Monday, June 30, 2014

SCOTUS and Oderberg


Today, with Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court of the United States has partially redeemed itself after its disgraceful 2012 Obamacare ruling.  Readers of this blog will be particularly interested to learn that the work of the esteemed David Oderberg (specifically, his article “The Ethics of Co-operation in Wrongdoing”) is cited in footnote 34 of the decision.  Also cited are two other, older works of traditional Thomistic natural law theory: Thomas Higgins’ Man as Man: The Science and Art of Ethics and Henry Davis’s Moral and Pastoral Theology.

208 comments:

  1. I agree that Hobby Lobby shouldn't be forced to include contraception in its health care coverage. But I disagree that religion should be singled out as the sole legal means for avoiding that coverage. If I understand the effect of this decision, a person without that religious objection will have no right to object. I am not religious, yet I think I have perfectly valid reasons to object -- better reasons than Hobby Lobby. Yet will the SCOTUS hear my objections? Probably not. I've become a second class citizen in their eyes. I will be forced to pay for contraceptive coverage that I sincerely believe will tend to erode personal responsibility. I'm disappointed in the so-called conservatives who think this decision is a victory for liberty. Unless *everyone* is allowed the same exemption, it's anything but.

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  2. This case was not about contraceptives per se, but four which may cause abortion.

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  3. @DNW
    Why should anyone care if you are upset; mildly, or otherwise?
    It was meant as a joke. Mr. JH was being a jackhole and getting everyone riled up so I was trying to lighten the mood a little.

    By the way, the non-trolls here will recall that the Humanist Manifesto did itself refer to the religion of secular humanism.
    Nominalist or not, I’m at least smart enough to stay far away from any group subscribing to a “Manifesto”. For whatever reason nothing good ever comes from those.

    @DavidM
    I can accept all that as being somewhat grounded in reason, but it still seems to presuppose some determinate concept of a religious belief as such.
    Of course it helps if the beliefs are already a traditional part of a long-standing religious practice, but there are some common themes that are invoked even when they aren’t. Supernatural forces and entities are one common theme, so is salvation and cosmic unity, glory or transcendence in an afterlife.

    Despite those interesting questions about religious belief, I'm still committed to asserting that corporations have no personal rights and are nothing more than state chartered legal fictions. Some more legal citations for your perusal:

    "Whenever a corporation makes a contract, it is the contract of the legal entity, of the artificial being created by the charter, and not the contract of the individual members. The only rights it can claim are the rights which are given to it in that character, and not the rights which belong to its members as citizens of a state.” (Bank of Augusta v Earle, 1839).

    "...the term "citizens," as used in the [privileges and immunities] clause, applies only to natural persons, members of the body politic owing allegiance to the state, not to artificial persons created by the legislature, and possessing only such attributes as the legislature has prescribed..." (Pembina Consolidated Mining Co. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1888).

    Justice Hugo Black, in dissent - “Certainly, when the Fourteenth Amendment was submitted for approval, the people were not told that the states of the South were to be denied their normal relationship with the Federal Government unless they ratified an amendment granting new and revolutionary rights to corporations. This Court, when the Slaughter House Cases were decided in 1873, had apparently discovered no such purpose. The records of the time can be searched in vain for evidence that this amendment was adopted for the benefit of corporations.” (Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. v. Johnson, 1938)

    Justice William Rehnquist - “State grants to a business corporation the blessings of potentially perpetual life and limited liability to enhance its efficiency as an economic entity. It might reasonably be concluded that those properties, so beneficial in the economic sphere, pose special dangers in the political sphere.” (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 1978).

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  4. @Don Jindra:
    "I am not religious, yet I think I have perfectly valid reasons to object -- better reasons than Hobby Lobby. Yet will the SCOTUS hear my objections? Probably not. I've become a second class citizen in their eyes."

    I agree, and I don't see how that can be justified.

    "I will be forced to pay for contraceptive coverage that I sincerely believe will tend to erode personal responsibility. I'm disappointed in the so-called conservatives who think this decision is a victory for liberty. Unless *everyone* is allowed the same exemption, it's anything but."

    Well, I still think it's a plus for liberty, per se, but it's a liberty that needs to be consistently applied. Why does the state have an interest in protecting freedom of 'religious belief,' but not in protecting freedom of belief in, e.g., one's 'personal moral code'? It seems completely arbitrary.

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  5. Jeremy Taylor:

    I think that this dilemma makes public schools impossible.

    Either each teacher has her own world view informing her teaching & imposes her assumptions on the students, or a higher authority imposes a world view on the teacher & students.

    There is no such thing, nor even a logical possibility, as a neutral school system, for every person and organization is informed by some view, be it secular, Catholic, etc..

    My solution is to take education out of the hands of the public sector & leave it in the hands of parents or guardians.

    I did not know how this is to be funded, but probably that can be figured out with some reasonable intellectual and work.

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  6. But why shouldn't publicly funded schools have curricula/textbooks/teachers who are approved by parents, in accordance with their right to free exercise of religion? Timotheos suggested that this could be considered tantamount to state 'establishment' of religion. But to the contrary: how does enforcing an anti-religious or a-religious orthodoxy in public schools amount to anything but state prohibition of free exercise of religion?

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  7. Jeremy Taylor: How is the distinction being made? As far as I can, secular or irreligious norms and worldviews are the same level of discourse as religious ones.

    It's easy: instead of talking about "philosophies" or "worldviews", talk about "religion" instead — you can pull this off because for the vast, vast majority of people their worldview is a religion. Then when you want to make an exception for secularism, suddenly get pedantic and point out that it isn't actually a religion, so you don't have to abide by the rules. Child's play!

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  8. Mr. Green: They didn't fool me nor you.

    Maybe our fellow countrymen haven't been inoculated with enough Thomism to make proper distinctions.

    I thank God I was raised in the day and age where we were forced to define our terms.

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