In an earlier post, "Sacred Monkeys," I described the crucial importance of prudence in our lives as we consider the coming election. I pointed out that prudence is the virtue of judgment by which we integrate in our actions other virtues, generally justice, temperance, and courage. More particularly, it is the habit of integrating these virtues while adapting appropriate means to good ends; it is a habitual kind of moral success in adapting those good means to those good ends. It has its place in evaluating the good circumstances in which and the good goals for which one proposes to engage in an act good in its kind. I also pointed out that there is no prudence involved in an act that is bad in its kind, for example adultery, rape, and so on. Prudence can be considered with regard to our own particular lives, or with regard to our lives as part of the common good. In the first case, it is personal prudence, in the second it is political prudence. Perfect prudence concerns the whole or integral good of human life, one's personal good and the common good integrally related in pursuit of ultimate human fulfillment.

However, it is also crucially important to recognize that a necessary condition for possessing prudence, personal or political, is that one recognizes and only pursues goals, personal or political, that are good in their kind. I thought it might be useful to consider aspects of Thomas Aquinas' general discussion of prudence in order to understand this point, even though he does not address democracy and voting directly in that discussion. Aquinas is certainly not the last word in moral and political philosophy or theology, though just as certainly he is a good starting point. Indeed, he may be a very good point to catch up with. Certainly within the context of Catholic discussion of these issues, he plays a heavy role, and in some respects relevant to today his analysis is stark. According to Aquinas, one can fall short of perfect prudence, personal or political, in at least two ways. One way he calls a kind of imperfect prudence, the other false prudence. Imperfect prudence is "true prudence" and yet it may be imperfect according to Aquinas because of two quite different reasons. On the one hand it may be in pursuit of a genuine but limited good simply. On the other hand it may recognize genuine goods as goals, and yet fail to be successful in adapting means to those goals, or to correctly integrate the other virtues in pursuit of those goals. The first type of imperfect prudence is not a failure of prudence, while the second is. Marital prudence, no matter how well one engages in it in pursuit of the good of sexual relations, is a kind of imperfect prudence in the first sense because it does not bear upon the whole of the integral human good, but, rather, a part. So also for prudence in one's job, or friendships, and so on. There is no failure of prudence here, however imperfect it may be, and thus no error in one's acts.

On the other hand, if one mistakenly takes any one of these limited goods, or many of them together, as the whole of the integral human good to the exclusion of others there is a failure of prudence, and one will commit error even as one pursues these goods. So there is a kind of imperfect prudence here as well. As I am certainly subject to error in my acts in many ways, imperfect prudence is the kind of prudence I ought to pray for, short of and as on the way toward acquiring perfect prudence. I have hope. I still recognize and pursue those things which are good in their kind, however much my pursuit of them is disordered. My hope then is that I can bring order into my pursuit of these genuine goods in kind, and thus aspire toward perfect prudence. Nonetheless, however imperfect, this remains prudence because the goods I am pursuing in disordered ways are genuine goods; as those good goals participate in goodness as such, so this prudence imperfectly participates in perfect prudence. At the level of political prudence in myself or my leaders, I ought to pray that we make good well ordered judgments in pursuit of genuine goods. If we do not, I ought to pray that we see the disorder in our pursuit of genuine goods, and correct them. But it is absolutely necessary that the political goals we pursue be policies involving acts good in their kind, for example health care, economic development, just wages, just war, punishment, and so on.

As I argued in my previous posting, there is no political prudence involved in the legitimation and promotion of acts bad in their kind, like torture, slavery, and abortion. Thus, by contrast, Aquinas describes what he calls "false prudence." It is called prudence because it resembles prudence in its ability to adapt means to an end; but it is called false because the end in view is in fact a goal bad in its kind. It is a matter of the appearance of prudence rather than the reality. "In this way a thief is called a good thief because he adapts means well to the end of thievery. It is this kind of prudence of which the Apostle says in Romans that the prudence of the flesh is death." (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q.47, a. 13) The use of 'good' here does not signify moral goodness, but mere success. It is not imperfect prudence because it is not genuine prudence at all. It is success in achieving a goal bad in its kind. In order to distinguish the kind of practical reasoning involved in true prudence, perfect or imperfect, from that in false prudence, following Aristotle Aquinas calls the latter "cunning" ("astutia"). So strictly speaking, if we want to avoid confusion, we should not say the thief is a good thief, but a cunning thief. In addition, Aquinas' account of false prudence suggests that it is not simply a failure of prudence with respect to this one goal. That would be imperfect prudence. No. It is a failure tout court to have true prudence with respect to any goods. One with this "false prudence" is not capable of discerning true goods from apparent goods. If perchance, he or she happens to hit upon a real good, it is not because of his or her capacity to recognize goods. He or she may achieve a good goal. But because of the lack of true prudence, it is just happenstance or per accidens. Most likely it will be a happenstance driven by selfish interest. The cunning agent reasons that it happens to be a key to success here and now to pursue this goal, good or bad. In one set of circumstances he or she will pursue the good involved in some goal, while in another set of circumstances he or she will act to destroy the good involved in that goal; in either case he or she is probably motivated by the desire for success in advancing his or her interests. In the case of a goal that happens to be a real good, he or she does not do so because of a recognition of its genuine goodness and thus a genuine willed desire for it as good. True goods become merely instrumental goods in service to apparent goods. This implication of Aquinas' discussion is stark indeed, for we do not want to think that we or others can appear to be doing good in pursuing a genuine good, and yet not be except per accidens. In false prudence the appearance of all of the other subordinate virtues that Aquinas describes as involved in true prudence will be nothing other than ersatz likenesses as well. In short there are two quite different ways to fail with regard to prudence, the failure of prudence which is imperfect disordered prudence, and the failure to have prudence which is false prudence or cunning.

Pursuit of a goal bad in its kind is evidence ipso facto that the one pursuing it does not have true prudence, which is why a different kind of practical rationality has to be attributed to such a one than is attributed even to imperfect badly ordered prudence. In order to recognize false prudence, in oneself or in another, one must show that the individual pursues goals that are bad in kind. In the case of political prudence, pursuit of a political goal bad in its kind is evidence that the one pursuing it does not have true political prudence. Thus, in order to show that some politician does not have true political prudence, but, rather, political cunning, one must show that he or she promotes policies that are bad in kind.

Aquinas' picture of false prudence is stark, which is why we ought to pray to have at least disordered imperfect prudence. But with these aspects of Aquinas' discussion of prudence in mind, what is there to be said about the necessity of voting? One ought to aspire to integral human fulfillment. Thus one ought to aspire to perfect prudence. But perfect prudence, bearing upon the integral human good, requires, among other things, judgments ordered toward protecting and promoting the common good of one's community. Generically, in any community there are many acts that political prudence must seek to order as means to the end of protecting and promoting the common good, integrating justice, temperance, and courage--generally committing one's time, energy, and goods (including even blogging!) to the good of others. And it is important to recognize that our commitment to the common good does not extend only as far as our shores. Aquinas writes, "by nature every human being stands as friend to every other human being with a kind of universal love; as Ecclesiasticus says, 'Every animal loves its kind.'" Notice that for Aquinas the basis for inclusion within the scope of this universal love and the justice that animates it is human nature itself. And yet, particular judgments will place greater emphasis upon the familial, and local in accord with the principle of subsidiarity. The ways in which we pursue these personal acts are all political acts in some sense.

However, specifically in a democracy like ours, we protect and promote the common good by electing those who would lead us locally and nationally. In addition to the particular policies promoted by a candidate for office, we should try to determine to what extent that candidate possesses political prudence. Most likely he or she will not possess perfect prudence. Who among us does? Indeed, insofar as the common good is not the whole of the integral human good, we need have no desire at all for one who has perfect prudence. As citizens, we are in no need of philosopher-kings. But we should look at least for imperfect political prudence. Ideally we should want a candidate who possesses imperfect and well ordered political prudence. But once again, who among us has this well ordered imperfect political prudence? Suppose the candidate possesses imperfect but disordered political prudence? With humility recognizing that sometimes we may in fact be wrong in our own judgments of political prudence when we disagree with him or her, still we can hope that when he or she fails to appropriately order good political means to good political ends, his or her judgment will improve precisely because he or she has true though imperfect political prudence. However much I may disagree with the particular practical judgments of a candidate, limited government does not involve acts bad in their kind (on the contrary, unlimited government violates the Church's teaching on the principle of subsidiarity); punishment, specifically the death penalty, does not involve acts bad in their kind; acts of war do not involve acts bad in their kind; the economic system of capitalism, according to the teaching of the Church, does not necessarily involve acts bad in their kind. I should think I would be happy if the failures of prudence I recognize in a candidate bear on such policies, however much I may disagree with them.

But what if a candidate does not possess even imperfect political prudence? We should vote against him or her unless we have a proportionate reason involving some greater harm that will follow upon voting against him or her. In which case we should vote for him or her in order to limit the greater evil. What evidence might we have that a candidate does not possess even imperfect political prudence, but, rather, false political prudence or cunning? Well, given Aquinas' discussion of prudence, it would be that the candidate advocates political policies that legitimate and promote acts or goals bad in their kind, like slavery, torture, abortion, euthanasia, and so on. Advocacy of such policies is, in the light of Aquinas' analysis, evidence ipso facto that such a candidate does not have true political prudence.

But suppose the candidates one is confronted with in a particular election all advocate some policy legitimating and promoting acts or goals bad in their kind, that is, all of the candidates have false prudence? In our own day, it often seems that cunning is not the exception in politics, but the warp and woof of it; we may be tempted to say "a pox upon both your houses," and refrain from voting at all. However, such a counsel of despair is shortsighted. This is not the first age nor will it be the last in which Christians have had to face difficult choices in politics, involving the toleration of evil goals. Walker Percy, when asked, "why are you a Catholic," responded that "the Catholic Church is a very good place for sinners to be, which is probably why there are so many of us in it." We all fail, and we all need each others' help in limiting the failures we are prone to, personal and political. We must pursue good to the extent that we can, and limit evil to the extent that we can. A desire to remain pure of the stain of politics in this vale of tears may tempt us to have nothing to do with a setting in which evil will take place no matter what we do. Then neither should we participate with one another in our families, our Churches, our sports, our schools, our committee meetings (especially our committee meetings!), our towns, and so on, in short, our lives. On the contrary, then we fall short of the duty to limit evil to the extent that we can. Failure to limit evil to the extent that one can becomes complicity in it. And it is the wisdom of the Church that quite often the limitation of evil will involve tolerating a lesser evil, in order to avoid a greater one. In this regard there is nothing special about our own age.

Short of claiming that the entire political order of our democracy is itself the worst evil and danger to the common good, outweighing all others, something akin to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, one must engage in the judgments of prudence that weigh toleration of lesser and greater evils, minimizing as much as possible the amount of damage that may occur. One cannot sit by and watch as a greater evil flourishes than might occur if one became engaged. One's own aspiration for perfect prudence would still imply that one must vote in order to limit the damage done to the common good. By not voting, one is making it easier for greater damage to be done to the common good than might otherwise occur. Not voting in such a situation is a failure in one's responsibility at least to protect, not to mention promote the common good in a democracy. It would be to abandon the aspiration to perfect prudence. To abandon the aspiration to perfect prudence is to abandon the aspiration to human flourishing. Indeed, insofar as one abandoned the aspiration to human flourishing, that is, the aspiration to the integral human good, one would at the very least be pursuing one limited aspect of the integral human good to the deliberate exclusion of another; thus one would be deliberately pursuing imperfect badly ordered prudence. Furthermore, Aquinas argues that one's own individual good is impossible without the common good. Thus failure to protect the common good, or at least to limit the damage done to it, is a failure to protect one's own good, or at least to limit the damage done to it.

If one will not take a stand even in failure against the greater evil, why would one take a stand against the lesser when the time comes? Even when there is no hope of immediate success, one's vote is a sign, however small, to one's fellow citizens and to one's leaders that one stands opposed to the greater evil being done. As Mother Theresa once said, "the Lord does not ask of me success. He asks of me faithfulness." Voting in a democracy to limit the damage done to the common good, even when one does not anticipate success, is a sign, however small, of faithhfulness to, and solidarity with one's neighhbors in the common good, particularly the weakest who more often than not directly suffer the evil. Without it, we envelope them in darkness. In that measure even a failed vote is a sign of hope for them. Not voting signifies nothing to them.

So one's own political prudence must judge in such a situation which candidate is promoting the proportionately lesser evil; voting for such a candidate is an effort to limit the damage to the common good. Particular judgments here may be very difficult, but it is antecedently improbable that there will be some kind of perfect equality in the harm done to the common good by the respective candidates. Here I would recommend the excellent discussion posted earlier on this blog (10/19/04) by Brad Lewis on "Proportionate Reasons." In particular, in my previous post I argued that given the fundamental role of innocent human life in the constitution of the common good, in our own day it is difficult to see that there is any proportionate evil that one may judge to be greater than policies that legitimate and promote the taking of human life in abortion and euthanasia, or as David and Brad have pointed out in earlier posts, the deliberate production and subsequent destruction of a human life solely to farm its parts out for the benefit of others. All the other goods that must be protected in the common good find their point and purpose in the flourishing of innocent human life. They are empty "values" subject to social whim, prejudice, and cunning when divorced from the fundamental good of human life itself. No doubt there will be many who with good will may disagree with me in that judgment. When I listen to the brighter angels of my nature, and avoid irascibility, the thought that one or other of us will be wrong does not inflame me. But, regardless, none of us can fail to act to limit the greater evil we judge to be pressing in upon us. If Aquinas' discussion is relevant to our day, prudence demands better of us.

"What do I want if I love someone else? I want him to be happy. In charity, Thomas says, we love others 'as companions in the sharing of beatitude.'"(Josef Pieper, Happiness and Contemplation) On All Saints and the eve of All Souls, pray for our country, and those who would lead it, and "pray for me, as I will for thee, that we may all meet merrily in heaven."

John O'Callaghan
ndethics@nd.edu

The presidential election has understandably been the focus of much discussion here. There are many elections, however, next Tuesday and one of the most important of these involves a ballot initiative in California that should be of interest to readers. Proposition 71, as it is called, would commit the state of California to spending some $3 billion on embryonic stem cell research. The money would be raised through a bond issue that would eventually (over 30 years) cost the state about $6 billion. The specifics of the legislation are published by the State of California here. The most extensive account of the initiative campaign was published in the New Yorker. The basics of the initiative include the creation and funding of a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine governed by a powerful board composed mostly of of experts in the field and representatives of various disease advocacy groups. The legislation would also amend the state constitution to create a right to perform biotechnology research and production that includes cloning. As the New Yorker piece says, one intent among the promoters of the initiative is to lure the best stem cell researchers from around the country to California and create pressure for other states to follow California's lead as a way of preventing the exodus of all their own experts and private research money, thus effecting a general spread of state (as opposed to federal) funding of embryonic stem cell research. So the stakes here are very high. Earlier this week, after a long period of equivocating, Governer Schwarzenegger endorsed the initiative.

There was an interesting quotation from Adam Smith posted on the Mirror of Justice today. http://www.mirrorofjustice.com/ It describes how the practice of infanticide was so prevalent in ancient Greece that even the greatest minds of the culture, for example Plato and Aristotle, seem to have approved of it. To students of philosophy this fact is no surprise. A sign of how coarsened ancient Greek life was to protecting the lives of the smallest innocents among them is that Socrates could use abortion as a metaphor for part of the task of the philosopher. In the Theaetetus, he compares his task as a philosopher to that of a certain kind of midwife. "And by the use of potions and incantations they are able to arouse the pangs and to soothe them at will; they can make those bear who have a difficulty in bearing, and if they think fit they can smother the embryo in the womb." http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/theatu.html The philosopher midwife examines those ideas that have been well conceived in the minds of others, and then helps bring them to birth. On the other hand, if the philosopher recognizes a badly conceived idea, he "smothers it in the womb" before it ever gets the chance to see the light of day. The passage from Adam Smith is a cautionary tale for all of us who inhabit what some consider the academic, cultural, and political elite. It is a cautionary tale about how even the greatest minds of a culture can become so complacent about the status quo in society, that their hearts become hardened against the weakest among them, and they turn a blind or at least a shaded eye to the direct and voluntary killing of the innocent.

Consider by contrast the example of Governor Casey, whose 1995 speech David kindly posted here. I attended that speech, which was eloquently and movingly delivered. He made clear that he understood the difference between intrinsically evil policies and questions of political prudence, and midway through the talk that he stood with Lincoln, not Douglas. I left filled with hope that there was some chance for a pro-life voice to be heard in my Democratic party. But then I recalled that the abortion hegemony of the national party elite had refused to allow the Governor of Pennsylvania to speak in any capacity at his convention in 1992. They were the New Democrats. The irony I note today in the quotation from Adam Smith is that it was the politicians of Athens who put Socrates to death. Here it was the democratic politicians of Washington putting to death the voice of the last significant pro-life leader in my party. Would the New Democrats have dared to silence this Catholic this way, if they could not count on the fact that the Catholic vote was itself divided, and that many Catholics who saw abortion as a tragedy, but thought nothing could be done about the status quo, would cover their ears, close their mouths, shut their eyes, and pull the lever for the New Democrats as they always had for the party of old? Their nominating speaker in 1992 provides the answer.

In memory of this great man, Governor Robert Casey, I thought readers might be interested in this obituary by Nat Hentoff. http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/~rauch/no-violence/civil/hentoff_casey.html

On the Feast of St. Jude, Robert Casey, requiescat in pace.

"Jude is invoked in desperate situations because his New Testament letter stresses that the faithful should persevere in the environment of harsh, difficult circumstances, just as their forefathers had done before them."
From http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=127

John O'Callaghan
ndethics@nd.edu

In the present debate about the abortion issue and presidential politics it may be helpful to recall some previous statements on this matter. We are posting a statement that is particularly close to our heart--Governor Casey's 1995 speech on the Notre Dame campus. Governor Casey was one of the members of our advisory board when we founded the Center and we keep his name on the list as a memorial to his service to the pro-life cause in this country. Part of the tragedy of this year's election is that no one on the Democratic side can speak with his eloquence and commitment about the life issues. We miss his voice very much indeed.

David Solomon
W.P. and H.B. White Director

The last several months have witnessed a great deal of media attention to the responsibilities of Catholics in the political arena, whether those Catholics are politicians or citizens voting. Most of the discussion by the chattering class has been simply a mass of confusion. As I tried to think through the issues involved, I thought it might be useful to some others to read the reflections I came up with. I am not by training an op-ed writer, but a philosopher. Thus these reflections are long by the standards of the New York Times, but short by my own. I thought it more helpful to provide a link to them so that they can be downloaded, rather than to monopolize the space of the blog. It is in WORD format. This is the first time I've tried this, so I hope it works.

SacredMonkeys.doc

"Pray for me, as I will for thee, that we may meet merrily in Heaven."

John O'Callaghan
ndethics@nd.edu

A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk on Catholics and voting to a Catholic student group at George Mason University. In the course of discussing some of the bishops' recent statements, especially Cardinal McCarrick's "interim reflections" for the Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Catholic Politicians," there was a good bit of discussion of what was meant by "proportionate reasons." Given the continued controversy about abortion and voting, it seems to me worth thinking a bit more about what might constitute a "proportionate" reason to counter the general presumption against voting for candidates who favor abortion rights. What I offer below is only notes towards the sort of thinking required and I'd be very happy to hear what others think about the matter. Recall first Cardinal McCarrick's statement, evidently informed by advice from Rome:

It is important to note that Cardinal Ratzinger makes a clear distinction between public officials and voters, explaining that a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil only if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion. However, 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 if there are proportionate reasons.

So what is needed to justify a vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights is (a) that one not vote for that candidate because of his or her support for abortion rights and (b) a proportionate reason. "Proportionate" would seem to indicate, if not equality, at least approximation. That is, the good one aims to secure by voting for a candidate who supports abortion rights should at least approximate the abortion-related evils that his or her election would entail. So one must consider both of these types of effect.

I think there are two relatively uncontroversial cases. The first is one where the office in question has no direct jurisdiction over abortion and abortion-related matters of policy. Imagine a race for city council where it emerges (that it would may seem odd, but let us grant it for argument's sake) that one candidate is pro-abortion rights and one candidate is opposed to abortion rights. However, the city council has no jurisdiction over abortion and the first candidate has views about local taxes, street maintenance, and the running of the public library that one supports and where one disagrees with the other candidate on all these issues. It seems perfectly reasonable to vote for the first candidate in this case. The other relatively (though, perhaps somewhat less) uncontroversial case would consider a race, say for governor, where both candidates are in favor of abortion rights. Here more circumstances come into play (e.g., the composition of the state legislature and the current law on abortion in that state), however, it still seems reasonable that in many cases one might vote for either candidate depending on the other issues at stake in the election and thus vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights.

What other examples of proportionate reason can one imagine? Consider a case like the following: one candidate is in favor of abortion rights and may well have some say over the matter once in office; the other candidate is a xenophobic nativist whose speeches are regularly laced with antisemitism and other forms of racism, but who is nevertheless vehemently pro-life. This may seem highly unusual, but I believe conscientious pro-life voters in some European countries have faced such a choice. One can imagine a David Duke-like candidate in a U.S. election filling the second role. Would the quasi-fascist alternative in this case constitute a proportionate reason to vote for the pro-abortion candidate? I think one could reasonably conclude that it may. One can imagine conscientious pro-life voters joining a 1930s style popular front against fascism or quasi-fascism if the fascist candidate had a real chance to win and one has reason to expect him to act on his principles.

But what about more ordinary dilemmas? What if the anti-abortion candidate is in favor of the death penalty? To some extent this would depend upon the office and the state of the law. While an American president could adopt a policy of regularly commuting the sentences of federal death row inmates, there are not many executions carried out by the federal government. There would seem little proportion here with the 1.3 million abortions that take place annually. Moreover, the Catholic teaching on the death penalty is not that it is always and everywhere wrong as is the case with abortion, but rather that where the protection of society does not require it the death penalty should not be used. But that seems like the sort of prudential judgment best made by legislators properly equipped to make such a determination. The same can be said with respect to many other policy matters, including decisions about going to war.

In addition to such considerations one should evaluate the precise attitude of a politician who supports abortion rights as among the proportionate reasons in play. One can imagine a politician who starts with the view that given the disagreement over abortion and the legal regime that has been in place for three decades he or she does not feel able to impose his or her "personal" values on the whole country, but goes on to strongly resolve to do everything possible to discourage abortions in various ways, e.g., informed consent and parental consent laws, much expanded social policies aimed at discouraging abortion including extensive funding of crisis pregnancy centers, etc. In addition the candidate resolves to use the presidency as a platform to make the moral case against abortion and not to insist that abortion be funded with tax money or that medical research entailing the destruction of human embryos be funded with tax money. Such a candidate would not appear at pro-abortion rallies, nor would he or she criticize opponents for threatening to "take away choice," nor would she make support for Roe v. Wade a conditio sine qua non for nomination to the federal bench. Such a candidate would see this position as a sad compromise with a sadder reality. This is not the bishops' view, nor is it mine, but I think it would be a morally serious view and, conscientiously held, might well contribute to the eventual elimination of legal abortion. This sort of attitude, combined with other factors, such as the policies of the opposing candidate, could perhaps contribute to the sorts of proportionate reasons proposed by Cardinal Ratzinger. One does not have to connect too many dots, however, to see that this view is a far cry from that of Senator Kerry.

Things have heated up in the past couple of weeks on the Notre Dame campus with regard to the continuing national discussion on abortion and its relation to the upcoming election. This past week a large number of small white wooden crosses arrayed on the south quad to commemorate the victims of abortion were vandalized by persons unknown. The crosses were not simply trampled on randomly, as they have been at past demonstrations, but large numbers of them were intentionally pulled from the ground and broken, the pieces thrown carelessly around the quad. Fellow Ethics and Culture blogger Michael Garvey and I were returning from lunch at the University Club last Thursday when we came upon members of the campus right-to-life group collecting the broken pieces, repairing the crosses and placing them again in their symmetrical rows. There was an air of tranquility among these students going about their restorative business that seemed to me to clash with the horror of what had been done on the quad the previous evening. I was perhaps more surprised than I should have been that white wooden crosses arrayed at the heart of the Notre Dame campus had been treated in such a manner.

The campus newspaper has covered the vandalism and its viewpoint page has given space for a number of students and faculty to express their opinion. A pro-choice faculty member expressed her disapproval of the vandalism while also expressing her disapproval of the university's failure to give proper support to the expression of pro-choice opinion on campus. A student, once a candidate for president of the student body I am told, argued that the vandalism was just an instance of (healthy?) exercise of freedom of speech. What was destroyed he patiently explained were, after all, merely wooden symbols. No one was really hurt. It wasn't like the holocaust or the war in Iraq.

We should be grateful, I think, that these things still matter at Notre Dame. Evidence that what Notre Dame thinks also matters to the larger culture--especially to the Democratic party in an election year--was provided on Monday morning. Our community awoke to find an op-ed column by the dean of the College of Arts and Letters, Mark Roche, prominently displayed at the top of the editorial page of the New York Times arguing that Catholics--even pro-life Catholics as he claims to be--can with a clear conscience vote for John Kerry (a link to Roche's editorial can be found on the October 13 post from Robert George and Gerald Bradley, just below). Our Senior Research Fellow at the Center, Alasdair MacIntyre, had sent an op-ed column to the Times some weeks ago defending the view that Catholics should not vote in this election for either of the candidates for the presidency, but the Times did not bother even to acknowledge receiving his column. I was surprised that such a prominent figure at Notre Dame as Dean Roche should intervene in this contentious campaign with, as it seemed to me, such weak arguments--and on a topic of such moment for those of us persuaded by the Pope John Paul II's moving warnings about a Culture of Death.

Others have responded to Dean Roche, however, (see the George, Bradley response below) and I will refrain from commenting on his particular arguments in this place. The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture does not, of course, endorse candidates for public office. We are neither a Democratic nor Republican ethics center. Indeed, we have been disturbed by the efforts of some prominent Catholic public figures, especially in the past year, to identify too closely the moral and social teachings of the Catholic Church with the political agenda of the Republican Party.

Having said that, however, we do recognize that in virtually every one of the instances in which innocent life is being directly assaulted in contemporary culture, Senator Kerry has stood with the opponents of life. He opposed all attempts to limit partial birth abortion. He has cynically used the stem cell issue in this campaign, exaggerating its medical promise and failing to come to terms with the enormity of the proposals that we should create human lives precisely so we can then destroy them and use their parts to improve our own lives. He vigorously supports the use of federal funds to pay for abortions and he reaffirmed in the third presidential debate that he will appoint no judges to the highest court who are not antecedently and irrevocably committed to upholding the courts ban on democratic voting on the issue of abortion rights.

Although we do not endorse candidates or political parties, we do stand with those students patiently repairing the wooden crosses on the south quad last week. In a culture where we are deprived of the opportunity to vote on the abortion issue, we must seek other ways to witness to our opposition to the continuing slaughter of the innocents. The Right-to-Life students at Notre Dame have found such a way--and their patience in erecting and defending their memorial each year reminds us all vividly of what is at stake in the "abortion debate." The often tendentious and manipulative campaign rhetoric and academic posturing that surrounds talk about the fate of the smallest and most defenseless of our fellow human beings is frequently wearying. The white crosses that are placed each year in such numbers on our campus, however, encourage us all to keep up the battle of ideas as well as the practical fight to make the world safe for unborn children, for the pregnant women who carry them, and for the children they will become if they are allowed to be born.

David Solomon
W.P. and H.B. White Director
Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture

A new article on Catholics and political responsibility, written by Cardinal George, Center for Ethics and Culture advisory board member, can be accessed here.

The following is a reply by Robert P. George and Gerard V. Bradley to Mark Roche's editorial from the October 11, 2004 edition of the New York Times. Mark Roche is Dean of the College of Arts and Letters here at Notre Dame. George's and Bradley's response originally appeared on National Review Online. Dean Roche's editorial can be found here.

"History will judge our society's support of abortion in much the same
way we view earlier generations' support of torture and slavery." These
words appeared Monday in an essay published in--are you sitting
down?--the New York Times.

You can get back up. There is an explanation. The point of the piece
was to explain to Catholic citizens why they can in good
conscience--indeed, why they should--vote for John Kerry.

But, you may be asking, isn't John Kerry in favor of legal
abortion? Indeed, doesn't he support the public funding of
abortions? Hasn't he consistently voted against efforts to prohibit
partial birth abortions? Didn't he even vote against the Unborn Victims
of Violence Act that would have held murderers of pregnant women and
their unborn children liable for both deaths?

Doesn't John Kerry vigorously support embryo-killing for biomedical
research? Doesn't he condemn those who oppose this killing for putting
"right-wing ideology" ahead of curing people? Indeed, going beyond the
killing of embryos currently stored in assisted reproduction clinics,
hasn't Kerry proposed to create, at public expense, massive numbers of
embryonic human beings by cloning in order to use them as disposable
research material?

Hasn't John Kerry voted against every effort to place meaningful
restrictions on the practice of abortion or embryo-destructive
research? And hasn't he attempted to implicate Catholics and other
pro-life citizens in the slavery-like evil of these practices by paying
for them with tax payer dollars?

By what logic, then, does the author of the New York Times essay conclude
that Catholics should vote for the United States Senate's most faithful
supporter of what he says ought to be regarded, and some day will be
regarded, as an injustice on a par with the evils of torture and slavery?

The answer: He reaches his conclusion by very shoddy
logic. Having conceded the gravity and scope of the evil of
abortion, the author, Mark W. Roche, dean of the College of Arts
and Letters at Notre Dame, unwittingly makes the decisive case for
re-electing George W. Bush the candidate who will be vindicated by
history for his opposition to injustice on the scale of slavery prior to
its abolition by the Thirteenth Amendment.

Dean Roche opens his case for Kerry by saying that while President Bush
and the Republicans have the superior position on abortion and embryonic
stem-cell research, "the Democrats are close to the Catholic position on
the death penalty, universal health care, and environmental protection."

This argument doesn't work. Neither candidate would abolish the death
penalty, though Kerry would invoke it in fewer cases than Bush. But even
assuming, as we are willing to do, that Catholics should oppose the death
penalty on the basis of the Pope's recent development of the Church's
historical teaching, no one can say that this teaching has the same
status or urgency as the Church's teaching against the direct killing of
the innocent, whether in abortion, embryo-destructive research,
euthanasia, or the deliberate targeting of civilians in warfare. Nor is
the degree of injustice the same or even close to the same. Nor is the
scale of the wrong anything approaching 1.3 million deaths per year by
abortion plus thousands more, if Kerry gets his way, in
embryo-destructive research.

On questions of universal health care and environmental protection, the
Church does not presume to bind its members to specific policies as
matters of strict justice. True, the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops has developed policy proposals on health care,
environmental protection, agricultural policy, immigration, tax policy,
the minimum wage, and a host of other issues; but the bishops fully
acknowledge that reasonable people of goodwillincluding faithful
Catholics may legitimately reject these proposals in favor of
alternatives. Many bishops themselves reject them. No Catholic is bound
by them in the way that every Catholic is bound to oppose policies that
license the injustice of deliberately taking innocent human life.

Roche's next move concerns the war in Iraq. He suggests, without ever
quite saying so, that President Bush's decision to use military force to
remove Saddam Hussein violates "the Catholic doctrine of 'just war.'" It
is true that the Pope opposed the use of force. But he did not declare
the war to be unjust; nor did he forbid Catholics from supporting it or
Catholic soldiers from fighting in it. He respected the teaching of the
Catechism and the entire tradition of Catholic thought about just
war: it is up to the leaders of nations, and not to Church officials, to
make the crucial prudential judgments as to whether a threat is
sufficient to warrant the use of military force, and whether the
legitimate alternatives to force are exhausted or will prove
unavailing. Of course, Catholics needn't think that President Bush made
all the right prudential judgments, nor need they agree with the
President's strategic conduct of the war. But no one can legitimately
claim a moral equivalence between Bush's decision to go to war against
Saddam Hussein, and Kerry's efforts to preserve, pay for, and even extend
the practice of killing innocent human beings in utero and in vitro.

Roche's final bit of argument is the least promising of all. He says
that "politics is the art of the possible." Then he argues that the best
way to reduce the number of abortions is to elect liberal Democrats like
Kerry the most virulent and uncompromising supporters of this
slavery-like evil because their social policies lead to lower abortion
rates. His main piece of evidence for this remarkable claim is that "the
overall abortion rate was more or less stable during the Reagan years,
but during the Clinton presidency it dropped by 11 per cent." So he
suggests that the pro-life thing to do is to vote against the pro-life
party and in favor of the party that would (1) implicate Catholics and
other pro-life citizens in the evil of abortions by paying for them with
taxpayer's money, (2) make sure that every single one of its Supreme
Court nominees will support the virtually unlimited abortion license
created in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, and (3) create a massive
industry in the production and destruction of embryos for purposes of
biomedical research.

The truth is that Clinton and the Democrats cannot fairly be credited for
the decline in the abortion rate in the 1990s. All that Clinton can
legitimately claim on this score is that he generated a voter backlash
resulting in the seizure of the congress by a pro-life Republican
majority in 1994. Thus, he unwittingly paved the way for actions that
have indeed had a positive effect on both rate of abortions and our
national debate. Above all, by raising the issue of partial-birth
abortion and enacting a ban on this horrific practice (a ban twice vetoed
by Clinton himself--a veto upheld only because of near Democratic
unanimity in its support in the Senate) the Republicans placed the focus
on the victim of abortion, and awakened the conscience of many Americans
to the homicidal nature of the practice. At the very same time,
technological developments--above all prenatal sonography--vividly revealed
to Americans, including expecting parents and grandparents, the beautiful
and undeniably human life of the child in the womb. Clinton didn't
invent the sonogram, nor did he join the pro-life effort to save babies
by distributing sonographic equipment as widely as possible.

Clinton's efforts on abortion were in an entirely different
direction. He supported a so called Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) that
would have overturned even modest state restrictions on abortion, and
proposed federal taxpayer funding of abortions via his wife's planned
nationalization of the health care system.

Near the conclusion of his essay, Roche advises "those who view abortion
as the most significant issue in this campaign" to "supplement their
abstract desire for moral rectitude with a more realistic focus on how
best to ensure that fewer abortions take place."

But would he have said the same thing about efforts to ban
slavery? Would he have lectured those who sought to ban it about "their
abstract desire for moral rectitude"? Would he have proposed economic
policies to reduce the market demand for slaves, as some opponents of
abolition suggested, rather than supporting the party that promised to
extend to all human beings--regardless of race--the equal protection of the
laws? Somehow we doubt that he would have regarded the cause of
abolition as a mere "abstract desire for moral rectitude."

In answering the question about abortion in the second presidential
debate, John Kerry claimed to "respect" the views of pro-life
citizens. He took the occasion to call attention to the fact that he
himself is a Catholic and once served as an altar boy. But Catholic
citizens should remember this: No one in American public life has a
worse record on abortion and embryo-killing than John Kerry. No one--not
even Hilary Clinton--is to his left on these issues. When it comes to
Supreme Court appointments, Kerry has made it clear that no Catholic
lawyer--however superbly qualified--who believes what the Church teaches
about the sanctity of human life need apply. They are ineligible. And
this same John Kerry is proposing to expand embryo-killing far beyond
abortion by funding embryo-destructive research, and even the creation of
embryos by cloning for experimentation in which they are killed.

Roche is right that abortion is in our day what slavery was in
Lincoln's. To vote for John Kerry in 2004, would be far worse, however,
than to have voted against Lincoln and for his Democratic opponent in
1860. Stephen Douglas at least supported allowing states who opposed
slavery to ban it. And he did not favor federal funding or subsidies for
slavery. John Kerry takes the opposite view on both points when it comes
to abortion. On the great evil of his own day, Senator Douglas was John
Kerry-lite.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of
the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at
Princeton University. Gerard V. Bradley is Professor of Law at Notre
Dame and recently served as President of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

There's a fascinating series of articles on the subject in the October 8 issue of Commonweal. Robert Royal of the Faith and Reason Institute on why he's voting for Bush; Thomas Higgins, CEO of a biotechnology company in San Francisco, on why he's voting for Kerry; and Paul Griffiths, Schmitt Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago, on why he's sitting this one out. To my way of thinking, Griffiths is by far the most persuasive, especially given that there's no significant difference between the candidates on the war (and the nice thing about living in Indiana is that its electoral votes are set in Republican amber, so a presidential vote won't mean much one way or the other) but I'd like to know what others think. It's available online at http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php?id_article=956

Michael

I was trying to think through some of the relevant moral issues in voting. I was hoping that some of these questions might spark discussion on the blog.

1) In voting for a candidate, is one necessarily asserting something or is the act of casting a vote inherently ambiguous?
1a) If you are necessarily asserting something, what is the necessary minimum content of the assertion?
1b) If voting for a candidate does not necessarily “mean” anything, what determines the morality of voting for a given candidate?
1b1) Is the moral value of an act of voting determined exclusively by the intention of the voter?
1b2) Is the moral content of an act of voting equivalent to the moral value of intending the foreseeable circumstances that will result from the election of a given candidate?
1c) Must one vote for the candidate that one believes would be the best person to be elected?