Edward Feser's Blog, page 7

Pints with Aquinas interview

RecentlyMatt Fradd kindly had me on Pints with Aquinas fora wide-ranging three-hour interview. At the moment, the full interview is available to members but an excerpt has been posted today atYouTube.

Zubia on Hume and liberalism

“Hume’s Trojan Horse,” my review of Aaron Alexander Zubia’s new book ThePolitical Thought of David Hume: The Origins of Liberalism and the ModernPolitical Imagination , appears in the Fall 2024 issue of the Claremont Review of Books.

Popper’s via negativa

Negative theology (also known as apophatic theology) is anapproach to the study of the divine nature that emphasizes that our knowledgeof God is (either largely or wholly, depending on how far one wants to takethis) knowledge of what God is not,rather than what God is.  There is aninteresting parallelism between this idea and Karl Popper’s account of thenature of scientific knowledge.  I don’tclaim that this necessarily has much if any significance for either theology orthe philosophy of science (and I’m no Popperian in any event), only that theparallels seem real.  Make of them whatyou will.

Note first that negative theology is not a kind of atheism, noreven agnosticism as that is usually understood. The negative theologian does not deny that God exists, nor even,necessarily, that we can know that God exists. The claim is rather that God’s essenceor nature (as opposed to his existence) is opaque to us, so that a soundtheology must characterize it mostly or entirely in negative terms.

Maimonides is a famous advocate of this approach.  Another is Aquinas, though the apophaticelement of his theology, important as it is, is sometimes overstated.  As Aquinas says in De Potentia:

Moreover the idea of negation isalways based on an affirmation: as evinced by the fact that every negativeproposition is proved by an affirmative: wherefore unless the human mind knewsomething positively about God, it would be unable to deny anything about him.  And it would know nothing if nothing that itaffirmed about God were positively verified about him. (Question VII, Article5)

All the same, Aquinas emphasizes that because of thedependence of human cognition on the senses, our positive knowledge cannotextend as far as the divine essence.  Wecan say that God is not caused, not changing, not in time, notmaterial, and so on, but lack the capacity for much in the way of a positivecharacterization.

Now, Popper famously presents his falsificationist philosophyof science as a response to Hume’s problem of induction.  The Humean, on the basis of his empiricistpremises, denies that we can be rationally justified in inferring universallaws from observation of particular cases. Popper agrees with this, but says that it doesn’t matter because scienceis not really concerned with justifying anything in the first place, but ratherwith falsifying claims.  We can know what has been proved false, but can never prove any scientificclaim true.  Corroborated scientifictheories are those which have not yetbeen proven false, but at some point they too are bound to be falsified andreplaced by other (only tentatively accepted) theories which will themselves eventuallybe falsified. 

Popper’sconfinement of certain scientific knowledge to negative claims about thenatural world is analogous to the apophatic theologian’s confinement oftheological knowledge to negative claims about the divine nature.  It has a similar source in the idea thatknowledge must be grounded in experience (where the Humean has a much thinnerconception of “experience” than an Aristotle or Aquinas, which is why Humeansare bound to think we can know much less about even the natural world than Aristotleor Aquinas did).  Popper also rejectsessentialism, so that he thinks we cannot know the essences of natural phenomena(in a way that is analogous to how Aquinas, though an essentialist, thinks wecannot strictly know the divineessence). 

Yet Popperis a realist and an objectivist.  He doesnot deny the reality of the natural world or that our cognitive faculties arecapable of making objectively true judgments about it.  It’s just that our knowledge of it is largelynegative.  This is analogous to how theapophatic theologian does not deny that God exists or that we can know that hedoes, but only that we can have much in the way of positive knowledge of hisnature.

Is there somereason for these parallels betweenPopper’s philosophy of science and negative theology?  Or are they merely coincidental?  I’m inclined to say that they are notentirely coincidental, though not because either had any direct effect on theother.  Rather, as I have indicated,their similarities are perhaps a result of a common foundation in empiricism(or at least, such a foundation is to be found in the Aristotelian style of negativetheology one sees in a thinker like Aquinas). Though, an important difference between the views also has the samefoundation.

What I meanis this.  Aquinas’s negative theology isgrounded in his Aristotelian brand of empiricism.  Because the empirical world is the natural subjectmatter of human cognition, we can’t form much in the way of a positive conceptionof what lies beyond it.  All the same,the Aristotelian brand of empiricismhas a much more ambitious conception of what the senses can reveal about thenatural world than modern, post-Lockeanempiricism does.  It allows, for example,that the intellect can abstract the essences of physical things of a certainkind from observations of particular instances of that kind.  This makes possible a more robust positive knowledgeof the natural world than is possible on Popper’s account.

Popperhimself was certainly critical of certain aspects of modern empiricism, but henevertheless worked within its broad, very modest conception (and, from theAristotelian point of view, excessively modest conception) of what experiencecould reveal about nature.   Hence, wherethe Aristotelian negative theologian would say that we can have little or nopositive knowledge of the divine essence but can have such knowledge about the naturalworld, Popper denies we can have it even about the natural world.  In both cases the view is (or at leastsometimes is, in the case of negative theology) grounded in a view about thelimits of empirically grounded knowledge, but in Popper’s case the limits aremore severe.

Related posts:

Tugwellon St. Albert on negative theology

McCabeon the divine nature

Dharmakīrtiand Maimonides on divine action

LaoTzu’s negative theology

Anote on falsification

Popper’sWorld 3

Jacksonon Popper on materialism

Advice to Christian Philosophers

My essay “FromJustin Martyr to Alvin Plantinga and Back Again: Advice from the FirstChristian Philosopher” appears in the anthology Advice to Christian Philosophers:Reflections on the Past and Future of Christian Philosophy , edited by (andwith an essay by) Christopher Woznicki.  It’sa volume of articles inspired by Alvin Plantinga’s famous essay “Advice toChristian Philosophers,” which is included. Other contributors include Charity Anderson, Michael Austin, WilliamLane Craig, Gregory Ganssle, Marina Garner, Paul Gould, Adam Green, Ross Inman,J. P. Moreland, Dolores Morris, Meghan Page, Timothy Pawl, Tim Pickavance,Joshua Rasmussen, Yoon Shin, Peter van Inwagen, Thomas Ward, Greg Welty, EricYang, and Linda Zagzebski.  Moreinformation here.

Pro-lifers must resist Trump on abortion and IVF

Pro-lifersshould rejoice in the defeat of Kamala Harris, and of the Democratic Party, whichremains the greatest threat to the unborn in American politics.  But they cannot rest, because their job isonly half done.  The second greatestthreat has yet to be dealt with, and that is Donald Trump.

Manypro-life Trump supporters will be shocked and angered at such a statement.  But I urge them to resist this emotionalreaction and dispassionately consider the cold, hard facts.  Trump supportspreserving access to the abortion pill, which is responsible for themajority of abortions in the United States. Since these pills can be sent by mail into states where abortion isrestricted or banned, preserving such access largely undermines recent state-levelpro-life measures.  Trump also actively opposesthose measures in any event, insisting that they are “too tough” and need to be“redone.”  He has repeatedlysaid that, even at the state level, abortion must remain legal beyondsix weeks.  And he wants the federalgovernment to pay for, or to force insurance companies to pay for,in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments – a practice that results in thedestruction of more human embryos than even abortion does.  The only threat to the unborn Trump hasclearly and consistently opposed is late-term abortion, which accounts for amere 1% of abortions.  Inshort, the policies Trump favors would prevent very few abortions and encouragethe discarding of millions of embryos.  True,Trump is muchbetter than Harris in supporting the rights of pro-lifers.  But he is now onlya little better in upholding the rights of the unborn.

To be sure,the enthusiasm of many pro-lifers for Trump is understandable.  The Supreme Court Justices he appointed werecrucial to overturning Roe v. Wade.  He took other pro-life stepsduring his first term, such as reinstating the Mexico City Policy, whichprevents taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions overseas.  Pro-lifers are desperate for a champion, and Trump’sgrit and victories over pro-choice extremists like Harris and Hillary Clinton canmake him seem to fill the bill.  But noneof that changes the unhappy facts summarized in the previous paragraph.  None of it changes the fact that Trump riggedthe GOP party platform process so as to exclude pro-lifers and ramthrough a removal of the pro-life plank. None of it conflicts with the clearevidence that Trump pushed a pro-life agenda during his first term onlyout of political expediency rather than conviction, and has reverted to themoderate pro-choice position that he held for decades because he judges that that is now the politically moreexpedient course.

When I andothers raisedthe alarm about these problems during the campaign, there were many pro-lifeTrump supporters who quietly acknowledged them but urged that criticism ofTrump be muted until after the election, lest it help Harris.  But the election is now over and Trump wonhandily.  There is no longer any excusefor keeping silent.  And pro-lifers must not keep silent, because Trump’spolicies on these matters are gravely immoral. Let’s look more closely at both the IVF issue and Trump’s current stanceon abortion to see just how grave the situation is.

The gravity of the IVF issue

The CatholicChurch is the best-known critic of IVF, but it is crucial to emphasize that themoral problems with IVF have nothing essentially to do with specificallyCatholic premises, or indeed with religious premises of any other kind.  As with abortion, even an atheist couldobject to IVF on completely secular moral grounds (even if in fact most atheistsno doubt don’t object to it).  There aremany moral problems with IVF, but for present purposes I will focus only onthose that anyone who already agrees that abortion is wrong should be able tosee.  This is by no means a trivialexercise, because in recent months, a number of people often thought of asstaunchly pro-life have endorsed IVF. Trump himself is an example, as are TedCruz, Marco Rubio,and other Republican U.S. Senators.  Itis important for pro-lifers tempted to accept IVF to see that they cannot do soconsistently with their opposition to abortion.

Now, invitro fertilization itself simply involves bringing sperm and egg togetheroutside the normal context of the womb, so as to yield a new human embryo.  While there are moral grounds for objectingto this practice, this much does not amount to homicide, as abortion does.  But it is by no means the end of thestory.  For the IVF procedure to yieldthe results desired, producing a single embryo is not sufficient.  Usually several embryos are generated, evenas many as a dozen.  From them, thoseconsidered the best candidates are chosen for implantation in the mother’swomb.  The rest are discarded, used forresearch, or frozen for possible future use. Among those implanted, one is often judged the healthiest and brought toterm, and the others aborted if the mother does not want more than onechild. 

Destroyingunused embryos is morally on a par with abortion, and killing unwanted embryosafter implantation just is a kind ofabortion.  To speak harshly buttruthfully, the destruction of embryos that is typically involved in IVF ismurder, no less than abortion is.  A recentestimate puts the number of embryos lost in in the IVF process every year inthe United States at over a million and ahalf – twice the number of abortionsthat occur in the U.S. every year.  Nor,again, is this an evil that can realistically be avoided if IVF is to have theresults desired from it.  Experts judge that“discarding embryos is inherent to the IVF process.”

Freezingembryos indefinitely is also gravely evil. Most of those frozen are simply abandoned.  But even those that are not are done a graveinjustice.  A child has a right to beprovided for by his parents, with food, shelter, instruction, and thelike.  Any parent who would deprive achild of these things would be considered wicked.  But how much more does a child have a rightto be nurtured in the womb and brought into the world, which is a preconditionof these other goods?  A parent who leavesan embryo frozen in the expectation that it might eventually be taken by othersis comparable to someone who abandons a child on a doorstep.  A parent who allows a frozen embryo to beabandoned altogether, eventually to die, is comparable to the pagans of old whowould abandon unwanted babies on garbage heaps.

Tocharacterize a presidential administration that actively promotes IVF as“pro-life” would be ludicrous, indeed obscene. Yet Trump intends for his administration to do just this.  Again, he wants the federal government eitherto pay for all the costs of IVF procedures, or to force insurance companies todo so.  If Catholic institutions areforced to participate, this would be an assault on religious freedom no lessgrave than Obama’s attempted contraception mandate.  To be sure, Trump hasindicated that he might be open to a religious exemption.  But that is nowhere near good enough.  The fundamental problem is not that Catholicswould be forced to participate in the murder of embryos, bad as that wouldbe.  The fundamental problem is themurder of embryos. 

Some mightsuggest that Trump’s call for an IVF mandate was just campaign rhetoric thatwill quickly be forgotten.  But while wecan hope this is true, we cannotcomplacently assume that it is, andin fact the evidence points in the opposite direction.  Trump has not merely made a perfunctorystatement or two on the issue.  On thecontrary, he repeatedly and enthusiastically promoted the IVF mandate duringthe campaign, goingso far as to characterize himself as “the father of IVF” and topledge that the GOP will now be “the party for IVF” even more than theDemocrats.  Other Republicans withpro-life reputations have also in recent months takenpositive action to promote IVF. Even JD Vance, despite his reputation as a faithful pro-life Catholic, hasenthusiastically spoken in favor of it.  Elon Musk, a major Trump ally and advisor, isan especially vigorous proponent of IVF, several of his children having beenconceived via the procedure.

As onecommentator has concluded,“if Trump makes good on his promise of federally-funded IVF, it will be one ofthe most objectively anti-life acts in US government history.”  But even this is only the half of the problem.

Trump is now pro-choice

In the yearssince Roe was overturned, Trump hasrepeatedly said that the abortion issue should now be left to the states ratherthan the federal government.  Yet he hasduring the same period also repeatedly criticized state-level restrictions onabortion.  When the Arizona Supreme Courtruled in favor of enforcing an abortion ban, Trumpcomplained that it “went too far.”  When Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed alaw banning abortion after six weeks, Trumpcondemned the ban as “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”  The reason, he explained, isthat he thinks “the six week is too short, there has to be more time” – moretime, that is to say, for the mother to decide whether to have anabortion.  And again, hesays that the restrictive measures some state Republicans havepushed for are “too tough, too tough” and “are going to be redone.” 

During thecampaign, Trump repeatedly obfuscated on Florida’s Amendment 4, which wouldhave expanded abortion access even to late term.  At one point, when asked whether he wouldvote against it, heresponded that he would “be voting that we need more than six weeks”– thereby giving the impression that he would vote for the amendment.  After an outcry from pro-lifers, Trump thensaid that he would vote against it, but reiterated that he stillthought a six week ban was too restrictive. But then, on Election Day, herefused to say whether he had in fact voted against the amendment.

At onepoint, Trump saidthat a fifteen-week ban on abortion at the federal level might be“reasonable” and reflected “the number of weeks” he was “thinking in termsof.”  He laterchanged course and declared that he would veto any federal ban.  But when you consider his initial view that afifteen-week federal ban would reflect a “reasonable” time frame, together withhis repeated criticism of six-week bans at the state level, the naturalconclusion to draw is that the most Trump would support in defense of theunborn is a fifteen-week ban on abortion at the state level.  In other words, Trump’s position seems to bethat abortion should be legal, even atthe state level, before fifteen weeks.

That ismanifestly an example of what every pro-lifer before twenty minutes ago wouldcall a pro-choice position.  It is whatno pro-lifer would have tolerated in a Republican presidential candidate beforeTrump.  True, it is not as extreme a pro-choice position as theone that Kamala Harris and other Democrats now routinely take.  But it is still manifestly pro-choice, andnot pro-life.

Now, 93% ofabortions in the U.S. occurat thirteen weeks or earlier – that is to say, precisely during theperiod that Trump apparently wants abortion to be legal even at the statelevel.  And again, he has also statedthat he “will not block” access to abortion pills, whichaccount for the majority of abortions and can be mailed across statelines into states with restrictive abortion laws.  In short, Trump’scurrent position on abortion would permit well over 90% of abortions even atthe state level.  As with his IVFpolicy, it would be ludicrous and indeed obscene to characterize this asremotely close to a “pro-life” position.

Here too it wouldbe naïve to think that Trump’s recent statements are mere campaign rhetoricthat will be forgotten now that he has been elected.  Trump has not merely refrained fromadvocating pro-life policy when running for a second term.  He has activelyfought against such policies when Republicans have pushed them even at thestate level, and took positive action toremove from the GOP platform its commitment to defending the lives of theunborn.  He hasemphasized that his new administration “will be great for women andtheir reproductive rights,” standard code for pro-choice policies.  Late in his campaign, Trump’s wife Melaniareleased a memoir which was loudlymarketed as, of all things, an expression of her commitment toabortion rights.  It would be absurd tosuppose that the Trump campaign would permit this if it were not trying to senda reassuring message to those worried that Trump would return to pro-lifeadvocacy once elected.  And far fromdistancing himself from this message, Trump has effusively praisedthe book (and at the Catholic Al Smith dinner, of all places).  He has also now surrounded himself withpro-choice advisors like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, and gotteneven the once staunchly pro-life Vance to temporize on the issue.

Somepro-life Trump supporters might suggest that while Trump’s current position isregrettable, it is irrelevant.  Byhelping to overturn Roe, they mightsay, he has opened the door to fighting abortion at the state level, andpro-lifers can now do this as effectively without Trump’s support as they couldwith it.  But this too is naïve.  Trump is clearly convinced that the pro-lifecause is now a liability for him and for the GOP in general.  That is the best explanation for why he hasfought even state-level restrictions rather than staying neutral.  With only thin majorities in Congress andworries about how the midterms might go, he is likely to continue to try to discourageRepublican governors and lawmakers from pressing for restrictions onabortion.  Presidents can exertconsiderable pressure, especially when they are popular with the party base andhave won decisive electoral victories.  Andas I have argued in aprevious article, Trump’s record shows that he is likely to bevindictive against those who resist him on this matter.  Pro-lifers will have their work cut out forthem.

Some common responses

I’ve foundthat while some pro-life Trump supporters are clear-eyed about these problems, othersare extremely reluctant to face up to them. There are several stock responses I’ve seen over and over, not onlythroughout the campaign but even after Trump won.  It is worthwhile to explain why, though emotionallyattractive to some, these responses completely miss the point or otherwise haveno force:

1. “How can you say Trump ispro-choice?  He got Roe overturned!  Have you nogratitude?”

Yes, Trumpwas instrumental in overturning Roe anddeserves thanks for that.  But gettingrid of Roe does not by itself saveany unborn lives.  It merely removes acertain obstacle to saving them.  One hasto take further positive steps in order actually to protect the unborn.  And the trouble is that Trump has bothopposed such steps (insofar as he has actively opposed both federal actionagainst abortion and the state-level measures Republicans have pushed for), andalso proposed a new policy that positively threatens the unborn (the IVFmandate).

Supposesomeone bought you a car but also both made it difficult or impossible for youto get any gasoline, and encouraged others to steal the car.  Obviously, it would be silly for someone todefend him by saying “Don’t be ungrateful! After all, he bought you the car!”  Buying someone a car is hardly much of a giftif you also make it impossible for the person to use or keep it.  The point of having a car, after all, is todrive it.  Similarly, for pro-lifers, thepoint of overturning Roe was to openthe door to protecting the unborn.  ForTrump to help overturn Roe but thengo on to oppose federal and state-level restrictions and promote IVF defeatsthis purpose.  Trump is taking back withhis left hand what he gave with his right.

2. “But it would be politically unrealisticto push for a national ban on abortion or IVF!”

This is nodoubt true, but it is beside the point, because no one is criticizing Trump forfailing to do that.  His critics realizethat current political circumstances make such bans politicallyunfeasible.  But it is one thing simplyto refrain from pushing for a federalabortion ban.  It is quite another thing actively to oppose such a ban, and actively to remove the pro-life plankfrom the GOP platform.  It is one thingsimply not to oppose IVF.  It is quite another actively to promote IVF and to push for federal funding of it.  Moreover, the problem is not just that Trumpactively opposes any federal action in this area.  It is that he has also actively opposed thesteps pro-lifers have been taking even at the state level to restrict abortion.

3. “After Dobbs, abortion is a state-level issue anyway, so Trump’s current views areirrelevant”

There arethree problems with this response. First, while Trump and his supporters often speak as if Dobbs permits the states alone to restrict abortion, that is nottrue.  After Dobbs, either the states orthe federal government may put restrictions on abortion.  It may currently be politically unfeasible topush for federal restrictions, but it is dishonest to insinuate that the Dobbs decision somehow rules out suchrestrictions.

Second, evenwhere state-level restrictions are concerned, Trump’s current views are not irrelevant.  Again, though out of one side of his mouth hesays that the states can do what they like, out of the other side he has beenactively opposing recent state-level restrictions.  He clearly thinks these restrictions arepolitically harmful to him and the GOP, and wants to discourage Republicanseven at the state level from pushing for them. A president has tremendous influence on what happens in his party at alllevels, especially when he has tight control over the party apparatus and haswon a decisive electoral victory.  Republicanpoliticians down-ballot who want the support of the president and the party arebound to feel strong pressure not to resist him on the abortion issue.

Third, whateverone says about abortion, Trump’s proposed IVF mandate would itself be a federal initiative.  It is he, not his critics, who is making ofIVF’s threat to the unborn a federal issue rather than a state issue.

(SomeCatholic Trump supporters have argued that the natural law principle ofsubsidiarity requires dealing with abortion only at the state level rather thanthe federal level.  But this is not true,as I have shown in anotherarticle.)

4. “No political candidate is goingto fit some imagined ideal.  Bycriticizing Trump, you are self-righteously making the perfect the enemy of thegood and encouraging a purity spiral that will only damage the pro-life cause!”

This is astraw man.  Trump’s pro-life critics arenot demanding perfection.  And again,they aren’t criticizing him for simply refraining from pushing a pro-lifeagenda in a hostile political climate. Rather, they are criticizing him for doing things that are positively gravely damaging to thepro-life cause.  As we have seen, Trump’scurrent position on abortion would effectively permit over 90% of abortions, and his IVF proposal would actively promotea procedure that entails even morekilling of the unborn than abortion does. That is not merely imperfect or less than ideal.  It not only permits but positivelyfacilitates the vast majority of killings of the unborn.  It does not merely fail to promote thepro-life cause, but is directly contraryto it.

5. “But Harris is worse!  It would have been insane for pro-lifers tohelp her defeat Trump!”

Yes, Harrisis even worse than Trump, which is why I consistently said for months that itwould be better for her to lose and that it was justifiable for pro-lifers inswing states to vote for Trump in order to ensure that she lost.  But asI also argued during the campaign, in no way did this entail thatTrump’s current position was not seriously problematic, or that pro-liferscould be excused from criticizing his betrayal of the unborn.  In any event, that is now moot.  Harris has lost, Trump has won, and there isno longer any excuse (if there ever was one) for pro-lifers to remainsilent. 

6. “This is all just TrumpDerangement Syndrome (TDS)!  You’re justa NeverTrumper!”

This is themost brain-dead response, and not really worthy of comment.  But because it is extremely common, I’lloffer a reply.

First, I amneither a “NeverTrumper” nor “deranged” in my criticisms of him.  Though I have always had serious reservationsabout Trump, I did vote for him in 2016 and 2020 because the alternatives wereworse.  To be sure, his behavior afterhis 2020 defeat, and especially what he tried to pressure Mike Pence to do,were in my opinion disgraceful and a graveassault on the rule of law. That alone should have prevented Republicans from ever nominating himagain.  All the same, had I lived in aswing state, I would have voted for him even in this election, just to keepHarris out.  I have also many timesexplicitly acknowledged that Trump has real strengths and has done some goodthings, and that many of the things his critics say about him are false.  My article “Trump:A buyer’s guide,” while very critical of him, also defends himagainst these excessive and unfair criticisms. No reasonable person who reads that article could accuse me of “TDS.”

If I reallywere suffering from “TDS,” I would have been writing critical things aboutTrump for years.  In fact, in the yearssince he took center stage in American politics, I have written very littleabout him.  The reason is that I find itvery unpleasant to do so, given that so many of his biggest critics and biggestfans alike are unable to discuss the subject in a reasonable and civilway.  Whenever I have said positivethings about Trump, I have been accused of being part of the “MAGA cult” or thelike.  Whenever I have said criticalthings about him, I have been accused of “TDS” etc.  So many people on both sides are so shrilland irrational on the subject of Trump that for a long time I judged it betterto avoid saying much about him.  Anyonewho has been paying attention will know that I started frequently commenting onTrump only after he began to sell out the pro-life cause.  The reason, as should be blindingly obviousto any rational person, is not that I have an animus against Trump, but becauseI have an animus against abortion. 

In anyevent, even if I did have an animus against Trump, that would be completelyirrelevant to the cogency of the arguments I have given here and in earlierarticles.  The arguments stand or fall ontheir own merits, whatever my motivations. To suppose otherwise is to commit a blatant ad hominem fallacy. 

But whilewe’re on the subject of motivation, it’s worth noting that the issue cuts bothways.  Pro-life Trump voters are oftenaccused of putting politics ahead of their pro-life principles.  The accusation is usually unfair, but notalways.  Any pro-life Trump voter who,even after he has been safely elected, would still refuse to criticize him for his betrayal of the unbornthereby proves the critics right.

Relatedposts:

Fight,yes, but for what?

Trumphas put social conservatives in a dilemma

Trump: Abuyer’s guide

Abortionand subsidiarity

Progressive Catholics and capital punishment

The debateover capital punishment between conservative and progressive Catholicstypically exhibits the following dialectic. The conservative will set out a case from natural law, scripture andtradition, and social science for the thesis that capital punishment is atleast in principle licit and in practice still needed in some circumstances –as Joseph Bessette and I do at length in our book ByMan Shall His Blood Be Shed . The progressive will reply with an impassioned but vague appeal to humandignity, a cherry-picked statement from the recent magisterium, and atendentious empirical claim (for example, that capital punishment does notdeter, or is implemented in a racist manner), and top things off with in an ad hominem attack (such as accusing theconservative of being bloodthirsty or having a political motive).  The conservative will then complain that theprogressive has attacked a straw man and simply ignored rather than answeredhis key points.  The progressive will atthis point either ignore the conservative or simply repeat his original,question-begging reply at higher volume.

The latestiteration of the progressive’s routine is Jack Hanson’s articleon Catholicism and capital punishment in The New York Review of Books. A recent execution provides the occasion for the article, but there isotherwise nothing new in it.  And thoughit cites me as the Exhibit A “hard-liner” among Catholic academics who defendcapital punishment, it offers no response to the key arguments Bessette and Idevelop in our book.

The conservative’s case

Because somany of our critics ignore rather than respond to those arguments, we’ve had toreiterate them many times in the seven years since our book appeared.  It is tiresome to have to do so yet again,but at least a brief summary is necessary for context.  There are three relevant sets ofconsiderations, deriving from natural law, scripture and tradition, and socialscience.

Thetraditional natural law rationale for the death penalty is straightforward.  Wrongdoers deserve punishment, and what theydeserve, specifically, is a punishment that is proportional to theoffense.  And governmental authoritieshave the right to inflict such punishments. Now, some offenses are so extremely grave that nothing less thanexecution would be a proportional punishment. So, such offenders deserve the death penalty, and the state has a rightto inflict it on them.

This is notto say that the state must inflictthe death penalty whenever it is deserved, only that it may do so, at least in principle. And there may in some cases be good reasons why it should not doso.  As Aquinas teaches, perfect justiceis not attainable in this life, and when inflicting punishments, governmentsneed to focus primarily on what is essential to preserving public order.  But though considerations of retributivejustice are not sufficient todetermine what punishments should be inflicted, they are necessary.  An offender candeserve death as a matter of retributive justice, so that if the state inflictsdeath on him, it does no injustice –even in cases where there are considerations other than justice that shouldlead it to refrain from inflicting this penalty.

The point isthat the death penalty cannot be regarded as intrinsically wrong.  It doesnot amount to murder, any more than arresting and imprisoning a bank robberamounts to kidnapping, or any more than fining someone caught speeding amountsto stealing.  A murderer has forfeitedhis right to life, just as a robber has forfeited his freedom and someone whoviolates traffic laws has forfeited the money that goes to paying thefine.  If the death penalty is everwrong, it can only be wrong because of the circumstancesunder which it is inflicted, and in particular because there is insufficientreason under the circumstances to give the offender what he deserves.

What, then,of the circumstances that prevail in a country like the United States?  Is there sufficient reason to inflict on someoffenders the penalty of death?  Bessetteand I argue in our book that there is. We argue that some offenders remain so dangerous even when locked up forlife that governing authorities ought to retain the option of execution.  For example, without the prospect of capitalpunishment, some offenders facing life imprisonment have no incentive not tomurder fellow prisoners or prison guards. Or, if they escape, they will have no incentive not to murder innocentpeople in the course of trying to evade police, if the worst they face is areturn to life imprisonment.  In general,we argue, capital punishment does have significant deterrent effect.  It is necessary for governments to keep it onthe books and utilize it at least in the case of the very worst offenders, inorder to protect society from them.

This is justa summary in a few paragraphs of a natural law line of reasoning that Bessette andI develop and defend in detail in the book. As we argue, in order to deny that the death penalty can be licit atleast in principle, one would have to give up the principle that offendersdeserve punishments proportional to the offense.  One problem with doing so is that divorcingpunishment from desert has implications that by anyone’s lights would beunjust.  Another problem is that there isno way to give up the principles of desert and proportionality consistently withCatholic orthodoxy.  For these principlesare deeply embedded in scripture and tradition, informing both the Church’sunderstanding of punishment and her teaching on salvation and damnation. 

This bringsus to the second set of considerations in favor of capital punishment, whichhave to do with the teaching of scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of theChurch, the popes prior to Francis, and tradition in general.  As Bessette and I show in detail, there aremany passages in scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments, that sanctionthe death penalty, and that have always been understood by the Church (andindeed by everyone else, such as Jewish interpreters) to sanction the deathpenalty.  This includes the Fathers ofthe Church, some of whom pleaded for clemency and thought it better for thestate not to exercise its right to inflict the death penalty, but none of whomdenied that scripture did indeed give the state that right.  The Church teaches that neither the Fathersnor the tradition of the Church can be mistaken when they agree on some matterof scriptural interpretation.  Since theFathers and the Church have always agreed that scripture allows for capitalpunishment at least in principle, there is no way to interpret scripture anyother way consistent with orthodoxy.  ACatholic is free to hold (as some of the Fathers did) that it is better inpractice not to utilize capital punishment. But a Catholic is not free to deny that scripture teaches that the deathpenalty can at least in principle be just.

This has for2,000 years been the consistent teaching of the Church and of the popes whohave addressed the issue.  Popes such asSt. Innocent I, Innocent III, Leo X, St. Pius V, St. Pius X, and Pius XII notonly upheld the legitimacy of the death penalty, but in some cases (such asInnocent I, Innocent III, and Leo X) condemned as heterodox the view thatcapital punishment is always wrong.  St.John Paul II too explicitly taught that the death penalty can in some cases bejustifiable, and held only that it is the taking of innocent life that is inherentlywrong.  Here too, Bessette and I back upour claims with a detailed presentation and analysis of the relevant texts.

The mainreason Pope Francis’s change to the Catechism and his other many remarks on thedeath penalty have been so controversial is not because of his opposition toit, but because of the way he hasexpressed his opposition to it – namely, in a manner that seems to imply thatcapital punishment is intrinsicallyor of its very nature wrong.  The language of the change to the Catechism,which states flatly that the death penalty “is an attack on the inviolabilityand dignity of the person,” implies this, certainly on a natural reading.  The recent CDF document Dignitas Infinita condemns capital punishment ineven stronger terms, claiming that it “violates the inalienabledignity of every person, regardless ofthe circumstances” (emphasis added).  This clearly implies that it something aboutthe act of execution in itself, andnot just its circumstances, that makes it immoral. 

Thisposition flatly contradicts the consistent teaching of scripture andtradition.  If Pope Francis is right,every previous pope who has spoken on the matter is wrong – wrong about capitalpunishment, wrong about scriptural interpretation, wrong about the nature andimplications of human dignity.  On theother hand, if all those previous popes were right, then it is Pope Francis whois wrong.  Either way, we are in asituation where some pope or other haserred.  Catholic theology leaves open thepossibility that this can happen when a pope is not speaking ex cathedra.  And since, as the Church teaches, the mainjob of a pope is faithfully to hand on traditional teaching, the most obviousway this might happen is if he were to contradict traditional teaching.

Now, thevery idea that scripture could be mistaken about a matter of faith or morals,or that the Church could for two millennia have consistently beenmisinterpreting scripture and teaching a grave moral error, is flatlyincompatible with the Church’s claims about her own indefectibility.  But a single pope teaching error in some ofhis non-ex cathedra pronouncements itis not contrary to those claims –indeed, it has happened before, albeit only very rarely (as in the cases ofPope Honorius and Pope John XXII).  Thelogically unavoidable implication of this is that IF Pope Francis really doesmean to teach that the death penalty is intrinsicallywrong, then he is in error.  There issimply no other possible conclusion, consistent with the Catholic Church’sclaims about her own indefectibility.

The thirdset of considerations relevant to the debate about Catholicism and capitalpunishment derives from social science. Catholic opponents of the death penalty routinely make a series ofempirical claims, to the effect that modern prison systems suffice to protectsociety without ever having to resort to execution, that the death penalty hasno deterrence value, that it is applied in a racially discriminatory way, thatthere is a significant risk of innocent people being executed, and so on.  Usually these claims are just asserted, without supportingargument.  And usually, thecounterarguments are simply ignored rather than rebutted.

But in ourbook, Joseph Bessette and I address these arguments too, systematically and indepth.  We show that there is in factstrong evidence that the death penalty has deterrence value, that there arecases where life imprisonment is not sufficient to protect others from theoffender, that the death penalty is not in fact implemented in a racially discriminatoryway in the U.S., that there is not in fact a significant risk of innocentpeople being executed, and so on.  (As ithappens, the claim that there is such a risk of executing the innocent is onethat Bessette has rebutted also in a recent Public Discourse article.)

The keyquestions in the debate over Catholicism and capital punishment, then, arethese: Can the view that capital punishment is always and intrinsically immoralbe reconciled with a sound philosophical theory of punishment?  Can it be reconciled with scripture, theFathers and Doctors of the Church, and two thousand years of consistentmagisterial teaching?  Are there strongsocial scientific arguments for the judgment that capital punishment is nevernecessary today in order to protect society? In our book, Bessette and I present a detailed case that the correctanswer to each of these questions is No.

Hanson’s case

Now, Hanson,as I have said, cites me as representative of Catholic academics who defendcapital punishment.  So, what does hehave to say in response to the arguments Bessette and I develop in ourbook?  Nothing.  He tells his readers only that thosearguments have been “refuted by more capable theologians like David BentleyHart and Paul J. Griffiths.”  Hanson doesnot tell us what makes Hart and Griffiths more capable.  (One suspects that “agreeing with Jack Hanson”has something to do with it.)  He alsodoes not tell his readers that Ihave replied to Hart’s and Griffith’s objections, and demonstratedthat in fact those objections are intellectually dishonest and notable more fortheir vituperative excess than for scholarly rigor.

Hanson doeshave some arguments of his own.  First,he suggests that there is a significant risk of executing innocent people.  In fact there is not, as Bessette, who is asocial scientist with special expertise in these matters, shows in thePublic Discourse articlereferred to above (which addresses, among other cases, the specific one Hansonputs special emphasis on).

Second, Hansonsuggests that given “the notion of the ‘sanctity of life,’ which guides [theChurch’s] hard-line stance against abortion,” it is “hypocrisy” for a Catholicto oppose abortion but support capital punishment.  Though this sort of objection is common, theproblem with it is so obvious that I am continually amazed that death penaltyopponents need it pointed out to them. The problem is that there is (as everyone acknowledges in every othercontext) a crucial difference between the innocentand the guilty.  Is it hypocrisy or an assault on humanfreedom to condemn kidnapping while supporting the imprisonment ofkidnappers?  Is it hypocrisy or anassault on private property to condemn theft while supporting the imposition offines for certain offenses?  Of coursenot.  The reason is that the kidnappertakes away the freedom of an innocent person,whereas imprisonment is about taking away the freedom of a guilty person.  Similarly, thethief takes the property of an innocentperson, whereas an offender who is forced to pay a fine is a guilty person.  Punishments like imprisonment and fines uphold rather than undermine freedom andprivate property, because they protect the freedom and private property rightsof innocent people from those who would violate those rights.

For exactlythe same reason, there is no hypocrisy whatsoever in opposing abortion whilesupporting capital punishment, because abortion involves taking the lives ofthe innocent while capital punishmentinvolves taking the lives of the guilty.  And insofar as the death penalty protects societyfrom those who have murdered before, and deters others from committing murders,it upholds the sanctity of life.  This is a point the Church herself hasemphasized in the past.  The RomanCatechism promulgated by Pope St. Pius V teaches that for the state toimplement the death penalty is precisely for it to obey the commandment against murder:

Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civilauthorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal andjudicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent.The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an actof paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end ofthe Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now thepunishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avengerof crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life byrepressing outrage and violence.

Third, Hansonargues that “by sanctioning the taking of a life, we prevent any possibilitythat the condemned might someday reconcile with the world and with God.”  As Bessette and I discuss in our book, thisis an objection Aquinas considers in SummaContra Gentiles III.146, and he dismisses it as “frivolous,” for tworeasons.  For one thing, says Aquinas, wehave to balance the potential repentance of the offender against the very realharm the innocent may suffer if we do not protect them from evildoers by meansof capital punishment.  For another thing,the prospect of execution in fact often promptsevildoers to repent and get themselves right with God while there is stilltime.  If an offender is so hardened inevil that even knowledge of his imminent death will not lead him to repent, then,Aquinas argues, it is likely that he would never repent anyway.

In a fourthline of argument, commenting on Genesis 9:6 (which famously states that“whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed”), Hansonwrites:

For one thing, the Genesis passage stands in some tensionwith the Gospel’s teachings on sin and casting stones. For another, RomanCatholicism typically emphasizes allegorical, rational, and, above all,ecclesial interpretations of the Bible; direct appeals to the literal inerrancyof Biblical texts are rather a hallmark of Protestant theology in general andReformation polemics against the Roman Magisterium in particular.

There aremany problems with this, starting with the fact that Hanson does not explainexactly how Genesis is in “tension” with what the Gospel says about sin andcasting stones.  Is he saying that weshould never punish criminals, since none of us is without sin?  Presumably not.  But in that case, if we can punish them withfines or imprisonment, why not with execution, if that is necessary to protectsociety?  There is also the fact thatGenesis 9:6 is by no means the only scriptural passage that sanctions capitalpunishment.  Many other such texts can befound, not only in Old Testament books such as Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,Deuteronomy, and Psalms, but also in New Testament passages such as Romans13:4, which tells us that the governing authority “does not bear the sword invain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.”  Obviously, then, the New Testament writers,who were in the best position to know, did not regard capital punishment as atodds with the Gospel.

Theologian E.Christian Brugger, author of themost systematic Catholic critique of capital punishment, concedesthat Genesis 9:6 is a “problem” for his side, and that there was a “consensus” amongthe Fathers of the Church that scriptural passages like Romans 13:4 teach thatcivil authorities have the right to inflict capital punishment for sufficientlygrave crimes.  Now, the Council of Trentand the First Vatican Council teach that where the Fathers are united on somematter of scriptural interpretation, no Catholic is at liberty to disagree withthem.  Even if there were no otherproblems with attempts to reinterpret the relevant scriptural passages (and asBessette and I show in our book, there are in fact many such problems), the consensusof the Fathers would suffice to show that these reinterpretations cannot beaccepted.

Nor isHanson correct to dismiss scriptural inerrancy as somehow a Protestant ratherthan Catholic notion.  On the contrary, popessuch as Leo XIII and Pius XII emphasized that it is central to Catholicorthodoxy to hold that scripture is divinely inspired and thus free oferror.  The First Vatican Council teachesthat the scriptures “contain revelation without error…being written under theinspiration of the Holy Spirit,” and pronounces an anathema on anyone who woulddeny that they are divinely inspired. The Second Vatican Council teaches that since they are divinelyinspired, “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly,faithfully and without error,” and the Catechismof the Catholic Church incorporates this passage into its own teaching onscriptural authority (107).

Hanson’sposition on scripture is also self-defeating. In order to get around scriptural teaching on capital punishment, hesuggests that such teaching is not free of error, or is incompatible with otherscriptural teaching, or has been misinterpreted.  Yet he also appeals to scripture when it suitshim, as when he refers to Christ’s remark about not casting the firststone.  But if we are free to rejectscriptural teaching and its traditional interpretation in the one case, thenwhy not also in the other?  How canHanson’s appeal to scripture carry any more weight than the appeals made bymore conservative Catholics?  Here we seea problem that, asPeter Geach pointed out, inevitably undermines modernisttheologies.  They claim to preserve thecore of divinely revealed teaching while jettisoning only what is inessential,but by means of arguments which if followed out consistently would make the whole of the purported revelationsuspect.

In whatseems intended as a separate, fifth line of argument, Hanson appeals to thestandard progressive Catholic narrative about how a purportedly arid andabstract Neo-Scholastic theology gave way, after Vatican II and under theinfluence of ressourcement thinkerslike Congar and de Lubac, to a more enlightened and humane moderntheology.  Neo-Scholasticism, hesuggests, is in some vague way linked to capitalism, Vichy France,fundamentalism, and other things sure to generate a Pavlovian response amongthe bien-pensant.  Exactly what all this has to do with whethercapital punishment is intrinsically wrong or still needed today is never madeclear.  The point, though, is obviouslyto insinuate that Catholic defenders of capital punishment derive theirarguments from suspect sources and are motivated by a suspect politicalagenda. 

Rhetorically, this will no doubt be effectivewith some readers, at least those who already agree with Hanson.  Logically,of course, it is completely worthless, being a crude deployment of fallaciessuch as Appeal to Motive and the Genetic Fallacy.  If someone is going to show that thearguments from natural law, scripture and tradition, and social science that Isummarized above are wrong, then he needs to demonstrate either that they reston false premises, or that the conclusions don’t follow from the premises.  The sourcesof and motivations behind thearguments are completely irrelevant, even if they were as Hanson claims theyare (which they are not, since there are, after all, lots of people who supportcapital punishment but have no sympathy with or even knowledge ofNeo-Scholasticism).

A sixth andfinal objection raised by Hanson is also of a fallaciously ad hominem nature.  Those whohave criticized Pope Francis’s statements on capital punishment, Hanson alleges,show “evident bad faith” and are really guided by “political preferences”rather than theological concerns.  Thefirst thing to say about this is that once again, Hanson is simply divertingattention from what matters, which is whether the arguments given by Catholicdefenders of capital punishment are cogent. The motives they may have forgiving these arguments are irrelevant, even if they were the motives Hansonattributes to them (which they are not).

The secondthing to say is that here again, Hanson’s position is self-defeating.  For the weapon he deploys againstconservatives can be turned against him. That is to say, conservatives could with no less justice (indeed, withgreater justice, I would argue) suggest that it is politics rather thantheology that fundamentally motivates the thinking of progressive Catholicslike Hanson.  In particular, they allowtheir progressive political preferences to trump what scripture, the Fathersand Doctors of the Church, and two thousand years of consistent magisterialteaching say about the topic of capital punishment.  They praise Pope Francis’s change to theCatechism, not out of any sincere respect for papal authority, but preciselybecause they think it finally undoes the teaching of earlier popes whom theydisliked and had no qualms about criticizing.

To be sure,I am not presenting this as an argumentagainst the progressive Catholic position on capital punishment.  That position is easily refutable on othergrounds, namely the arguments I summarized above.  And an Appeal to Motive would be a fallacywhoever deploys it, conservative or progressive.  The point is rather that if Hanson wants to raise this sort of objection, then it could withequal justice be flung back at him.  Andif he would object to having it flung at him, then to be consistent he oughtnot to fling it at conservatives.

The finalthing to say is that the pope’s critics have in fact been very clear andconsistent about their motives, and they have nothing to do with politics.  They have to do instead with the worry thatin appearing directly to contradict the teaching of scripture, tradition, andall of his predecessors, Pope Francis is doing grave harm to the credibility ofthe Church’s magisterial authority.  Thecritics are concerned that the pope is giving aid and comfort to Protestant,atheist, and other critics of the Church, who allege that her claim to preserveintact the deposit of faith has been falsified. They are concerned that he gives similar aid and comfort to hereticswithin the Church who would like to use the change in teaching on the deathpenalty as a stalking horse for other and even more radical doctrinal changes.

Hanson isfree to argue that these concerns are overblown, and to rebut the arguments ofthe pope’s critics.  But he has no rightto pretend that those concerns and arguments do not exist.  Catholic critics of capital punishment saythat they are moved by respect for human dignity.  But it does not respect the dignity of thoseone disagrees with to ignore what they actually say, or unjustly anduncharitably to attribute bad motives to them.

Augustine, liberalism, and political polarization

In mylatest article at Postliberal Order,I discuss the light that Augustine’s account of peace as “the tranquility oforder” sheds on the increasing political polarization that characterizesliberal democracies today.

Immortal Souls now available

After some frustratingdelays in distribution, my book ImmortalSouls: A Treatise on Human Nature is now in stock and available from Amazon and Barnesand Noble.  Here are the back covercopy, endorsements, and table of contents:

Immortal Souls provides as ambitious and complete adefense of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophical anthropology as is currently inprint.  Among the many topics covered arethe reality and unity of the self, the immateriality of the intellect, thefreedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, the critique of artificialintelligence, and the refutation of both Cartesian and materialist conceptionsof human nature.  Along the way, the mainrival positions in contemporary philosophy and science are thoroughly engagedwith and rebutted.

“EdwardFeser's book is a Summa of the nature of the human person: it is, therefore,both a rather long – but brilliant – monograph, and a valuable work forconsultation.  Each of the humanfaculties discussed is treated comprehensively, with a broad range of theoriesconsidered for and against, and, although Feser's conclusions are firmlyThomistic, one can derive great benefit from his discussions even if one is nota convinced hylomorphist.  Everyphilosopher of mind would benefit from having this book within easy reach.” HowardRobinson, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Central European University

“Feserdefends the Aristotelian and Thomistic system, effectively bringing it intodialogue with recent debates and drawing on some of the best of both analytic(Kripke, Searle, BonJour, Fodor) and phenomenological (Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty,Dreyfus) philosophy.  He deftly rebutsobjections to Thomism, both ancient and modern.  Anyone working today on personal identity, theunity of the self, the semantics of cognition, free will, or qualia will needto engage with the analysis and arguments presented here.” Robert C. Koons,Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin

CONTENTS

Preface                                                               

Part I: Whatis Mind?                                        

   1. The Short Answer                                 

   2. The Self                                                        

   3. The Intellect                                             

    4. The Will                                                       

Part II:What is Body?                                                           

   5. Matter                                                        

    6. Animality                                                   

Part III:What is a Human Being?                           

   7. Against Cartesianism                                

   8. Against Materialism                                   

    9. Neither Computers nor Brains                

Part IV:What is the Soul?                                          

   10. Immortality                                              

    11. The Form of the Body                            

Index              

Abortion and subsidiarity

Ever sincethe Dobbs decision permitted statesto set their own abortion policies, Donald Trump has taken the position thatthe issue should stay at the state level. Dobbs itself doesn’t requirethis, and leaves open the possibility of a federal ban.  But Trump nevertheless declines to pursuesuch a ban, and indeed is opposed to such a ban.  Now, a federal ban is in any event currentlypolitically unrealistic, and will likely remain so for the foreseeablefuture.  But some take the view that,even if abortion amounts to murder, it would be wrong to impose a federal baneven if it were politically possibleto do so.  They make their case onfederalist grounds, arguing that a national abortion ban would usurp power thatrightly belongs to the states.  Someargue on natural law grounds, specifically, suggesting that the principle ofsubsidiarity would rule out a federal ban. If this were true, then it would follow that even a pro-life Catholicshould oppose a federal abortion ban. What should we think of this argument?

I think itis a terrible argument, one that rests on a distortion of the principle ofsubsidiarity.  We can see this both fromwhat the principle of subsidiarity actually says, and from how the Church hastreated the issue of abortion.  A classicformulation of the principle is given by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical QuadragesimoAnno.  He famously saysthere that “it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil anddisturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association whatlesser and subordinate organizations can do.”  If this sentence were all there is to theprinciple of subsidiarity, it is easy to see why someone might think itlicenses leaving abortion to the states. But that is not all there isto the principle.  Let us look at thelarger context of this remark from Pius XI. Here is the relevant passage:

When we speak of the reform of institutions, the State comeschiefly to mind, not as if universal well-being were to be expected from itsactivity, but because things have come to such a pass through the evil of whatwe have termed “individualism” that, following upon the overthrow and nearextinction of that rich social life which was once highly developed throughassociations of various kinds, there remain virtually only individuals and theState.  This is to the great harm of theState itself; for, with a structure of social governance lost, and with thetaking over of all the burdens which the wrecked associations once bore, theState has been overwhelmed and crushed by almost infinite tasks and duties.

As history abundantly proves, it is true that on account ofchanged conditions many things which were done by small associations in formertimes cannot be done now save by large associations.  Still, that most weighty principle, whichcannot be set aside or changed, remains fixed and unshaken in socialphilosophy: Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they canaccomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community,so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance ofright order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser andsubordinate organizations can do.  Forevery social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the membersof the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.

The supreme authority of the State ought, therefore, to letsubordinate groups handle matters and concerns of lesser importance, whichwould otherwise dissipate its efforts greatly.  Thereby the State will more freely,powerfully, and effectively do all those things that belong to it alone becauseit alone can do them: directing, watching, urging, restraining, as occasionrequires and necessity demands.

To forestallconfusion, note that “State” as Pius is using it refers to any more centralgovernment, and thus, in the American context, would apply first and foremostto the federal government rather merely to “state” governments, as that term iscommonly used in the U.S.

Now, whatPius is saying here is indeed, in part, that if some social problem can beadequately addressed by more local institutions (which would include families,municipal governments, and provincial governments), then central governments shouldleave things to them and not intervene. But by no means does Pius leave it at that.  He also says that there are some things thatcentral governments “alone” can do. Naturally, this includes things that are the proper function of anycentral government under normal conditions (such as national defense). 

But it alsoincludes things that more local institutions might in theory be able to handle, but in practice cannot, because of “changed conditions” or therequirements of some particular “occasion.” In particular, says Pius, because of the “individualism” of moderntimes, those intermediate institutions that traditionally came betweenindividuals and central governments have become so weakened that they are nowunable to perform some of the functions they were once able to.  And this has left these functions in thehands of central governments, as the only agencies left which can perform them.  In these ways, the principle of subsidiaritynotwithstanding, there remain many functions which “necessity demands” thatcentral governments perform, either always and in principle or at least undermodern contingent circumstances.

Accordingly,as Fr. Austin Fagothey’s well-known manual of ethics Right and Reason notes, after affirming the principle ofsubsidiarity:

On the other hand, the state should provide a favorableenvironment in which individuals, families, and voluntary associations canfulfill their functions properly.  It hasthe right and duty to intervene when they fail to function as they ought orcannot harmonize their activities for the common good. (p. 394)

Now, thiscan include measures necessary to uphold the institution of the familyitself.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in a passage that reaffirms that“following the principle of subsidiarity, larger communities should take carenot to usurp the family's prerogatives or interfere in its life,” also teaches:

The family must be helped and defended by appropriate socialmeasures.  Where families cannot fulfilltheir responsibilities, other social bodies have the duty of helping them and of supporting theinstitution of the family…

The importance of the family for the life and well-being ofsociety entails a particular responsibility for society to support andstrengthen marriage and the family.  Civilauthority should consider it a grave duty “to acknowledge the true nature ofmarriage and the family, to protect and foster them, to safeguard publicmorality, and promote domestic prosperity.” (2209-2210)

Naturally,there is no greater affront to the institution of the family than abortion,which involves the murder of the very human beings for whose sake the familyexists in the first place.  Andnaturally, the Catechism explicitly teachesthat the right to life of the unborn child must be enshrined in law:

The inalienable right to life of every innocent humanindividual is a constitutive element of acivil society and its legislation:

“The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized andrespected by civil society and the political authority… Among such fundamental rights oneshould mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physicalintegrity from the moment of conception until death.”

“The moment a positive law deprives a category of humanbeings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, thestate is denying the equality of all before the law.  When the state does not place its power at theservice of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the morevulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined... As aconsequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unbornchild from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penalsanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights.”

Since it must be treated from conception as a person, theembryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far aspossible, like any other human being. (2273-2274)

Note thatwhat the Catechism is saying is thatthe right to life of innocent human beings, including the unborn, must be affirmed by the state and itspositive law as such.  In no way does it indicate that it isspeaking only of more local governments but not of central governments.  And even if one wanted to argue that suchlaws needn’t be enacted by federal governments if the laws at more local levels sufficed, that would by no meansbe the end of the story.  For themanifest implications of the teaching of Pius XI and of the Catechism is that more centralgovernments not only may, but must take action to prevent abortion ifin practice there is no other way to secure the rights of the unborn.

Hence,suppose a number of states in the U.S. outlawed abortion, but others didnot.  And suppose that there was nopolitically realistic prospect of outlawing it at the state level in thosestates that failed to do so.  But supposealso that it was neverthelesspolitically feasible to impose a federal ban on abortion.  Would respect for the principle ofsubsidiarity require us to refrain from imposing such a ban?  Not at all; on the contrary, when all theconsiderations just spelled out are taken account of, it is clear that we wouldbe obligated to impose a federal banif we could.  For in this scenario, therewould be no other way to protect the right to life that is, as the Catechism says, “a constitutive elementof a civil society and its legislation.” Given what Pius XI calls “the evil of… ‘individualism’” that hasinfected modern Western society and informs “pro-choice” rhetoric, it may be thatcentral governments alone can effectively suppress the evil of abortion.

Here isanother consideration.  In the Church’scanon law, there are some sins so grave that the penalties associated with themcannot be lifted by one’s confessor.  Fora long time, that included the procurement of abortion, the penalty for whichcould, until recently, be lifted only by one’s bishop.  Indeed, at one time only the pope had theauthority to do so.  In his book The Soul of the Embryo, David AlbertJones writes:

In 1588, in a decree called Effraennatam, Pope Sixtus V invoked the power of excommunication inan attempt to restrain the growing practice of abortion during the Renaissance. As his model he took the Decretals V.I2.5 and imposed thesanction not only for abortion but also for administering contraceptive drugs.  He also reserved the ability to lift theexcommunication to the pope alone.  Thecondemnation of abortion as homicide was not in any way novel.  However, several aspects of theexcommunication were novel: it was promulgated to the whole Church (not just inone diocese or region); it was reserved to the pope to be able to lift theexcommunication (not to a local bishop); and it included contraception as wellas abortion.  This meant that anyabortion and any use of contraception anywhere in the Church had to bereconciled personally by the pope. (p. 71)

To be sure,as Jones goes on to recount, this proved unworkable, so that a later popelimited the excommunication to abortion alone and granted local bishops theauthority to lift it.  The point, though,is that the Church has not regarded abortion as something which of its natureought to be dealt with only at the local level. On the contrary, it takes it to be so grave an offense that at one timethe highest authority in the Church, the pope himself, alone could lift thepenalty associated with it.  Whetherlocal or central authorities ought to deal with abortion is a prudential matter.  The principle of subsidiarity does not byitself entail that only local authorities ought to deal with it.  And what is true of the Church is, mutatis mutandis, true also of thestate.

If theappeal to subsidiarity is intended to provide Trump with theological cover,then, it fails.  He and his supportersmay think his position is good politics, but no reasonable case can be made forit on grounds of natural law or Catholic moral theology.

Vinco on Feser in Philosophische Rundschau

German-speakingreaders might be interested in Roberto Vinco’s article “Neo-ScholasticMetaphysics in the 21st Century: An Examination of the Perspective of EdwardFeser,” in the latest issue of the journal PhilosophischeRundschau .