President Bush's address to the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday was remarkable in at least two important respects. First, the speech was not simply a defense of the United States's conduct in Iraq nor the usual recitation of international policy initiatives. Rather, Bush chose to focus on the importance of universal moral principles as the driving force behind his foreign policy. The third paragraph of the speech was most important:

The United Nations and my country share the deepest commitments. Both the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim the equal value and dignity of every human life. That dignity is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance. That dignity is dishonored by oppression, corruption, tyranny, bigotry, terrorism and all violence against the innocent. And both of our founding documents affirm that this bright line between justice and injustice -- between right and wrong -- is the same in every age, and every culture, and every nation.

Political actions always presuppose moral principles and sometimes even theses about the character of moral principles may be similarly presupposed although not articulated. It is a rare state paper, however, that makes such notions explicit and in which a president sets himself and his policies against moral and cultural relativism with the emphasis that Mr. Bush has done more than once, but with particular force in New York. In his condemnation of recent terrorist attacks around the world, Bush noted that such acts "violate the standards of justice in all cultures, and the principles of all religions." The major theme of the speech was human dignity: Bush began six successive paragraphs of policy statements with the phrase, "because we believe in human dignity." On the third of these he urged the U.N. to pass a resolution sponsored by Costa Rica that would ban human cloning. Bush characterized the resolution as affirming "a basic ethical principle: No human life should ever be produced or destroyed for the benefit of another."

One can always by wary of politicians who dress up their positions in the language of moral principle and one can certainly entertain doubts about the moral quality of some of Mr. Bush's policy decisions. Nevertheless, the kind of public endorsement of what amounts to an objective and antirelativist theory of moral principles in politics is unusual.

This brings me to the second remarkable aspect of the speech. Mr. Bush's defense of universal moral principles was also put to work in defending his aim of spreading democratic political institutions throughout the world, especially the Arab world. The president has stated this goal a number of times, most notably in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute before the invasion of Iraq. Yesterday in New York the president said the following:

Because we believe in human dignity, peaceful nations must stand for the advance of democracy. No other system of government has done more to protect minorities, to secure the rights of labor, to raise the status of women, or to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace. We've witnessed the rise of democratic governments in predominantly Hindu and Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian cultures. Democratic institutions have taken root in modern societies, and in traditional societies. When it comes to the desire for liberty and justice, there is no clash of civilizations. People everywhere are capable of freedom, and worthy of freedom.

Mr. Bush has sometimes spoken of "cultural condescension," implying that those who oppose this international democratization initiative are guilty of a kind of tacit racism for wondering whether the policy isn't overly utopian. British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed a similar sentiment in his speech to the U.S. Congress in July 2003:

There is a myth. That though we love freedom, others don't, that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture. That freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values or Western values. That Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban. That Saddam was beloved by his people. That Milosevic was Serbia's saviour. Ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit and anywhere, any time, ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same. Freedom not tyranny. Democracy not dictatorship. The rule of law not the rule of the secret police.

Here there is, I think a more serious question to be asked. There may be people who think that Arabs or Muslims are simply incapable of living in democratic political systems (I use "democratic" here in the contemporary sense to indicate broadly representative constitutional polities). And there are certainly people who would oppose the president's policy because they reject his claim about universal moral principles and their political implications. However, I suspect that most critics of the idealism evinced by the president mean something different. There is no contradiction in believing that there are universal and objective moral principles (for example, that innocent human life ought never to be intentionally taken) and that those principles are best vindicated in and protected by political institutions that are culturally and historically particular. It may even be that the reality and objective character of some moral principles are only clearly seen at a particular historical moment, and this is certainly true of many institutions that serve such principles. One is reminded in this context of Aquinas's view that while the natural law never changes by subtraction, it can be changed by addition (Summa theologiae, 1-2, q. 94, a. 5). Moreover, the history of western political institutions of free government is a long one that includes many fits and starts and a good deal of violence prior to the settlement that we now have.

American political institutions are directly derived from those of England and anyone who has studied the history of English politics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries knows just how difficult the transition to a stable, moderate and largely peaceful political life was. It may be in this context that we should see the heightened importance of many legal and political institutions that aim to protect human dignity in the political world dominated by the modern state, e.g., the protection of basic rights, concrete limitations on government power, access to courts, etc.

The discovery and establishment of such institutions took a long time and occurred in particular historical and cultural contexts and the transfer of them to other very different contexts is difficult and could take a great deal of time and effort. To evince uncertainty about any quick democratization of the middle east is not necessarily cultural condescension or relativism, but simply a sensitivity to the reality that even basic values need to be realized in institutions that are themselves rooted in human habits and mores. Such things do not sprout quickly. One can agree with the president's ultimate goals but also worry about the means of achieving them and the expectation that they can be realized quickly or cheaply. Excessive expectations about the imminent transformation of the politics of Iraq, much less of the entire Arab world, could be more dangerous than the patience and realism--cultural as well as moral--that is not skepticism.

lewisb@cua.edu

Wednesday's Washington Post reports (a bit late, actually--it happened in July) that Cardinal Ratzinger has somewhat softened an earlier statement widely interpreted as prohibiting Catholics from voting for politicians who favor abortion rights. Ratzinger's original statement and the recent clarification raise an interesting issue about the implications of the now long standing discussion of the extent to which political argument in modern democracies can and should be informed by religious views. The issue involves but also transcends the recent intra-Catholic controversy about Catholic politicians and issues like abortion, since it raises the question whether the internal deliberations and discipline of religious communions itself has effects in the wider political order, a heretofore unnoticed problem for those who wish to keep political democratic political debate largely secular.

The softening came in a June memorandum to Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington. In the clarification Ratzinger wrote: "A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia." However, Ratzinger continued, "When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons." The categories of formal and material cooperation are traditional ones used to analyze one's moral relationship to actions that are in themselves evil. "Formal" cooperation takes place when one not only helps another to commit an evil act, but also shares in the evil intention, and can thus never be justified. Mere "material" cooperation occurs when one helps another perform an evil act by an action of one's own not itself evil and does not approve of the other's evil act.

The distinction is a helpful one given the fact that in many American jurisdictions the candidates of both major parties support abortion rights (this is often the case in Maryland, where I live). The initial statement could be interpreted to suggest that in such cases one could not vote at all in good conscience, despite the fact that (a) the office in question may not have even had any jurisdiction over the abortion (in particular) question; and (b) there may well be other important issues in the election about which Catholic voters might have an interest to protect or a contribution to make.

Beyond this, however, Cardinal Ratzinger's clarification and the original statement itself raise an additional interesting issue. Much of the debate between academic political philosophers in recent years has focused on the place of specifically religious or even moral argument in political debate. The late John Rawls argued in his 1993 book, Political Liberalism, that a condition (empirical and moral) of stable liberal democratic political institutions in conditions of deep pluralism about religion and morality was that participants in political debate exercise a kind of restraint in their public arguments. In particular, Rawls argued that in debates concerning what he called "constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice," political officials, judges, and candidates for public office should deploy what he called "public reason." In public reason one appeals to arguments that are generally available in the political culture of modern liberal democracies and not to notions particular to one "comprehensive doctrine." Comprehensive doctrines are systematic accounts usually associated with religion or even philosophy: Orthodox Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Kantianism, and civic republicanism would all count as comprehensive doctrines.

There seem to be two major reasons for the proposals about public reason. A basic presumption of this notion is that religious and moral or metaphysical beliefs are particularly resistant to agreement and so threaten the stability of political communities when argument over them becomes central. Rawls was evidently moved to propose these ideas in part after reflection on the seventeenth-century wars of religion and the destructive character of later ideological conflicts. Second, there is a question about the justice of imposing coercive legislation on people for reasons that they could not accept or perhaps even understand.

A number of other philosophers have endorsed slightly different versions of Rawls's proposal and certainly accepted the logic of his views about the particularly divisive character of religious and philosophical argument in politics. Some have suggested that the same principle should discourage (all of this restraint is understood to be voluntary self-restraint) clerics from intervening in political debate as clerics. And many others have criticized the notion of public reason as overly restrictive and unreasonable (Christopher Eberle's book, Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2002, is among the best such critiques). These notions have even made their way to some extent into the popular press.

One interesting implication of Cardinal Ratzinger's recent statements and the related controversy over whether or not Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be denied Holy Communion is that just this situation seems to have gone unanticipated in the debate over the role of religious argument in political discourse. So far as I can tell, the argument has always assumed that the main problem is citizens or politicians deploying religious argument in political debate. That important political implications could follow from explicitly internal discussion within religious groups seems to have been unanticipated. But certainly Cardinal Ratzinger's statements and the statements of several U.S. Bishops about just what the moral responsibilities of individual Catholic citizens and politicians are as matters of conscience carry with them important political effects. This, of course, assumes that the views of cardinals and bishops carry some weight with Catholic voters and politicians, a complicated matter indeed. Nevertheless, the possibility that such pronouncements could alter the voting behavior of citizens and encourage politicians to change their views seems important if one has the kinds of concerns that advocates of public reason have. But should the strictures of public reason cause cardinals and bishops to refrain from instructing the faithful in matters they believe to be of the greatest ethical importance? Should they be understood to influence the internal deliberations of any religious community? This was evidently the conclusion of one of former California governor Gray Davis's spokesman, who complained last year that Bishop William Weigand, who had criticized Davis for his pro-abortion record, was "telling the faithful how to practice their faith."

It seems to me that this problem in fact reinforces the problematic character of the various proposals for religious self-restraint in political debate. Certainly no one I know advocates any kind of self-restraint in religious authorities telling the faithful how to practice their faith when such instructions happen to carry political implications (and maybe very important ones in cases like abortion, euthanasia and, now, same-sex marriage). But the logic of the position? The problem that the public reason proposals forces to the surface is not, I think, a problem about religion as such, but a problem about conscience and how it informs one's interventions in political debate. And it's hard to see how restraints there, even self-restraint, can be liberal, much less democratic. Nor does it seem likely that any formal theory of self-restraint will mitigate the conflicts over moral life that are increasingly at the center of political life in pluralist democracies.

Welcome to the Ethics and Culture Forum, the new web "blog" of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture!

When we were designing our new website last Spring, one of our chief aims was to make our site more than just a place to get information on our conferences. We also wanted to make it a place where active discussion takes place on various issues of the day relating to the Center's mission. Hence we are very pleased to launch the Ethics & Culture Forum, which in fact will be just one of several new opportunities for live discussion on our new wesbite.

The discussion in the Ethics and Culture Forum will occur among a team of contributors, a team led by Center Director, David Solomon, and including John Haldane, Christopher Wolfe, Janet Smith, Pia di Solenni, Brad Lewis, Tom Cavanaugh, Mike Garvey, Nicholas Lund-Molfese, Kevin Ryan, John O'Callaghan, and myself, Daniel McInerny. We are very proud that this select group has agreed to join us in this enterprise. With their participation, the Ethics and Culture Forum promises to be a place where a rich and vibrant discussion takes place on how the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition can best help renew our culture.

Readers of the Forum are always welcome to e-mail their own comments to a Forum contributor at the address posted at the bottom of that contributor's post. Such comments, however, only become part of the Forum itself at the discretion of the Forum contributor and the staff of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.

Before I close this initial post, let me mention two books that readers of this Forum will want to note well, if they haven't already. The first is Tracey Rowland's Culture and the Thomist Tradition After Vatican II (Routledge, 2003). In this book Rowland argues that throughout the West the Church is at a crisis point in which it must recognize that the cultural structures surrounding it are either implicitly or explicitly inimical to her mission. To think that the Church can accommodate itself without compromise to the political, economic, and other cultural forces that characterize post-Christian, liberal democracies is for Rowland a naive and dangerous illusion from which Catholics must liberate themselves. The chief resource in this work of liberation is, Rowland claims, the Thomistic tradition, yet the ambivalence of this tradition vis-a-vis its attitude to modernity, she further claims, has jeopardized its ability to serve as the appropriate sign of contradiction to the times.

The second book is one by Forum contributor and Center Advisory Board member, John Haldane, entitled Faithful Reason: Essays Catholic and Philosophical (Routledge 2004). The essays in this collection deal with topics ranging from Catholicism and philosophy, faith and reason, ethics and politics, education and spirituality, and beauty and contemplation. Readers of this Forum will no doubt find the whole collection of considerable interest, though I would like to highlight two essays in particular: "Natural Law and Ethical Pluralism," and "Can a Catholic Be a Liberal? Catholic Social Teaching and Communitarianism." At the conclusion of the latter Haldane writes:

"Finally, then, my answer to the question posed in the title is that someone who follows the social teaching of the Catholic Church, as this has been developed out of the dominant 'Thomistic' trend in scholastic natural law theory and promulgated through the relevant papal encyclicals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, cannot accept the central doctrines of philosophical liberalism....Viewed more positively, the Catholic has reason to reflect upon the course of recent political theory and history--including the collapse of totalitarian socialism--and take satisfaction from the fact that the world seems to be learning what the Church has long been teaching. We need a truly social philosophy, in which the goods of communal life are combined with the legitimate liberties of private interests."

Both of these books deserve a wide and careful reading.

Daniel McInerny
mcinerny.3@nd.edu