teaching to vote for a bill that legalizes same-sex marriage. It is certainly contrary to Catholic teaching to endorse homosexual acts. But why can't a Catholic vote for such a policy on libertarian grounds? Is libertarianism contrary to Catholic teaching? I know plenty of Catholics who would say that it is, but I'm not so sure (and I know plenty of libertarian Catholics who would virulently disagree!)djrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07752946730851928276noreply@blogger.com