Yesterday, January 11, 2012, the USA Supreme Court ruled unanimously and decisively in favor of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School's right to complete freedom in hiring and dismissing its ministers, regardless of provisions of civil law concerning employment such as those of the Americans with Disabilities Act. A case alleging unfair discrimination had been [...]
Archive for the ‘law’ Category
Only excerpts or summaries of the posts are shown on this page. Click on the title of a post to see the whole post.USA Supreme Court Gets It Right on Religious Liberty
Thursday, January 12th, 2012On An Argument in Favor of The Legality of Abortion
Saturday, April 30th, 2011The argument that abortion should be legal in order to avoid the risks to women's life from illegal abortion is in itself a valid argument, but cannot sufficiently prove the conclusion, since the are many other evils entailed in abortion being legal that it ignores: the harm done to women who will have abortions who would not have abortions if it was not legal, and the harm and injustice done to their children; the moral harm done by failing to clearly recognize abortion as a moral evil.
Crucifixes in Public Classrooms in Italy
Thursday, March 24th, 2011The highest European court of human rights announced last Friday, the first Friday in Lent, at 3:00 PM, its judgment on the case of Lautsi and others vs. Italy, on whether crucifixes in classrooms in public schools was prejudicial to the right of non-Catholics to educate their children in accordance with their own convictions, as [...]
Lying and Moral Intuitions
Saturday, February 26th, 2011Peeter Kreeft's post affirming the obvious rightness of Live Action is deeply flawed. Despite his claim to know logic well, the argumentation consists mostly of begging the question, ridiculing his opponents, and appeal to majority opinion. One argument from analogy is present, but not entirely sufficient.
Are We Obliged to Do the Impossible?
Friday, November 19th, 2010When speaking generally about the obligation to order our passions, Aquinas says that though it is possible to avoid any particular inordinate movement, it is impossible to avoid all inordinate passions. Nonetheless the possibility of avoiding any particular disordered passion is enough to make it a sin when we don't avoid it. Is this consistent with the position that Aquinas takes on the particular question of obedience? …
Are Quick and Slow Death Different?
Thursday, November 4th, 2010In the post The Principle of Double Effect and Abortion, or more precisely, in a comment on the post, the example was given, taken from Steven Long, of two persons in a space capsule with a limited air supply. There would be enough air for one of the persons to reach earth safely, but not [...]
The Mistake of Expecting Moral Systems to Resolve All Cases
Thursday, November 4th, 2010Aquinas points out that while the first principle of natural law, "good is to be done and pursued and evil to be avoided", is most certain, the more concrete and particular the principles and situations at which one looks, the less great is the certainty that can be attained. Consequently, anyone who sets out to [...]
The Principle of Double Effect and Abortion
Sunday, October 31st, 2010Some time ago I posted on the principle of double effect, and mentioned cases of conflict that are not evidently resolvable by the principle of double effect, at least not in its usual sense. There is also a problem applying the principle of double effect to resolve an issue or dispute, if the very point [...]
Crucifixes in Public Schools
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010From the oral submission given on Wednesday by Joseph Weiler, on behalf of several third-party intervening states (Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, The Russian Federation and San Marino) in the case (Lautsi v. Italy) regarding Italy's right to display crucifixes in its public schools. 21… Secularity, Laïcité is not an empty category which signifies [...]
Natural Law and Natural Inclinations
Friday, April 23rd, 2010Why do natural inclinations of human nature give rise to an obligation of natural law?
The International Theological Commission presents a mean between two extremes: one, which it labels "physicalism," takes the natural inclinations as absolutes that are not subordinate to any higher principle; the other extreme takes the natural inclinations as mere "matter" for human action, devoid of any intrinsic human teleology.
On the one hand, the human subject is not a union or juxtaposition of diverse and autonomous natural inclinations, but a substantial and personal whole called to respond to the love of God and to unite himself through a recognized orientation towards a last end, which hierarchizes the partial goods manifested by diverse natural tendencies… On the other hand, in this organic whole, each part preserves a proper and irreducible meaning… The doctrine of the natural moral law should therefore affirm the central role of reason in the actualization of a properly human plan of life, and at the same time the consistency and the proper meaning of natural pre-rational dynamisms.
I am a Catholic seminarian and deacon in Vienna, and a teacher at the