ethics &culture
2013-2014
The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture Newsletter
In this Issue The Metaphysics of Winemaking Rock'n'Roll as Search for the Infinite The Body and Human Identity ethics & culture 1
Our Mission...
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n Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II summed up the Catholic university when he said its mission is to present the truth about God and man and nature. This charge is all the more imperative for an elite modern academy (and a modern world) in which some deny the very possibility of truth. At the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, we believe that the truth the Church affirms about the human person is the foundation for freedom, justice, human dignity, and the common good. All of our work is aimed at one goal: to share the richness of this Catholic moral and intellectual tradition through teaching, research, and dialogue, at the highest level and across a range of disciplines. In so doing, we strengthen Notre Dame’s Catholic character on campus - and we bring the university’s voice into the public debates over the most vital issues of our day. We do this in many ways, such as our annual fall conference on ethical, political, and cultural issues (featuring interdisciplinary debate and exchange among the world’s most prominent thinkers and policymakers), our spring conference on medical ethics (bringing together practicing physicians and scholars to discuss vexing questions arising in the clinical setting), our fellowship program (bringing both eminent and emerging scholars to the Notre Dame community), and our extensive programming for students (including our popular Catholic literature lecture series). In all these endeavors, we raise the profile of Catholic scholars and writers who are doing important work but who might not be heard without our help. Whether it be through the congressional testimony of one of our scholars, the published research of one of our fellows, the expert advice on a contemporary problem provided for the bishops (in the United States and around the world), or our public witness for the preciousness of unborn human life, we engage the questions much of the American academy prefers to ignore - and we do so by working with anyone of any views, so long as he or she is willing to come together in open and honest debate. As scholars, researchers, and fellows, we celebrate the beauty and wisdom of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition, and we understand our vocation as a charge to explore it with Notre Dame students, faculty and staff, alumni and friends, and colleagues in the academy both in the United States and abroad. We consider our work a labor of love, because we know that the Gospel liberates rather than confines and that the Catholic tradition enriches rather than limits intellectual inquiry. In our unique way, we help Notre Dame to fulfill its mission as an indispensable, countercultural force within the community of elite universities and a voice for authentic human freedom and dignity in the great global public square.
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Around the Center
From the Director
This past year we at the Center have been hard at work in our efforts to augment Notre Dame’s mission as the world’s preeminent, distinctively Catholic institution of higher learning. The Center’s focus in this regard has two dimensions. Internally, we aim to transmit the beauty and power of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition to the Notre Dame community here on campus through our interdisciplinary teaching, research, and engagement. Externally, we work to project Notre Dame’s unique, countercultural voice into elite academia and the public square in the name of authentic human dignity and the common good. In the pages that follow, you will read about some of the exciting recent fruits of our labors. We are particularly proud to share news of important structural developments in the Center over the past year. We are thrilled to report that Dr. Ryan Madison has joined the Center as Associate Director. Ryan is an extraordinary administrator and scholar who shares our passion for Notre Dame and its mission. He was most recently the Center’s 2012–13 Myser Fellow and, before that, served as Dean of the College of St. Thomas More in Fort Worth, Texas. He succeeds Angela Engelsen, who, after serving for a year as Pro-Life Program Manager, has
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chosen to dedicate herself full time to the far more important job of rearing her and Kris’s newborn son, John! Stephen Freddoso has transitioned to service in the newly-created position of Communications Specialist, where he will bring his energy and creativity to bear on the task of promoting the work of the Center throughout elite academia and the global public square. Most recently, Debi McGuigan Jones -an administrator par excellence - has also joined the staff as Event Planning Program Manager. We are grateful also that Tracy Westlake will continue her valuable service as administrative assistant (and tailgate impresario, along with her husband, Chris). To a person, our team is passionately committed to the highest standards of excellence in pursuit of the mission of the Center and Notre Dame. We are also excited to announce the creation of two important advisory bodies. First, this year saw the inaugural meeting of the Center for Ethics and Culture Executive Advisory Committee, composed of men and women of exceptional wisdom and accomplishment who are deeply committed to the Center and its mission. Second, we have created the Center for Ethics and Culture Faculty Advisory Committee, composed of thirteen of Notre Dame’s most eminent and productive scholars, hailing from many different disciplines, but united in their unflagging devotion to Notre Dame’s flourishing as the world’s most important Catholic community of learning. We at the Center are grateful for the counsel and friendship of the distinguished members of both committees. Finally, a word is in order regarding this year’s Center fellows. We are blessed with an extraordinary array of brilliant and passionate scholars - both eminent and emerging - who contribute to
rich intellectual ecology of the Center and, by extension, Notre Dame. The 2013–14 Mary Ann Remick Fellow is Professor John Haldane, one of the world's leading Catholic philosophers and public intellectuals. We have two Myser fellows this year - Drs. Andrea Rovagnati and Gladden Pappin. Dr. Rovagnati - one of the most exciting emerging scholars of Constitutional Law in Italy - joins us from the University of Milan. While at the Center, he will finish a book manuscript comparing the law of health care in the United States and the European Union. Dr. Pappin received his doctorate in Government from Harvard University in 2012 (where he studied under Harvey Mansfield). He will work on scholarly projects concerning the relationship between political and ecclesiastical thought, the experience of change in the modern world, and the question of nature and technology. Our visiting fellows will be joined by the inaugural class of Center for Ethics and Culture Junior Fellows- current undergraduate students at Notre Dame who participate in the work of the Center, conduct original research, and receive mentoring from affiliated Center scholars and speakers. This year’s Junior Fellows are Angela Bermudez, Liz Everett, Kate Everett, Domenic Canonico, Erin Stoyell-Mulholland, Michael Infantine, and Kathryn O’Callaghan. We at the Center consider it an honor to contribute to Notre Dame’s flourishing as the world’s greatest Catholic research university through teaching, research, and engagement at the highest level, across a range of disciplines. And we are extremely grateful for your continued prayers and support. Carter Snead William P. and Hazel B. White Director Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
Around the Center
New Associate Director
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he Center is happy to announce Dr. Ryan Madison as our new associate director. Ryan succeeds our former associate director, Angela Engelsen. A former Myser Fellow with the Center, Ryan is an extraordinary scholar and administrator whose work focuses on ancient philosophy, metaphysics, and the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. He joins us from the College of St. Thomas More in Fort Worth, where he served as dean of the college. Prior to that, Ryan taught philosophy for three years at the Cardinal Glennon College at Kenrick–Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, where he
was hired by the archbishop to implement a new philosophy curriculum. He earned his B.A. from St. John’s College and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Loyola University (Chicago). He is currently completing a book on Aristotle and the relationship between metaphysics and theology. In addition to his other responsibilities, Ryan leads the Center’s Integritas program, which was relaunched in the fall. His passion for and commitment to the Center and its mission make him an invaluable addition to the Notre Dame community, and the Center in particular. We are pleased to welcome him!
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In This Issue
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Junior Fellows Student Outreach Undergraduate Internships....7 Integritas..............................8 Chesterton............................9 Bread of Life.......................10 Catholic Lit Series.................12 Edith Stein Project.............14 Schmitt Lecture.................16 Football Tailgates...............18
Center Programs
Vita Institute.......................22 Evangelium Vitae Medal......24 HHS Mandate Symposium...26 Medical Ethics Conference..27 Rock ’n’ Roll.......................28
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Publications Around the Center Director Testifies in Texas...30 Director’s Activities.............31 Center Fellows....................32 Center Publications.............34 Advisory Bodies...................35
Fall Conference ethics & culture
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Undergraduate Outreach
Junior Fellows
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he Center’s junior fellowships offer undergraduates the opportunity to participate in its work by conducting original research and collaborating with our affiliated faculty, visiting fellows, speakers, and staff. This year’s junior fellows are Angela Bermudez, Domenic Canonico, Elizabeth Everett, Katherine
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ngela Bermudez is a senior studying political science, theology, and business at Notre Dame. In addition to her work at the Center over the last three years, Angela is the motherhood resources commissioner for the undergraduate Right to Life Club (NDRTL), where she promotes the resources provided by the university for pregnant students. Her work in this capacity earned NDRTL the Students for Life of America’s Inaugural Pregnant on Campus Award. She has also organized the Project Mom baby shower to help pregnant women in the South Bend area. Angela is the fundraising co-chair for the Edith Stein Project and a CCD teacher at St. Adalberts Church in South Bend. After graduation, Angela will pursue her passion to help women in need by serving as a counselor at the Women’s Care Center.
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Everett, Michael Infantine, Kathryn O’Callaghan, and Erin Stoyell-Mulholland. Through the junior fellow program, the Center aims to form Notre Dame’s best and brightest students into tomorrow’s leaders. Meet two of our junior fellows who will be graduating in May:
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lizabeth Everett is a senior majoring in the Program of Liberal Studies and English. A native of South Bend, she began working at the Center the summer before her freshman year at Notre Dame, assisting with the inaugural Notre Dame Vita Institute. She has been the campus section editor of the Irish Rover the past two years and is the current president of the Identity Project of Notre Dame, the club that sponsors the Edith Stein Project. Her favorite Center program is the Catholic Literature Series. After graduation, Liz will serve as a member of the City Year program in Chicago, teaching and supervising extra-curricular activities in inner-city schools for the 2014–15 school year.
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Undergraduate Outreach
Undergraduate Internships
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Erin Stoyell-Mulholland President, Notre Dame Right to Life
s a Junior Fellow for the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, I've grown personally and professionally. The Center has helped me to develop the skills necessary to lead the Notre Dame Right to Life Club effectively. Now the Center will sponsor and fund my Summer Internship with the Pro-Life Office of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for the summer of 2014. The purpose of this hands-on, 10-week summer internship is to further educate me in the public debate of one of the most vital issues of our day, specifically, finding voice for authentic human freedom and dignity in the public square. Working closely with administration and leadership of the USCCB will further immerse me in our rich Catholic moral and intellectual tradition. I will understand the USCCB’s crucial role in the most important public debates in United States and help prepare and mobilize me for the next generation of prolife activities.
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March For Life
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n Wednesday, January 22, 2014, hundreds of Notre Dame students, faculty, and staff joined hundreds of thousands of participants from around the country in the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. While several hundred more students were prevented from coming due to dangerous weather conditions, Notre Dame still made its presence known with financial help from the Center, the Institute for Church Life, and the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life. ethics & culture 7
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Integritas
hat are humans made for? What is the relationship between faith and reason? Does our work have purpose or meaning? What constitutes human happiness? While Notre Dame has a multitude of student clubs and associations devoted to a wide variety of interests, there are few organizations that aim to help students grapple with these ultimate questions and integrate student life in all its dimensions. The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture is pleased to address that need through our undergraduate formation program, Integritas. Integritas was founded four years ago as an organization that draws on Catholic tradition to explore the relationship between the intellectual, spiritual, moral, and cultural lives of students. The program attracts students from every class year and a wide variety of colleges and majors, including PLS, theology, engineering, science, and business. Integritas students read a common set of texts, reflect on them in a seminar setting with guest professors, and participate in the spiritual, social, and service-oriented activities sponsored by the program. The result is the development of a thriving intellectual community with a vibrant Christian spirit. This year, under the guidance of Ryan Madison, professor of philosophy and associate director of the Center, Integritas’s activities were anchored by monthly seminars with some of Notre Dame’s most outstanding professors, including Patrick Deneen, David A. Potenziani Memorial Associate Professor of Constitutional Studies; John O’Callaghan, professor of philosophy and director of the Jacques Maritain Center; and Carter Snead, the Center’s director and professor of law. Students were also able to meet and talk with some of the Center’s guest speakers, including George Weigel, famed author of Evangelical Catholicism
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and Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.; Meghan Cox Gurdon, a columnist for the Weekly Standard and children’s literature critic for the Wall Street Journal; Rev. William Lies, C.S.C., vice-president of mission engagement and Church affairs at the University of Notre Dame; and Brett Perkins, the director of Notre Dame’s campus ministry. Through Integritas, students had the opportunity to go beyond seminar discussion and immerse themselves in classic literature and art. This year, students experienced one of the most beloved musical works of all time, Mozart’s Requiem, presented with historical letters and writings to explore its underlying spiritual meaning and illuminate the beautiful chant performances by Notre Dame’s Schola Musicorum. They also had the opportunity to visit the Art Institute of Chicago and consider the relationship between faith, truth, and beauty, as well as enjoy an outstanding performance of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet by Ricardo Muti and the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra. There was also the performance of Handel’s Messiah at DeBartolo Hall, a venerable Christmas tradition, and a rare and excellent performance of Shakespeare’s Othello by the Actors from the London Stage. Integritas students deepened their bonds within the Notre Dame community through activities like the Center’s football tailgates, while also reaching out to the broader community by traveling to Washington, D.C., for the March for Life. Their engagement in the big questions of our day made them welcome the opportunity to participate in this year’s Medical Ethics Conference and annual Fall Conference, particularly the Saturday evening panel discussion on “Marriage, Catholicism, and Public Policy,” featuring Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis, the young scholars and coauthors of What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense. The Center is honored to be a part of the continued thriving of Integritas students on campus and their enrichment of the Notre Dame family and culture at large.
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Center Events - Occasional Lectures
Chesterton: The Complete Thinker
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n February 19, 2013, Dale Ahlquist, the president of the American Chesterton Society, presented a lecture on his new book, Chesterton: The Complete Thinker. The snow and bitter cold didn’t discourage the undergraduates, professors, and members of the community who filled DeBartolo Hall to hear Ahlquist explain—with Chesterton’s characteristic wit and humor—the many ways Chesterton’s insights remain relevant in all areas of modern life. Ahlquist dwelt on Chesterton’s idea that “thinking is loyalty to the truth”—a characteristic often sadly lacking in our public discourse. Ahlquist challenged the modern education paradigm that would try to teach “truth” without any understanding of what that truth might be: Quoting Chesterton, he described this skeptical approach as nothing more than “falling through floor after floor of a bottomless universe.” Similarly, Ahlquist asserted, there can be no real debate without some shared first principle: “The point of debate is to differ in order to agree, not agree to differ.” Ahlquist also discussed the balanced approach Catholics are called to bring to every area of life—including language, economics, politics, the environment, and, of course, religion. With regard to the environment, he again quoted Chesterton, saying, “Nature is not our mother, she’s our sister…. She has no authority over us, but we respect her as our sister.” This, to Chesterton, indicates the proper balance we should bring to all areas of our lives. We are always happy to have Dale join us on campus to discuss his insights on this “complete thinker.” We are particularly grateful to Martijn Cremers, professor of finance at the Mendoza College of Business, for inviting Ahlquist and organizing the student Chesterton reading group.
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“ The point of debate is to differ in order to agree, not agree to differ.” ethics & culture
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Pro-Life Activities - Bread of Life
Muslims and Catholics on Life Issues
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wice a year, the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life sponsors the Bread of Life Dinners—an opportunity for students and faculty to come together in an intimate way for dinner and discussion of life issues. This spring marked the ninth installment of the biannual event, where Notre Dame theology professor Dr. Gabriel Reynolds gave a reflection on “Muslim and Catholic Views on the Beginning of Life.” According to Professor Reynolds, Muslims believe a fetus goes through three distinct stages. In the first forty days, the fetus is a dot; in the next forty days, the fetus is a clot; in the following forty days, the fetus is a piece of flesh. Ensoulment happens after 120 days. At this point, Allah breathes a soul into the child—a belief outlined in the
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Hadith, a second form of revelation for Muslims. Thus, Muslim scholars argue that abortion is permissible until 120 days, but after which it is seen as the equivalent of murder. Even in the preceding 120 days, according to Muslim belief, abortion is only permissible in cases of rape and incest, fetal deformities, and irreparable emotional damage to the mother. Professor Reynolds then compared this to Catholicism’s view that human life, simply by virtue of being human from the moment of conception, is worthy of our respect and protection. Reynolds then turned to a discussion of faith and reason and how they relate to the abortion debate. For Muslims, he explained, faith heavily informs their approach to these issues: They believe revelation to be sufficient, and therefore
do not require reason to support their beliefs. In contrast, while Catholics do take faith seriously, they believe that faith and reason working together can improve our understanding of the world, and therefore will often bring medical and philosophical concepts into the debate. Which led Professor Reynolds to the central question of the evening: In the abortion debate, should we rely on faith, reason, or both? The question was turned over to the tables, and with the invaluable input from members of the Muslim Student Association in attendance, great discussions followed. In his closing remarks, Reynolds reiterated that it is through discussions like these that we can best reach common ground among those of different backgrounds.
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Pro-Life Activities - Bread of Life
Life Issues and the Catholic Mission
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elow is an excerpt from the Fall 2013 Bread of Life Dinner, given by Rev. William Lies, C.S.C., vice president for mission engagement at the University of Notre Dame. “When we talk about the dignity of life, it ought to be obvious to us that every single person is absolutely necessary for the whole…that we are all diminished when one person is left out. There’s a reason, though, why a show like Survivor survives, and I’m afraid it’s because kicking people off the island resonates with us. We have become a throw-away culture—and I don’t mean of plastic water bottles and pizza boxes. We’ve become a culture that doesn’t worry about throwing people away, tossing them out. Human dignity has lost its edge, if it ever really had an edge to begin with. Of course, most of us have lived our way into the understanding and importance of human dignity. It’s a concern that Jesus modeled throughout the Gospels in His constant interactions, and it’s the cornerstone of our Church’s social and moral teaching. So, to us, this central principle seems obvious, but sadly
it’s less and less obvious to our culture. No one has articulated more eloquently for our time the centrality of human dignity than John Paul II through his teaching and writing, and most succinctly in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae. Therein he tells us that ‘...it is therefore a service of love which we are all committed to ensure to our neighbor, that his or her life may be always defended and promoted, especially when it is weak or threatened...’ And while John Paul addresses several evils of our modern culture in Evangelium Vitae, including abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment, he gives particular emphasis to the defenseless, unborn child when he says: ’Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. The Second Vatican Council defines abortion, together with infanticide, as an unspeakable crime.’ “But today, in many people’s consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior and even in law itself,
is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception.” A little later, John Paul continues: “Human life is sacred and inviolable at every moment of existence, including the initial phase which precedes birth. All human beings, from their mothers’ womb, belong to God who searches them and knows them, who forms them and knits them together with his own hands, who gazes on them when they are tiny shapeless embryos and already sees in them the adults of tomorrow whose days are numbered and whose vocation is even now written in the ‘book of life’ (cf. Ps 139: 1, 13–16). There too, when they are still in their mothers’ womb—as many passages of the Bible bear witness—they are the personal objects of God’s loving and fatherly providence.”
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Center Events - Catholic Literature Series
Children’s Literature
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cholars from around the country came to Notre Dame in the fall to examine the significance of children’s literature for Notre Dame’s 2013 Catholic Literature Series. Daniel McInerny, CEO of Trojan Tub Entertainment and author of the Kingdom of Patria series, kicked off the event by reflecting on the golden world that children’s literature creates for young readers. The idea of a golden world derives from the biblical idea of Paradise found in the Garden of Eden: In these worlds, the important thing is that innocence is fought for and achieved. “Children’s literature has an essential connection to a Catholic understanding of moral formation,” McInerny said. “Even if many, if not most, of the practitioners aren’t Catholic at all, the very genre is a dream of Eden.” McInerny concluded by noting that children’s literature is a moral formation, and therefore parents need to be informed about what their children read. The second installment of the series addressed many of the same themes in the Harry Potter series. John O’Callaghan, associate professor of philosophy at Notre Dame, argued that the series gives readers much more than a fantasy tale of witches and wizards; it represents a struggle between the love of power and sacrificial love. “The novels are not a tale of ordinary magic,” O’Callaghan said. “They are a tale of extraordinary magic, exploring the tale of two loves: the love of power, which is a philosophy of domination and wealth, versus a power of wisdom, which puts one in the presence of divine love.” He described the series as an allegory carefully constructed by author J. K. Rowling, who used her classical studies to her advantage when naming characters in
Center Events - Catholic Literature Series the novels. In his final recognition of the power of sacrifice in the last book, Harry defeats death by going to it willingly and coming back to life, becoming a Christ figure in the novel. But not all children’s or young-adult literature has such admirable themes, as other presenters reminded us. Megan Cox Gurdon, who reviews children’s books for the Wall Street Journal, focused on the troubling trend in young-adult literature that is obsessed with the gruesome and the disturbing. In much contemporary young-adult literature, human pathologies and weaknesses are spelled out in graphic detail, producing novels filled with profanity, grotesque images, and first-person descriptions of hideously distorted lives. Adolescent culture is extremely important, Gurdon said, which makes their literature influential and formative. The problem with this kind of YA literature, she argued, is not that it deals with disturbing issues, but rather the way these issues are presented. The rise in first-person, present-tense narrative reinforces a closed and narrowed perspective on life, which is detrimental when talking about difficult or serious topics. Gurdon reiterated that her goal wasn’t “to ban anything, but to give some perspective, and make sure that adolescent readers are not constantly being left in the dark. Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live like it doesn’t matter,” she concluded, challenging the audience to help restore an appreciation of beauty to the world. The final lecture was given by Thomas Hibbs of Baylor University, who discussed The Hunger Games. In some ways, The Hunger Games is a satire of reality television, like Survivor.
The series takes this concept to vicious extremes, turning death contests into entertainment. According to Hibbs, author Suzanne Collins was inspired to write these novels while viewing reality TV and media coverage of the Iraq War. One of the most sophisticated questions these books and films ask the audience is: What does it mean for us as an audience to consume this “entertainment”? Along with its political and social commentary,
“ Children’s literature has an essential connection to a Catholic understanding of moral formation.” death truly is at the heart of reflections provoked by the entire trilogy. Interestingly, Hibbs noted, there is no speculation about the possibility of anything after death. Rather, the focus is on the rituals that surround death. Katniss, the main character, learns to expand her understanding of for whom, and for what, she is willing to die. Therefore, the audience empathizes and identifies with those in the arena like Katniss, who demonstrates the virtues of sacrifice and courage. We are grateful to our visiting lecturers for presenting these issues and others in such an engaging and thoughtful way.
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Pro-Life Activities - Edith Stein Project
Modern Beauty: Unveiling the Mystery
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ope Benedict XVI said that beauty is a power that “unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the other, to reach for the beyond.” His words inspired the theme of the 2013 Edith Stein Project, which once again provided a forum for a discussion of sexuality, dignity, and identity in light of the Church’s teachings. Hosted by the Identity Project of Notre Dame, the theme of the February 8–10 gathering was “Modern Beauty: Unveiling the Mystery.” The conference engaged a wide range of topics that centered on the pursuit of beauty and its role in both our personal lives and in our relationships. Notre Dame alumna Dr. Margaret
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“ Beauty is a power that unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the other, to reach for the beyond.”
Laracy opened the conference by analyzing the topic of beauty from a psychological perspective, which was both illuminating and refreshing. Her talk, titled “Beauty, Healing, and Human Flourishing,” proposed that beauty, when not presented in a superficial or fleeting context, is an experience that fulfills the human person. Human flourishing is aided by “the capacity to appreciate beauty, which is a sign of human health.” She discussed beauty not only from an aesthetic perspective but as “a delight of reason.” Later Friday afternoon, the conference participants were treated to a panel discussion by Kara Eschbach, Janet Sahm, and Ashley Crouch, the three young
Pro-Life Activities - Edith Stein Project
“ A woman’s greatest strength comes from her gift for radical openness to God and the human person.” ~Colleen Carroll Campbell
founders of Verily magazine, whose goal is to redefine the traditional women’s magazine by representing and inspiring real women. Their panel explored the way in which a woman’s experience of beauty “profoundly influences her selfunderstanding and relationship to others.” The panel was very well received, praised for being both practical and self-aware. Their approach to modern media gave a hopeful and holistic view of beauty. They argued that the way to make a change is “not by rejecting the culture, but drawing out the good from it.” Colleen Carroll Campbell, this year’s keynote speaker, spoke about “Edith Stein and the Feminine Genius” on Saturday
afternoon. She proposed that a woman’s feminine nature, rather than being a burden, “guides her relationship with God and others.” The keynote highlighted Stein’s countercultural view of authentic femininity, which was later expanded upon by John Paul II. Campbell maintained that “a woman’s greatest strength comes from her gift for radical openness to God and the human person,” rather than conventional, secular feminism. Not only did conference attendees hear from the invited speakers, but many university professors addressed other important topics: Lawrence Cunningham’s “Discerning Beauty: Reflections on Saint Francis of Assisi,” Patrick Deneen’s
“Contemplative Fatherhood,” and Keith Egan’s “Edith Stein on Goodness, Truth, and Beauty.” On Saturday morning, several Notre Dame students also gave personal reflections. The Center for Ethics and Culture was glad to once again support the Edith Stein Project, and we would like to congratulate all the students who contributed to the conference’s success, including the three co-chairs, Madeline Gillen, Samantha Stempky, and one of the Center’s own junior fellows, Margaret Kennedy. We would especially like to thank the idND club advisor, Angela Engelsen, for her continued guidance to the club.
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Center Programming - Schmitt Lecture
The Metaphysics of Winemaking
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hy are wine and storytelling so inextricably connected? Abe Schoener, chief winemaker for the Scholium Project, opened an engaging lecture on “the metaphysics of winemaking” by posing this simple question—one he has had 16 years to reflect on. In 1998, he left a career as a distinguished liberal arts tutor at St. John’s College in Annapolis to work at a vineyard. Two short years later, he was making his own wine. “Wine is always about stories,” he explained. The winemaking process is a dramatic narrative in its own right—a struggle between fermentation and spoilage, transformation and disaster. It’s a spontaneous process that “takes a certain amount of courage, acquiescence, resignation, forbearance; [the winemaker] must step back.” To make wine is to look ahead, to forgo eating now in deference to a better product in the future. Mr. Schoener used the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops to raise questions about the nature of eating and drinking, and how these two actions are opportunities for showing either humanity or a beastly nature. The story of Genesis shows an evolution of the relationship between man and the animals and plants that he has dominion over. There is no evidence of anything besides vegan eating in the garden of Eden. Cain and Abel give uncooked animals in offering. Noah recasts the relationship between humans and animals after he endures the flood. In this story, Noah offers a massive burnt offering immediately after surviving the flood and then plants a vineyard. After planting the vineyard, he immediately becomes drunk. Mr. Schoener took a break here from telling stories and described briefly the processes of fermentation and spoilage. Through fermentation, microbes attack fresh food and transform it into a preserved food. There is a very small difference between preservation and spoilage, and winemakers “spend [their] whole life hovering on the edge of disaster, at the mercy of the microbes.” Mr. Schoener next switched his focus to drunkenness, a topic that produced many laughs in the audience.
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Drunkenness, he proposed, involves a kind of forgetting, an oblivion in the present moment: it is about the present, and is not about looking forward to the future. While drunkenness always involves forgetting, it does not usually exclude the past, since it often delves into sentimentality and nostalgia. This kind of remembering mixes the present with a certain version of the past, and mixing them so they become almost indistinguishable. Wine itself combines the past and present in a similar way, Schoener went on: The immediacy of fermentation (unlike other alcohols that must be cooked, like beer or whiskey) is juxtaposed with the permanence and history of the vineyard. According to Schoener, then, wine is always a sentimental drink, reminding us both of spontaneity and our place in history and the community. Wine is born in a reflection on the time before the fall. It has been, from the beginning, part of a particular narrative, an avenue by which one can simultaneously remember and forget. For Schoener, it is this mixing of the past, present, and future, of forgetting and remembering, that elevates wine above all others. That paradox drives us to tell stories, to reflect on the past, to deepen current relationships, and to patiently anticipate the future.
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Center Programming - Schmitt Lecture
Neglected Insights on Ethics and Technology
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ach semester since the fall of 2001, the Center has sponsored a lecture series and dinner in honor of the generosity of the Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation to the University of Notre Dame. The lectures allow Schmitt Fellows, graduate students in the Colleges of Science and Engineering, to join with members of the Notre Dame community to reflect on the ethical, political, and religious dimensions of their studies. For the fall 2013 lecture, Michael Moreland of Villanova Law School presented a talk on “Neglected Insights on Ethics and Technology.” He began by noting that, in his own experience teaching undergraduates and law students, he is continually struck by the richness of Western philosophical thought—and by the need to rescue many of these neglected or forgotten figures in today’s academic culture. By way of example, Moreland noted the overwhelming support among his students for a utilitarian view of life. That belief in utility as society’s guiding star has gone hand in hand with an ever-increasing emphasis on technology. While there is nothing inherently wrong with technology itself, Moreland said, it does raise important questions about how to protect and value the least “useful,” and therefore most vulnerable, members of society. In order to make persuasive, meaningful arguments about the value of life, then, we must be aware of the strong technological underpinnings of our modern society. The central question, Moreland argued, is not how ethics should influence technology, but rather how technology is shaping our understanding of ethics. On that point, Moreland proposed exploring the neglected insights of twentieth-century Canadian philosopher George Parkin Grant. Moreland believes that Grant’s popular philosophy presents the central issue of technology and the meaning of human life in clear and manageable terms: In his book English-Speaking Justice, for instance, he traces the rise of liberal theory and technology, both of which promote an ethos of “mastering the human condition.” There used to be a mutual interdependence between technology, modern science, and justice, Grant argued—but what if these disciplines are pulling apart? There are so many values and advantages of our modern technological achievements, Moreland said, but we must remember to think critically about their opportunities and potential pitfalls. He left the audience with the challenge of the day: discovering ways to live out true justice in a technological age.
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Football The Center was happy to host tailgates for the Michigan State, Oklahoma, and USC games this year. Notre Dame faculty, staff, and friends of the Center stopped by to enjoy good company, along with burgers, brats, pulled pork, chicken wings, kebabs, Italian beef sandwiches—and, of course, a few beverages. Thank you to Chris and Tracy Westlake for the delicious food! Stay tuned for information about next year’s tailgates, where we will once again gather to cheer the Irish on to victory.
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Center Activities - Fall Conference
The Body and Human Identity
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his year’s annual Fall Conference, entitled “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: the Body and Human Identity,” was an engaging weekend of reflection on what it means to be a human being and to respect the human body. The conference took place over two and a half days, November 7–9, and it brought together over 500 attendants, including scholars, religious, medical professionals, and a strong representation of undergraduate students from Notre Dame, Benedictine College, the University of St. Thomas, and many other institutions. Topics covered by the speakers were characteristically interdisciplinary, including discussion of the body and human identity in literature, architecture, philosophy, theology, human rights, property and patent law, public health, sociology, medicine, biotechnology, gastronomy, and anthropology. On Thursday evening, Bishop Kevin Rhoades opened the weekend with Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Professor Gil Meilaender (Christian Ethicist and protégé of the iconic theologian and bioethicist Paul Ramsay) delivered the Josef Pieper Keynote Lecture later that evening, focusing on the normative dimensions of age retardation, life extension, and generational relationships. Professor Meilaender addressed the problems of attempting to prolong excessively or even immortalize human life and the adverse impact this would have on the relationships between generations. Dr. Dan Sulmasy, M.D., Ph.D. (Associate Director of the
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University of Chicago’s McLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics) offered a thoughtprovoking response. Below are a few highlights of an extraordinary intellectual feast unlike anything in higher academe. On Friday following lunch, attendants filled McKenna auditorium (and an overflow room in its basement) to hear Alasdair MacIntyre deliver his talk entitled “What the Natural Sciences Do Not Explain.” Professor MacIntyre stated that we live in a “universe that is inexplicably messy” and that our world cannot be wholly understood in either Aristotelian or physicalist terms. The problem with modern attempts to view the world in completely physical chemical terms, he said, is that it has “no room for teleological notions at all.” That evening, two of the most important living Catholic philosophers Charles Taylor of McGill University and John Haldane of St. Andrew’s University - delivered the Christie and Anthony de Nicola Family Colloquy. Their discussion was entitled “Understanding Persons: Materialism, Idealism, or …?” Haldane emphasized the danger of “seeking single comprehensive philosophical theories,” while Taylor echoed that thought, saying that “there will never be a single language that will be able to capture what we want to know about ourselves.” On Saturday, one of the world’s most prominent philosophers of law, John Finnis of Oxford University and Notre Dame Law School delivered a talk on whether it is safe
to talk about “bodies and souls.” That same day, world renowned psychiatrist Dr. Paul McHugh, M.D., University Distinguished Service Professor at Johns Hopkins University, delivered a fascinating and engaging lecture (“Mental Health is Not Simply the Absence of Mental Illness”) on the concept of mental well-being and what is required for human mental flourishing. Palliative care and hospice specialist Dr. Farr Curlin of Duke University’s Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and the History of Medicine, offered a thoughtful reflection on Dr. McHugh’s remarks. After a closing Mass celebrated by the Center’s Thomas More Fellow, Rev. Bill Dailey, C.S.C., the conference concluded with a discussion entitled “Marriage, Catholicism, and Public Policy.” Ryan Anderson, Sherif Girgis, Carter Snead (who read the remarks of Jody Bottum, who was unable to attend at the last minute due to illness), and Charles Reid (of the University of St. Thomas) exchanged their views on what constitutes a marriage and what the purpose of marriage is in civil society. The lively discussion was an excellent way to end a successful weekend. To view the full schedule and a list of all the speakers, please visit the Fall Conference page of our website. Videos of the talks will be posted as they become available. We hope to see you all at next year’s conference! •
Center Activities - Fall Conference
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Pro-Life Activities - Vita Institute
Vi ta In s t i t u t e
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ach year, the Center helps form the next generation of pro-life leaders by hosting the Notre Dame Vita Institute, and the 2013 installment was yet another success. From June 9–21, 2013, participants gathered to study the fundamentals of human-life issues at the highest academic level from the perspectives of biology, philosophy, theology, law, psychology, and other social sciences. We were happy to welcome our faculty back to the Institute this year, as well as introduce some impressive new speakers, including Richard Doerflinger and Reggie Littlejohn. Richard Doerflinger, the associate director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, gave an exclusive presentation to the participants regarding life issues in public policy. He described how the Roe v. Wade decision, rather than resolving any life issues in the public square, has forced us to confront questions of human dignity and basic rights for the most vulnerable members of our society. He ended his powerful lecture by saying, “My conviction is that a future world will look upon our society’s lack of respect for the unborn child…as a massive blind spot…
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just as slavery or racial discrimination or the status of women were the blind spots of an earlier time.” Reggie Littlejohn is the founder and president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, an international coalition that exposes and opposes various human rights violations in China. As one of the leading experts on China’s one-child policy, Littlejohn gave a public lecture focused specifically on forced abortion, sterilization, and gender-selective abortion in China. Her presentation included a screening of the movie It’s a Girl, which told disturbing stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughters’ lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son. In addition to the Institute’s academic sessions, the participants also visited Hannah’s House, a maternity home that helps expectant mothers in crisis pregnancies choose life by supporting them during and after pregnancy. Participants learned about Hannah’s House and its programs, which include on-site counseling, parenting classes, and access to medical care and affordable
housing after delivery. The group also took a trip to the Women’s Care Center, where they learned about the Center’s incredible success counseling women in crisis pregnancies. The Women’s Care Center, which began as a little house in South Bend, now has 17 locations throughout the Midwest and serves 300 women every day. The staff at the Women’s Care Center believes that the best way to save babies is to truly love the women who carry them and to provide these women with the support they need to carry the pregnancy to term and to thrive after the baby is born. When women find this sort of love and support, they feel empowered to keep their children and to improve their own lives. The participants and faculty alike enjoyed learning and engaging with each other during a very fruitful two weeks. Through instruction by and engagement with premier faculty, discussion with other Vita Institute participants, and introduction to community outreach programs, participants were challenged intellectually and equipped to effectively engage the culture on life issues. •
Center Programming - Vita Institute
“The Vita Institute was a rejuvenating experience and renewed my passion for pro-life work. By the end of the two weeks, I felt energized, excited, and ready to jump back into my work at the March for Life." ~Ann Conant, March for Life Education and Defense Fund
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Center Programming - Evangelium Vitae Medal
Evangelium Vitae Medal: The Sisters of Life
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he Center awards the annual University of Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal to individuals whose outstanding work proclaims the Gospel of Life by steadfastly affirming and defending the sanctity of human life from its earliest stages. The Center was proud to host a banquet, together with the Fund to Protect Human Life, on April 3, 2013, honoring the Medal recipients: Mother Agnes Mary Donovan and the Sisters for Life. Mother Agnes Mary Donovan was among the first eight women to join the Sisters of Life, which now has more than 70 members dedicated to protecting and enhancing the sacredness of human life. Before entering religious life, Mother Agnes earned a doctoral degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1985
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and served on the psychology faculties of the College of William and Mary and Columbia University, where she was director of research for Columbia’s
“ New life is possible, for every person, no matter one’s background. Each person is capable of greatness, of heroic love, of living beauty.” Literacy Center. A licensed clinical psychologist, she also worked in a private
practice before becoming superior general of the Sisters of Life in 1993. Mother Agnes gave amusing and heartfelt remarks after receiving the Medal. In her comments, she focused on the importance of maternal love and discussed the work of the Sisters in light of the Resurrection. After telling stories about the Sisters’ ministry, Mother Agnes reflected, “New life is possible for every person, no matter one’s background. Each person is capable of greatness, of heroic love, of living beauty.” During their visit to campus, Mother Agnes and the Sisters also made time to visit with students, eating several meals in the dining hall and giving a presentation for the members of the student Right to Life Club. The students were thrilled to have such vibrant, passionate, and prayerful witnesses to the Culture of Life on campus.
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Center Programming- Evangelium Vitae Medal
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Center Activities - Notre Dame Symposium
The HHS Mandate, Religious Freedom, and the For-Profit Business
The Center defines its purpose as advancing the truths about God and man and nature. In their pursuit of this mission, this institute everyday finds itself running up against some big players. Against these powerful forces, the Center brings only wit, learning and a love for truth. As you can see, it’s not even close to a fair fight: Those other guys don’t stand a chance. ~Bill McGurn, New York Post 26
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C
an for-profit businesses claim conscientious objector status to Obamacare’s contraception mandate? That was the question considered in a 2013 symposium sponsored by the Center for Ethics and Culture and the Tocqueville Program in Constitutional Studies. William McGurn of the New York Post kicked off the event with a presentation titled “New Gods of the Public Square.” His lecture was followed by a discussion with center director Carter Snead and Notre Dame Law School professor Richard Garnett on “The HHS Lawsuits and ForProfit Businesses.” Notre Dame scholars Michael Zuckert, Msgr. Michael Heintz, and Martijn Cremers then each gave their own presentations on “The HHS Mandate and the Ethical Responsibilities of the Business Owner.” Bishop Robert Morlino of the Diocese of Madison closed the symposium by addressing members of the Notre Dame community on the ethical problems posed by the Health and Human Services contraception mandate. While the mandate has been widely criticized as a gross violation of religious liberty, Bishop Morlino expressed a desire to change the terms of the debate. Though he recognized the mandate as a serious assault on the free exercise of religion, he cautioned against focusing exclusively on the issue of religious liberty at the expense of what he saw as a more important argument: natural law. The bishop began by clarifying the Catholic concept of conscience, which
he defined (citing Gaudium et Spes) as “an inner sanctuary where the individual stands alone with God, who is to be obeyed.” God’s law is written into the human conscience; it follows, he argued, that God’s law, the natural law, can be known by human reason. Any truth expressed by the natural law—that God exists, that human persons possess inherent dignity— is a matter of reason and not of faith. The moral wrongs of contraceptives, he said, fall under this category. With this understanding of conscience, the bishop argued, Catholic institutions ought to fight the mandate not only as a violation of religious liberty but also as a violation of the natural law. “We don’t believe the Catholic sense of conscience is true because it’s Catholic; we believe it’s Catholic because it’s true.” He went on: “The truth of the Catholic conscience is universal and rational. Catholic institutions should defend not only their liberty to be Catholic, then, but also the truth of their message.” Asked what Notre Dame students could do to fight the mandate, Bishop Morlino challenged them, and laypeople in general, “to go out and save the world; go out and proclaim the truth.” “The clergy is at the service of the laity,” he said, and the laity, in turn, is at the service of the world, to be a witness to God’s universal law. Religious freedom, Bishop Morlino concluded, is valuable only insofar as it is “the freedom to pursue the only thing that really matters in the end”: God’s law that leads men to salvation.
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Center Events - Medical Ethics Conference
Medical Ethics Conference
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lmost one hundred doctors, nurses, medical students, medical ethicists, and Notre Dame undergraduates came together for the 28th annual Notre Dame Medical Ethics Conference, sponsored by the Center for Ethics and Culture and the Notre Dame Alumni Association. The conference is designed to serve current and future medical professionals, providing them with an opportunity to join others in their field and reflect thoughtfully on the complex ethical issues that arise in medicine. Among medical ethics conferences, Notre Dame’s is distinctive in placing emphasis on smallgroup discussions of physician-submitted cases and in encouraging theologically informed conversation. In the conference’s first session, “The Perils of Prognosis,” attendees explored the delicate issues surrounding genetic sequencing for babies in utero, as well as other situations in which doctors must decide whether to share sensitive information with their patients. On Friday evening, we held our annual
Philip and Doris Clarke Family Lecture in Medical Ethics, a lecture open not only to conference attendees but also to the Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s, and greater South Bend communities. We were delighted to welcome Dr. Elvira Parravicini of Columbia University Medical School to deliver this year’s lecture. Dr. Parravicini’s principal area of research is neonatology, and she developed the first neonatal hospice at Columbia University in New York. In “Life and the Need for Happiness,” she focused on methods of caring for seriously ill children and their parents. Conference attendees were impressed and touched by Dr. Parravicini’s earnestness and her tireless dedication to her patients and their families. (Dr. Parravacini’s lecture is available on our Vimeo page and through our website, ethicscenter.nd.edu.) Saturday was a full and exciting day for everyone participating in the conference. Attendees met in small groups to discuss the issues surrounding informed consent in our third session, and our fourth session focused on physician-assisted suicide. In
our fifth session, the participants reflected on the business side of medical practice. Our final Saturday session posed a tough decision for participants, who had to choose from three interesting and timely breakout panel discussions. Some participants reflected on the responsibilities of ethicists; others joined in a discussion on the effect of hospice programs on hospital costs. Finally, some of us worked through challenging issues involved in moral probity. We wrapped up our conference with a discussion of the future of bioethics, led by Professor David Solomon. We focused, in part, on the future of our medical ethics conference and the direction that participants would like to see it take. There was strong support for the continuation of the conference, and many kind words and gracious offers of assistance were given by the participants. Please contact us at ndethics@nd.edu if you have any questions, and visit ethicscenter.nd.edu for the latest news on the upcoming conference.
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Rock ’N’ Roll
As Search for the Infinite
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n Thursday, April 11, 2013, the Center hosted Irish journalist and cultural critic John Waters to give a presentation entitled “Rock and Roll as Search for the Infinite.” This presentation is a part of the Center's new Media and Culture initiative. Below is an excerpt of his presentation. The entire presentation can be viewed on our Vimeo page, our Youtube page or on our website, ethicscenter.nd.edu. 28
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Center Activities - Catholic Culture
“
“We put on this exhibition last year... entitled “Three Chords and the Desire for Truth: Rock and Roll as Search for the Infinite.” There were differing motivations behind it. It’s really the culmination of something that’s been in my head for many years. It’s a struggle that I’ve had in myself as a fan of rock ’n’ roll. It seems that the culture that we speak into and speaks back to us doesn’t really seem to comprehend fully, or certainly doesn’t give voice to the full totality of what the music means to me. Sometimes as a journalist, as a critic writing about music, I was aware that I wasn’t really expressing this, either, and I wanted to get to that[...]. Rock ’n’ roll seems to be a kind of a fixed genre, but it isn’t really. It’s more of an ideal, a kind of proposal which is kind of unstated and has different meanings in different contexts and sometimes can seem to be quite the opposite of what you might call the sacred; perhaps the antithesis in some ways. That intrigues me. And that’s part of what I wanted to say as well: Why is it this way, and what does that mean? So essentially the motivations I had were very personal. I’d been aware from my own teenage years of a moment when my life was really transformed by hearing one song. The song was “Ride a White Swan” by T. Rex. It’s a song that now sounds a little dated, a little strange. But at the time it sounded strange in a different way. If you were in a room you just faintly heard it from a radio, you would stop. And I did stop and say, “What is that?” I can’t tell you what it’s about. The lyrics didn’t make any sense […] But it spoke to me in some way that I couldn’t explain. I thought, ‘Who is this guy with this strange, ethereal voice? Who is this guy who seems to know something about me, who seems to know what I want?’ The song seemed to promise some world that I’d only dreamed about. A freedom that I had intuited, but never glimpsed. And so I was drawn into this song, and literally, I can say that I began to open up to the possibility that my life was far more interesting and had far more potential than I thought it had. That’s all it was. I didn’t at the time think of it in terms
of mystery or the sacred. It was just something that made me stop and say, ‘What is that?’ So that was one motivation. The other one was quite a perverse motive, really. I was trying to respond to someone I really loved and admired, but someone who didn’t get rock ’n’ roll at all, and to kind of explain to this person what I see in this. And that person was Pope Benedict XVI. The exhibition was kind of my one-sided conversation with the pope, explaining why rock ’n’ roll isn't as bad as he thinks it is. He has made some pretty direct and critical commentaries about rock ’n’ roll. As Cardinal Ratzinger particularly, at the International Church Music Conference in Rome he said, ‘In not a few forms of religion, music is ordered to intoxication and ecstasy. The freedom from the limitations of being human towards which the hunger for the infinite proper to man is directed is to be attained through holy madness, through the frenzy of the rhythm and of the instruments. Such music lowers the barriers of individuality and of personality. Man frees himself in it from the burden of consciousness. Music becomes ecstasy, liberation from the ego, and unification with the universe. Today, we experience the secularized return of this type in rock and pop music, the festivals of which are an anti-culture of the same orientation— the pleasure of destruction, the abolition of everyday barriers, and the illusion of liberation from the ego in the wild ecstasy of a tumultuous crowd. This involves forms of release that are related to drugs and practices whose form of redemption is thoroughly opposed to the Christian faith in redemption.’ I can see how one could say that about certain forms of rock music and certain concerts, but I wanted to point out that there’s more. If something is generated out of the human desire to express something, to find something, to pursue something beyond words, beyond thoughts, sometimes that’s going to miss the mark. But often, because it’s seeking that thing that’s authentic, that’s real, it’s going to find the target.
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Director’s Activities
Director Testifies Before Texas State Legislature
Center Director Carter Snead testified before the Texas State Legislature and Senate on July 8, 2013, regarding proposed legislation banning abortions after 20 weeks. The following is an excerpt from that testimony: I am here today to provide testimony on a narrow question, namely, whether SB1’s prohibition on abortion at or after 20 weeks post-fertilization is lawful under the United States Constitution. As you all are aware, the ban includes robust exceptions for circumstances in which the continued pregnancy threatens serious risks to the life or health of the mother, and even allows for abortion in the case of certain fetal abnormalities. SB1 is, in fact, quite a modest limitation on abortion that unsurprisingly commands a great deal of support across the political spectrum. The most important (and decisive) point that I would like to emphasize for the Committee Members is that there is absolutely nothing in the text, history, or tradition of the U.S. Constitution that precludes the state of Texas from extending the most basic protections of the law to twenty-week-old (or older) unborn children who are capable of experiencing pain. For your purposes as legislators, this is sufficient constitutional
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warrant to enact the modest restriction on abortion and its practice that you are considering during this session. Moreover, there are no precedents of the Supreme Court that speak precisely to the very unique features of the proposed 20-week abortion ban. This fact likewise provides additional constitutional justification for legislators to enact the bill under consideration. For those senators who might find it useful, I will reflect briefly on how the ban might be received by the U.S. Supreme Court, in light of relevant precedents. The arc of abortion jurisprudence in America has been, for better or worse, an exercise on the part of the justices in the majority (typically in sharply divided 5–4 decisions) to find by their lights an appropriate balance between the state’s interest in the lives of unborn children (“at all stages of pregnancy,” Gonzales v. Carhart) and a woman’s liberty interest in seeking an abortion. Justice Kennedy— whose vote is decisive at the moment for evaluating any limit on abortion—has been quite explicit that “balance” is the key aspiration for the Court’s efforts in this domain. Justice Kennedy has also noted that the Court has not yet enumerated “an exhaustive list of state interests
implicated by abortion” (Stenberg v. Carhart). Indeed, he said that it would be “inappropriate” for the Court to do so. Justice Kennedy has thus clearly signaled an openness to the possibility of new state interests that might affect the calculus of competing claims in this area of the law. Texas (along with several other states and the U.S. House of Representatives) has recently identified a state interest in the unborn child never before considered, namely, its obligation in justice to protect unborn children capable of experiencing the excruciating pain involved in an abortion.
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Thomas More Fellow Rev. William Dailey, C.S.C., made several media appearances this year, going on Up with Chris Hayes twice in the spring to talk about Pope Francis, and once on The Melissa Harris Perry Show to discuss life issues. He was also featured on All In with Chris Hayes in December to talk about Pope Francis's and his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. His reflections on Pope Francis’ style and substance were published by the Washington Post.
Director’s Activities
Director’s Activities
Selected Presentations
• Featured Speaker, Americans United for Life Conference: The Future of Roe. Title: “A Doctrinal Survey of American Abortion Jurisprudence” (January 22, 2014). • Featured Speaker, Annual Meeting of the Catholic Medical Association. Title: “Mission, Justice, and Medicine: Integrating Catholic Social Teachings into Health Care” (October 24–26, 2013). • Keynote Speaker, 2013 Annual Red Mass, Archdiocese of Milwaukee (October 10, 2013). • Guest Lecturer, Notre Dame Center for Social Concerns Gospel of Life Seminar. Topic: “Advising the White House on Bioethics: The Role of the General Counsel to the President’s Council on Bioethics” (October 2, 2013). • Honoree, 2013 Thomas More Award (to the lawyer or legal scholar who has made an outstanding contribution to the cause of religious liberty and conscience), given by the St. Thomas More Society and Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina (September 26, 2013). • 27th Annual A. Kurt Weiss Lecturer on Biomedical Ethics, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Topic: “The Explanatory Limits of Modern Science for Public Bioethics” (September 13, 2013). • Visiting Lecturer, St. Gregory’s University (Shawnee, Oklahoma). Title: “Understanding Public Bioethics: Scope and Substance” (September 12, 2013). • Invited Speaker, Notre Dame Club of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Title: “The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture: Sharing the Richness of the Catholic Moral and Intellectual Tradition” (September 12, 2013). • Guest Lecturer, Sacred Heart Apostolic School (Rolling Prairie, Indiana). Title: “Moral Anthropology, Human Dignity, and the Common Good.” (July 24, 2013). • Faculty, The University of Chicago Program on Medicine and Religion Faculty Scholars Summer Intensive Program. Topics: “Understanding the
HHS Contraceptive Mandate” and “The Explanatory Limits of Modern Science for Public Bioethics” (July 23, 2013).
• Visiting Scholar, Seton Hall University Law School’s Center for Health and Pharmaceutical Policy (March 11–15, 2013).
• 2013 Hesburgh Lecturer, Notre Dame Club of San Diego. Title: “On the Frontiers of Science: Examining Legal, Ethical, and Public Policy Questions Surrounding Human Cloning” (July 11, 2013).
• Featured Speaker, University of Notre Dame Annual Medical Ethics Conference .Topic: “Recent Developments in the Law and Public Policy of Assisted Suicide” (March 9, 2013).
• Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, Regarding the Constitutionality of SB1, SUBCHAPTER C. ABORTION PROHIBITED AT OR AFTER 20 WEEKS POSTFERTILIZATION (July 8, 2013).
• Featured Speaker, Los Angeles Archdiocese University Series. Topic: “The HHS Mandate and Religious Liberty” (February 21, 2013).
• Texas House State Affairs Committee, Regarding the Constitutionality of HB2, SUBCHAPTER C. ABORTION PROHIBITED AT OR AFTER 20 WEEKS POST-FERTILIZATION (July 2, 2013). • Keynote Speaker, 43rd Annual National Right to Life Convention. Title: “Created Equal: Our Duty to Protect Innocent Human Life” (June 27, 2013). • Conference Discussant, Closed Interdisciplinary Conference on the Life and Work of Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, Florence, Italy (June 17, 2013). • Faculty, University of Notre Dame Vita Institute. Sessions: The Law of Abortion, Embryo Research, and End of Life Decisionmaking (June 9–22, 2013). • Featured Speaker, Institute for Church Life Interdisciplinary Conference: “Human Dignity and Pedagogical Strategies.” Topic: The Law of End-of-Life Decisionmaking (May 15, 2013). • Featured Speaker, “Advancing a Culture of Life: Pro-Life Argument in the Coming Generation,” sponsored by the Catholic Center of NYU, the Thomistic Institute, and the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, NYU (April 5–6, 2013). • Guest Speaker, Notre Dame Undergraduate Bioethics Club. Topic: Notre Dame Adult Stem–Cell Research and Ethics Initiative (March 21, 2013).
• Featured Speaker, North American Bishops’ Workshop, “Bioethics through the Eyes of Faith: Serving the Sick and Vulnerable.” Topic: “From Roe v. Wade to the Present: Moral Steadfastness amid Shifting Cultural Norms” (February 6, 2013). • Visiting Lecturer, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice Doctoral Program in Law (Dipartimento di Economia - Dottorato di Ricerca in Diritto Europeo dei Contratti Civili, Commerciali, e del Lavoro) and the Alta Scuola Societa, Economia, Teologia of the Fondazione Studium Generale Marcianum Venetiis. Topics: “The Explanatory Limits of Modern Science” and “Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Philosophical and Political Dimensions.” (January 15–17, 2013). • Visiting Lecturer, University of Milan Doctoral Program in Law. Topic: “The HHS Mandate and Religious Liberty” (January 14, 2013). • Invited Expert, Closed Consensus Conference on “Use and Abuse of Neuroimaging in the Courtroom,” sponsored by Emory University Center for Ethics, American Society of Neuroradiology, Emory Neuroscience Initiative, the Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the American College of Radiology (December 7–8, 2012). • Guest Lecturer, Harvard Law School Social and Legal Issues Seminar (taught by Professors Mary Ann Glendon and Robert P. George). Topic: Physician Assisted Suicide (Octoberethics 16, 2012). & culture 31
Center Fellows 2013-2014
2013-2014 Fellows Myser Fellow
Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow
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his year, Andrea Rovagnati joins us as a Myser Fellow. Rovagnati is one of the most exciting emerging scholars of Constitutional Law in Italy. He joins us from the University of Milan. While at the Center, he will finish a book manuscript comparing the law of health care in the United States and the European Union. He received both his J.D. and Ph.D. in Law from the University of Milan, graduating in 2002 and 2007 respectively. His graduate thesis was entitled “Social Rights and Legislative Powers between State and Regional,” while his doctoral thesis focused on multilevel constitution and judicial systems. He has written two books, one entitled On the Nature of Social Rights and the other called Italian Judiciary as Part of European Judiciary, in addition to numerous publications regarding areas of law, healthcare, and immigration. In 2005, he worked as a Research Scholar in the University of Notre Dame Law School under Professor Paolo Carozza.
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ohn Haldane is our 201314 Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow. John is a professor of philosophy and director of the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs at the University of St. Andrews. Professor Haldane obtained a bachelor of arts in philosophy in 1980 and a Ph.D. in 1984. He has held fellowships from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Pittsburgh. A proponent of analytical approaches to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, Professor Haldane has authored or edited dozens of articles and books, including “An Intelligent Person's Guide to Religion", "Faithful Reason: Essays Catholic and Philosophical", "Reasonable Faith", and "Atheism and Theism." He has also appeared on several BBC radio and television programs and contributed to the Times, the Daily Telegraph, The Scotsman, and several other outlets. In addition, he has lectured widely, at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in the United States from 2006; at the Centre for the Study of Sculpture in England in 1999; and delivering the Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen in 2005.
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Thomas More Fellow
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ev. William R. Dailey, C.S.C., is the Center Thomas More Fellow. A member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Father Dailey serves at Notre Dame Law School as a lecturer in law. He earned his B.A. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, where his thesis on Charles Sanders Pierce was honored as the Most Outstanding Senior Honors Thesis. After teaching philosophy and working in administration at the University of Portland, Father Dailey attended Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He served as a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then practiced law in Washington, D.C., with Wiley Rein LLP. In 2009, he returned to Columbia Law School as a visiting scholar. Father Dailey’s teaching and scholarly interests are in the areas of professional responsibility, jurisprudence, evidence, and immigration. He recently published an article entitled “Who is the Attorney General’s Client?” in the Notre Dame Law Review.
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Center Fellows 2013-2014
Permanent Research Fellows
Myser Fellow
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ohn Finnis is the Biolchini Family Professor of Law at the Notre Dame Law School and emeritus professor of law at Oxford. Known for his work in moral, political, and legal theory, as well as constitutional law, John joined the University of Notre Dame Law School faculty in 1995. He earned his LL.B. from Adelaide University (Australia) in 1961 and his doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1965. In addition, he has served as associate professor in law at the University of California at Berkeley, as professor of law at the University of Malawi, and as the Huber Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the Boston College Law School. He is admitted to the English Bar (Gray’s Inn). Professor Finnis teaches courses in jurisprudence; the social, political, and legal theory of Thomas Aquinas; and Shakespeare. His service has included the Linacre Centre for Health Care Ethics (governor since 1981), the Catholic Bishops’ Joint Committee on Bioethical Issues (1981–88), the International Theological Commission (1986–92), the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (1990–95), and the Pontifical Academy Pro Vita (2001–present). He has published widely in law, legal theory, moral and political philosophy, moral theology, and the history of the late Elizabethan era.
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lasdair MacIntyre is Senior Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at the Center. He has written widely in philosophy since his first book, Marxism: An Interpretation, appeared in 1953. He has taught at Oxford, Princeton, Brandeis, Boston University, Wellesley College, Vanderbilt, Duke, and Notre Dame. In 1989, he was a Luce Visiting Scholar at the Whitney Humanities Center of Yale University. He has also served as president of the eastern division of the American Philosophical Association. Professor MacIntyre is the author of more than thirty books, including the influential triumvirate of recent works: After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry. He has made prominent contributions to the history of philosophy, moral philosophy, political theory, philosophy of the social sciences, and philosophy of religion. He recently published Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913– 1922, an examination of the philosophical work of Edith Stein set against the background of twentieth-century phenomenology, as well as two volumes of his collected papers, The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays and Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays. His most recent book is God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition.
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ladden J. Pappin is a postdoctoral fellow in the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University and a visiting lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross. He received his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2012. He studies modern political phenomena through the lens of political philosophy and its history. Among his chief interests are the relationship between political and ecclesiastical thought, the experience of change in the modern world, and question of nature and technology. His articles and reviews have appeared in a number of publications, including Perspectives on Political Science, Modern Age, the Journal of Markets and Morality, the Intercollegiate Review, and First Things. His recent writings address the praise of innovation and novelty, the relationship of technology and modern liberty, and the place of the environment in modern politics. In addition to his fellowship with the Program on Constitutional Government, he has received fellowships from Harvard University, from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and from the Earhart Foundation. In 2004 he received a Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize at Harvard for his work on rights and the history of conciliarism.
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Center Publications
Publications Director’s Publications
“Autonomy and Individual Responsibility,” in Henk ten Have & Berd Gordijn, eds., Compendium of Global Bioethics (with Kelli MulderWestrate) (Springer 2014). “Human Dignity in U.S. Law,” in The Cambridge University Press Handbook on Human Dignity (Roger Brownsword, ed.) (Cambridge University Press 2014) (peer reviewed) (in press). “Human Dignity in American Public Bioethics” in Human Dignity in Bioethics: From Worldviews to the Public Square (Stephen C. Dilley & Nathan J. Palpant, eds.) (Routledge 2013) (invited contribution) (peer reviewed). “Cline vs. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice: Once More unto the Breach,” SCOTUSblog (Supreme Court of the United States Blog), September 16, 2013 (invited essay in online academic symposium). “On the Patentability of Genetic Resources” (white paper prepared at the request of the Diplomatic Corps of the Holy See) (with Joseph Ganahl) (July 2013). “The Constitutionality of the Texas Fetal Pain Bill (SB1),” Public Discourse, July 9, 2013 (invited essay).
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“Una Costituzione Bioetica?” Il Sole 24 Ore, January 13, 2013. “Religious Liberty and the Obama Administration,” First Things, March 2012 (invited essay). Op-Ed, “Planned Parenthood’s Hostages,” Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2012 (with Robert P. George).
Notre Dame Studies in Ethics Transformations in Biblical Literacy Traditions. Incarnation, Narrative and Ethics: Essays in Honor of David Lyle Jeffrey. D. H. Williams and Phillip J. Donnelly eds. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014.
Alexander Pruss, One Body: An Essay in Christian Sexual Ethics. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013.
Notre Dame Studies in Medical Ethics
Christopher Kaczor, A Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013.
Associated Scholars
Gary Anderson, Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
Gary Anderson, “You Will Have Treasure in Heaven,” New Approaches to the Study of Biblical Interpretation in Judaism of the Second Temple Period and in Early Christianity. Leiden: Brill, 2013. New Approaches to the Study of Biblical Interpretation in Judaism of the Second Temple Period and in Early Christianity, Gary Anderson, David Satran, and Ruth Clement. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Ann Astell, “The Song of Songs,” in Julia A. Lamm, ed. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Sarah Byers, Sensibility, Perception, and Moral Motivation in Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Margaret Brinig and Nicole Garnett, Beyond Classroom Walls: The Shifting Educational Landscape of Urban Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming. Javier Espinosa & William N. Evans, “Excise Taxes, Tax Incidence, and the Flight to Quality,” Public Finance Review, 41 (2013): 147–176. John Finnis, “Law as Fact and as Reason for Action: A Response to Robert Alexy on Law’s ‘Ideal Dimension,’” The American Journal of Jurisprudence 67 (2014): 1–25.
Center Advisory Bodies
Advisory Bodies Executive Advisory Committee David Bender Ojai, California Kathy Craft Tulsa, Oklahoma John DeMatteo Wellesley, Massachusetts Anthony de Nicola Franklin Lakes, New Jersey The Hon. Mike Ferguson Bethesda, Maryland John Gschwind Redding, Connecticut Tony Lauinger Tulsa, Oklahoma Leo Linbeck III Houston, Texas Jack Remick Rochester Minnesota Mary Ann Remick Rochester, Minnesota Steve Sefton Minneapolis, Minnesota Terry Seidler Pasadena, California John Finnis, The Collected Essays of John Finnis. Volumes I–V. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis, eds. John Keown and Robert George eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Brad Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. John Haldane, “Is the Soul the Form of the Body,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 87 (2013): 481–493. John Haldane, “Realism, Mind, and Evolution,” Philosophical Investigations 36 (2013) 97–113. John Haldane, “The Future of the University,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 87 (2013): 731–749. Kristine Kalanges, Religious Liberty in Western and Islamic Law: Toward a World Legal Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Kristine Kalanges, “Religious Liberty: Between Strategy and Telos,” Review of Faith in International Affairs 11 (2013): 28–31. Sean Kelsey, “Truth and Value in Plato’s Republic,” Philosophy 88 (2013): 197–218.
Faculty Advisory Committee Gary Anderson Theology Ann Astell Theology Margaret Brinig Law School William Evans Economics Nicole Garnett Law School Brad Gregory History Kristine Kalanges Law School Sean Kelsey Philosophy Mary Keys Political Science Gerald McKenny Theology Francesca Murphy Theology Dan Philpott Political Science Christian Smith Sociology
Mary Keys, “Why Justice is Not Enough: Mercy, Love-Caritas, and the Common Good,” The Common Good: Chinese and American Perspectives, David Solomon and P. C. Lo, eds. New York: Springer, 2014. Matthew Levering, The Theology of Augustine: An Introduction to His Most Important Works. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013. Alasdair MacIntyre, “Philosophical Education Against Contemporary Culture,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 87 (2014): 1–17. What Happened to and in Moral Philosophy in the Twentieth Century?: Philosophical Essays in Honor of Alasdair MacIntyre, Fran O’Rourke ed. Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 2013. Gilbert Meilaender, Should We Live Forever: the Ethical Ambiguities of Aging. Grand Rapids: Wb. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2013. Gilbert Meilaender, Bioethics: A Primer for Christians, 3rd edition. Grand Rapids: Wb. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2013. Gerald McKenny, “Biotechnology and the Normative Significance of Human Nature: A Contribution from Theological Anthropology,” Studies in Christian Ethics 26 (2013): 18–36.
Francesca Murphy, “Aristotle’s Saviour,” Thomas and Aristotle, Matthew Levering ed. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, forthcoming. Gladden J. Pappin, “The Postmodern Environment,” A World After Climate Change and Culture-Shift, Jim Norwine ed. New York: Springer, 2014. Daniel Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation. Oxford University Press, 2013. Christian Smith, To Flourish or Destruct: A Personalist Theory of Human Goods, Motivations, Failure, and Evil. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Christian Smith, The Sacred Project of American Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson, The Paradox of Generosity: How by Giving We Receive, Why by Grasping We Lose. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Christian Smith, Kyle Longest, Jonathan Hill, and Kari Christoffersen, Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults In, Out of, and Gone from the Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
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