George on the Substantial Burden/Material Cooperation Point [UPDATED]
Robby George has a post up at Public Discourse detailing what he thinks is wrong with the Obama compromise on the contraception rule. After some ground-clearing, the heart of his argument is as follows:
Both would, however, requirematerial cooperation. And that material cooperation would have substantially similar bad effects. After all, before and after the change, employees would have coverage for contraceptives and abortion drugs by virtue of their religiously affiliated (or religiously observant, or morally conscientious) employers’ insurance contracts. Before and after, employers who oppose these drugs would nevertheless be required to select, contract, and—let’s drop the charade—pay for plans by which their employees obtained coverage for them.
Either way, then, the mandate would violate religious liberty and freedom of conscience:
First, it would dramatically compromise the mission of religiously affiliated institutions to give witness to the moral teachings of their faith. People would wonder, for example, how serious the Catholic Church could really be about the idea that abortion takes innocent life, if it contracts with companies that offer coverage for abortion drugs and even pays (directly or “indirectly”) for that coverage. If the Church violates by purse what it professes by word, how seriously can we take its word? The same could be said of individual Catholic employers or self-consciously Catholic business firms—and not only the Catholic ones.
Second, the involvement of thousands of religious institutions—by signaling moral indifference and providing funds—would (eventually) lead to more acts of the sort that the faith condemns as morally wrongful and even, as with abortion, gravely unjust. Religious groups’ involvement would thus multiply what they regarded as serious moral and other harms. And it would eliminate none of these effects to add an easy middle step between an institution’s purchase of a policy, and the employee’s use of it for abortion or contraception.
Let’s assume, reasonably, I think, that George is right that the two proposals do not differ in terms of their effectiveness at reducing the financial burden of obtaining contraception. George believes that this means that both plans must either rise or fall together. (Of course, if one thought that the first proposal did not require morally impermissible cooperation with evil, then the fact that there is no difference between the two is largely irrelevant. But let’s set that to the side.) I think the first of the negative effects he identifies undermines (at least to a significant extent) his suggestion that there can be no meaningful difference between the two proposals from the standpoint of cooperation with evil.
My doubt stems from the fact that the first of the harms he identifies in his post revolves not so much around the way in which the two proposals reduce the financial burden of contraception but rather the way in which he thinks they reduce people’s apprehensions about using it. That is, he thinks both the original proposal and the compromise plan would create some degree of misapprehension on the part of consumers that, because employees of Catholic institutions (or individuals) enjoy contraceptive coverage “by virtue of their religious affiliated . . . employers’ insurance contracts,” the Church does not really mean what it says when it characterizes contraception as a grave evil. This misapprehension point seems to be the totality of the first harm he specifies and a significant part of the second harm. (I’ll get to the other half of the first harm — funds — in a moment.)
Surely, though, the creation of the somewhat byzantine mechanism for employees of Catholic institutions to receive the contraceptive coverage under the compromise proposal has some communicative significance. Indeed, this seems to be its primary purpose. Employees of religious institutions will have to jump through several hoops to get the same coverage automatically enjoyed by employees of secular employers. These hoops, however easily navigated, convey at least some information to observers and participants alike about the (subjective) seriousness of the hierarchy’s views on contraception. That is, no intelligent person looking at the mechanism created by this compromise (not to mention the public discussion that sparked it) would think that somehow the Church’s hierarchy endorses or winks at the use of contraception. And nothing in the proposal would prevent religious employers from telling their employees exactly that in no uncertain terms. For example, this is what the Madison, Wisconsin, archdiocese did. It even threatened to terminate employees who it learned violated Church teachings on contraception. (The fact that most of those employees are already likely using contraception further undermines George’s claim that their beliefs about the Church hierarchy’s views on contraception have much affect on their behavior in that regard.)
The second harm George identifies includes a separate point — the religious institution’s provision of funds will be used to purchase insurance that will, in turn, increase the use of contraception by lowering contraception’s cost to the individual consumer. I agree with George that it doesn’t really seem to matter how this proposal is structured (whether as the insurance company providing a separate policy for contraception, a contraception rider, or simply agreeing separately with the insured to pay for contraception under the existing policy without a separate rider), but I reach the opposite conclusion he does about the degree of cooperation this proposal entails on the funding front.
This is because, in my opinion, it is not obvious that Church funds are going towards contraception any more under the compromise (or even the original proposal) than they would in the total absence of an employer mandate. To see why, imagine a situation in which, instead of mandating employer provision of insurance, the health care law omitted an employer mandate but retained an individual mandate. Let’s say that the law did not require qualified plans to cover contraception, but did require companies to offer to cover contraception at cost if the insured requested it (cost is, apparently, zero or close to it). Most of the religious institution’s employees would choose contraception coverage, using their wages (funds from the religious institution that employs them) to pay their premiums. Indeed, even in the absence of insurance coverage, most of them would use their wages to purchase at least some contraception. Insurance coverage may reduce the burden of contraception by letting them buy more (at least this is what George’s argument seems to assume). But it may also reduce the burden of obtaining contraception in the sense that it lets them buy the same amount for less and then use the savings for other purposes. (Only the former mechanism involves more contraception occurring. But we can’t know which is at work without some actual data.) Presumably, employers who did not choose to offer coverage to their employees as part of their compensation package would have to pay their employees more so they could go out and procure health coverage (including coverage for contraception) on the open market. What is the difference in terms of facilitation of contraceptive use between this case and the current compromise? At a minimum, the argument that there is a difference seems to me to rest on highly debatable empirical assumptions that undermine the argument that this is some kind of slam-dunk case of first principles of religious liberty.
UPDATE: Two more points. First, it seems to me that George’s first harm (let’s call it the appearance-of-endorsement harm) suggests a principled basis for distinguishing between religious institutions and individual Catholic employers. This is obviously not something George or the bishops would agree with. But, as far fetched as it seems to me that people will consume more contraception because, as a result of this mandate, they think the Catholic Church isn’t serious about opposing contraception, the argument really sputters when we turn to private employers. Applied to such employers, this appearance-of-endorsement point depends on an extremely implausible causal mechanism — who takes the lead from their employer in deciding (as a moral matter) which medical services to consume (unless their employer also happens to be their church)? Religious institutions have a unique position in this regard, one not shared with other kinds of employers, and the compromise recognizes this (as did the original proposal, to a lesser extent) by providing it with special opportunities to distance itself symbolically from the provision of contraception. By focusing on this appearance-of-endorsement point, George’s argument brings this difference into stark relief in a way that hadn’t occurred to me before.
Second, I wanted to highlight this excellent article by David Gibson on the Religious News Service. I think he spells out the material/formal cooperation point very clearly and includes some interesting (anonymous) quotes by theologians. (Thanks to Marty Lederman for the link.)
But if for this reason people would wonder how serious the church could be, then they have reason to wonder now. Catholic institutions already contract with companies that offer coverage for contraception and abortion and Catholic institutions already pay indirectly for that coverage. In order for this not to be the case, they would have to contract only with insurance companies that refuse to offer anyone coverage for contraception and abortion. If any of the company’s policy holders is covered for contraception, the Catholic institution that pays premiums to the company is indirectly paying for contraception–and no more indirectly than it would be paying for the contraception of its own employees under the accommodation. That is how insurance works.
So we are back to where we started, with the bishops saying that if the government forces them into material cooperation with this grave evil — with which many, if not most, Catholic institutions are already materially cooperating — then it is the end of America as we have known it. This is not a credible argument. It is, after all, a greater scandal to be cooperating with evil voluntarily than to be doing so under duress. The bishops need to make sure Catholic employers aren’t doing business with America’s big health-insurance companies if they are going to continue pressing this particular case against the mandate.
George’s first point boils down to scandal. “People would wonder…” Scandal is always two-edged. What’s the opposite scandal here? Perhaps that the bishops are more intent on preventing even the remotest cooperation with what they (and mostly they–the people of God disagree,) than they are interested in a huge increase in the numbers of people who have access to basic health insurance coverage. (Per Reuters, 45,000 dead a year in the US for inadequate health care. But hey, at least they didn’t get the Pill, either.) Or is the reverse scandal that the bishops in fact want to impose Catholic norms on pubic health policy in a pluralist society, defying and ignoring medical science, and the health-care needs of women? Or is the reverse scandal that once again the bishops are tone deaf to women’s voices–here, what most women consider to be a basic aspect of good health care coverage? Bishops would do well to avoid opposite scandal!
His second point: the mandate will increase access to birth control, and that increased access might enable more women to do something the magisterium finds objectionable. Yes, that’s true–the mandate is ABOUT increased access. It’s also true that the women who would choose to use it are thus enabled to obey their own consciences, rather than being forced into a corner by Catholic doctrine. In order to change this, the magisterium would have to make a case for the evil of contraception that convinces ordinary people, especially ordinary women, a case they haven’t so far been able to make. Further, if Catholic doctrine gets to veto health policy, even when most actual Catholics don’t agree with it, does this apply to all religious doctrines? Why not?
Catholic institutions already contract with companies that offer coverage for abortion drugs and pay indirectly for that coverage.
Matthew Boudway,
To go even further, some Catholic institutions simply provide insurance that covers contraception. See the New York Times article titled N.Y. Law on Contraceptives Already in Place, and Catholic Institutions Comply.
It seems to me these arguments against contraceptive coverage cannot be made without implicitly condemning the Catholic institutions that already do provide coverage of contraception and also without condemning as people who commit “evil” the majority of Catholics of childbearing age who use contraception.
Thank you, Lisa and David, for your key points. As we hear Cardinal -designatted Dolan’s remarks today about the rights as tey shuld be extended to all Catholic owned businesses and to all who have a moral objection to this coverage, the picture becomes clearer about the overall intent and how the “mnterial cooperation” argument has been smokescreened into the goals of hierarchy to enforce legally what they have been unable to convince others of morally.
maybe George is so isolated in fat paying tenure position that he doesn’t know that many, many employees now partially pay into their employer health plans. And he plays a “whose money is it” games. And we all know not a dime of bishop money is involved.
This fraud issue has taken over the US Catholic agenda when Israel is planning within weeks a preemptive war, a war that the US will be involved in. That our attention is being paid to this BC nonsense is maddening.
George’s article is based on his statement that “senior White House aides told the USCCB that what insurers must separately provide to employees of objecting religious institutions is not a second policy, nor a rider on the first, but just the offer of extra coverage (for the morally controversial items), which the employee can accept at no charge.”
However the link he gives to the USCCB doesn’t say they were told that by anyone – just that “as far as we can tell” it is so.
Against George’s claim, Grant Gallicho has said in another post on DotCommweal that a senior WhiteHouse aide said that contraception would be provided under a separate policy.
As I said in my comment a short while go under the “what rides on the rider” post,
“John Hayes 02/14/2012 – 2:13 pm
John Schwenkler, speculating about language that doesn’t exist yet isn’t very useful.
Your post started from the bishop’s statement that:
“the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer’s policy, not as a separate rider.”
I don’t see anything in the Federal Register that suggests that.
So let’s wait to see what the draft language actually says when it is released for public comments.
Although i know in generalities some of the aspects of socialized medicine, I am curious if there is anything to be learned from the ways these programs and services are subsidized throughout the medical world. I realize that the enshrinement of “religious freedom” in the US is a core principle, but I am curious about how other hierarchies live with the same services being available — or does socilaized medicine (in whatever forms it exists vis a vis any privatized care) make that irrelevant?
David Gibson’s discussion is also good:
http://www.religionnews.com/culture/social-issues/are-bishops-ignoring-their-own-moral-theology
This question is extremely simple. Even if Mr. Penalver and Mr. Gibson express one theological view of moral cooperation considered legitimate within Catholic teaching, that the theoretical unwritten nonexistent “compromise” is morally OK, that does not even in the slightest way justify a government rule that requires all religious entities and enitites run by religious people to agree with Mr. Penalver and Mr. Gibson’s moral analysis. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not say it only protects substantial burdens on the religious beliefs of people who agree with Mr. Penalver and Mr. Gibson and Sr. Keehan. It says anyone’s beliefs. It says that a religious group is free to believe that the level of moral cooperation involved in Obama’s compromise is unacceptable ***even if CHA is OK with it***. Liberal Catholics are so used to defending themselves against claims that their view involves illicit cooperation, that they are forgetting that the present MANDATE is not about whether Sr. Keehan ***can*** if they want to offer coverage to her employees that enables them to get free contraception coverage from the same insurer–it is about whether everyone else must conform their beliefs to the views of Sr. Keehan. It is literally impossible for the federal government to succeed on a RFRA claim fairly adjudicated, since the government has an obvious less restrictive means to provide free contraceptive coverage, namely, the government does it itself independent of any employer’s plan.
Who would have believed that Eduardo Penalver would defend a federal government rule that requires all religious groups Catholic Christian Jew and Muslim to conform to the specific, debated moral theology view on material cooperation of a particular school of Catholic thought. How can RFRA mean it is OK to make every religionist agree with Commonweal’s theology? Must be in the legislative history somewhere.
Curiouser and curiouser:
The bishops are now “aiming higher still, lobbying Congress to enact a law that would let any employer opt out of covering any medical treatment he disagreed with as a matter of his personal faith. So, for instance, a pizzeria owner who objected to childhood vaccinations on religious grounds would be able to request an insurance plan that did not cover them, in effect overriding a federal requirement that vaccinations be provided free with any health-insurance plan.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-contraception-catholicstre81d219-20120214,0,5218603.story
Anitra,
It’s very simple. This is Catholic blog. Catholics believe in the importance of a well-formed conscience, and a well-formed conscience is informed by reason. If those who dismiss the accommodation cannot produce a well-reasoned argument for the claim that it is morally indistinguishable from the original mandate, then it won’t do to say, “Well, never mind. It offends my conscience and I don’t need to tell you why.” (I do not say that well-reasoned arguments haven’t been produced by the administration’s critics, only that you seem impatient with argument in general — who needs it when you have conscience?)
Now, if this really is about conscience, then only Catholic employers who weren’t already providing insurance that covers contraception can claim to be personally offended. If the claim is that any material cooperation with contraception is intolerable, then the person making the claim must refrain from entering into a contract with any insurance company that offers contraception coverage, as almost all insurance companies do.
It’s not limited to religious beliefs. HR 1179, the bill the bishops want passed says the no one has to provide coverage if:
“`(i) providing coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or`
(ii) such coverage (in the case of individual coverage) is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.
I’m not sure what would qualify as “moral convictions” but it ounces pretty wide-ranging.
Ounces = sounds
Eduardo, I appreciate progressives’ splitting hairs here and finding that Obama’s “compromise” is in fact substantial and meaningful and a deal maker and hardly trivial at all. But I must say that I think you’re grasping at straws. I suspect you really wanted to go along with the President back in August and needed only the smallest “concession” to provide sufficient cover.
I know, that’s mind reading, and you’ll reject it. But that’s how it looks – and, in a way, more important, how it feels.
I doubt anyone’s mind is going to change from here on out. Half the country is one one side and half is on the other. Which strongly suggests, may I suggest, that this is a kerfuffle that should never have been created in the first place.
Reason is tricky, Matthew. Logic cuts just about any way you want it to cut. It all starts, like it or not, with predisposition. When the arguer chooses the operative definitions of the terms in her argument, she will almost certainly bias them in the direction in which she wants to go.
Human beings do not reason as computers reason. Our logic is always biased in the direction in which we want to take it. And that’s good – otherwise we’d often end up in places where we definitely don’t want to be.
I know, that’s nonsense :o)
Matthew, thank you for illustrating my point, by confusing simple with simplistic. This is not simply a Catholic blog talking about what Catholic morality *allows* Catholics to do. Mr. Penalver is discussing what the law can force every religionist to do. To declare that one’s disagreement with liberal Catholics’ theological analysis of moral cooperation is the same as giving No Reason At All, is to render all 100+ academics and signers of Robert George’s letter, the President of CUA, the USCCB, and countless nonCatholics utterly *UnReasonable*, so much so that the government can coerce them to violate their unreason. Mind you, they have given reasons. Pages of reasons why they believe the objectionable coverage is even directly gained and necessarily gained by that employer’s paid plan, without which the employee does-Not-qualify-for-the-coverage. So you are free to disagree. Evangelicals have given reasons. Jews have given reasons. Lawsuits have been filed with reason after reason after reason. But the question is, can you declare that the people you disagree with are so wrong, so irrational, they have offered no reason at all, they essentially said “Its my conscience and I don’t have to tell you why,” so that it is justified for the government to force them with heavy monetary fines to adopt Boudway’s and Penalver’s and Keenan’s “reasons”, because no one else’s reasons count for trash? Is it justified? That is the discussion, because this is a national government mandate, not a theology class.
On another of the numerous threads that have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, I raised the question whether the CHA and CCUSA has been precipitate in their seeming endorsement of the “accommodation.”
Catholic Charities has since revised its initial statement. In an article in the “National Catholic Register” it is reported that CHA now admits to some uncertainty about the specifics of the new arrangement.
Here is part of their story, beginning with a quote from the CHA website:
” ‘As more is known about this, we will be getting that information out to the membership as quickly as possible,’ read the new statement.
But if the CHA has not established the specifics of the “accommodation,” why did Sister Carol endorse it?
Sister Carol did not respond to a request for clarification. Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth, Texas, the episcopal liaison on the CHA board, referred requests for comment to the CHA.
It is still not clear whether the board approved Sister Carol’s statement on Feb. 10, as Sister Carol and Bishop Vann did not respond to questions regarding this point.”
Sister Keehan seems to like to come to quick conclusions. She also did that with the ACA/Obamacare. Maybe that’s an executive’s temperament – a desire to avoid becoming bogged down in the tar pits of niggling over details that will likely seem in the future to have been inconsequential. Perhaps she saw Obama as the only player besides herself and her organization that mattered in all this. In a sense, maybe, he was the chairman of her board, her co-equal, and it was up to the two of them to agree and move on. Maybe she, like him, had already disregarded the bishops as nothing but troublemakers.
Who knows? Maybe when we read her autobiography, we’ll find out.
So far hospitals (CHA), universities (AJCU – the Jesuits), and charities (CCUSA) have welcomed the accommodation – even though some have since moderated their statements.
So far, Nothing but rejection from the USCCB
Strange.
From a NYTimes article, Sr. Carol Keehan of CHA was asked for input by the White House as they were working on the accommodation – so she had more detailed knowledge of it than the others.
NYTimes:
“WASHINGTON — For the White House, the decision announced Friday to soften a rule requiring religious-affiliated organizations to pay for insurance plans that offer free birth control was never really driven by a desire to mollify Roman Catholic bishops, who were strongly opposed to the plan.
Rather, the fight was for Sister Carol Keehan — head of an influential Catholic hospital group, who had supported President Obama’s health care law — and Catholic allies of the White House seen as the religious left. Sister Keehan had told the White House that the new rule, part of the health care law, went too far.
“I felt like he had made a really bad decision, and I told him that,” Sister Keehan said of the president. “I told his staff that. I felt like they had made a bad decision on principle, and politically it was a bad decision. For me another key thing was that it had the potential to threaten the future of health reform….”
“We were getting killed,” one administration official said Friday. The White House picked the deputy chief of staff Nancy-Ann DeParle to talk to Sister Keehan about ways the rule could be made palatable.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/health/policy/obama-to-offer-accommodation-on-birth-control-rule-officials-say.html
Anitra,
I did not say that those who reject the accommodation have failed to give reasons. In fact, some of them have made formidable arguments, and I’m not sure they’re wrong. But I wasn’t responding to them or their arguments. I was responding to your swift dismissal of Eduardo’s moral analysis as beside the point on the grounds that religious toleration means tolerating anyone’s belief, whether or not it’s internally consistent, and no matter what the consequences.
Like you, I oppose the mandate. Like you, I think the government should directly provide free (or at least affordable) contraception if it has decided an important state interest is at stake. But it is fair for the government — or for us — to ask the church, If this is really what you believe about contraception, how come so many of your institutions already offer their employees insurance that covers contraception? If contraception is so evil that you refuse to accept even the remote material cooperation with it that the revised mandate would require, why do you do business with insurance companies that use the money you give them to pay for other people’s contraception? Unless one shows some evidence that one has made an effort to practice what one preaches, it is not clear how much one really believes what one preaches.
In fact, the bishops don’t really believe that regular contraception is anything like as bad as emergency contraceptives that may function as abortifacients, and yet their rhetoric suggests to the average non-Catholic following this controversy that the church thinks contraception is as bad as abortion, and bad for the same reason. If the bishops want to draw a line in the sand, they should draw it between pills that only function as contraceptives and pills that may also function as abortifacients. That would witness to the church’s claim that its opposition to abortion is not about sexual morality but about justice.
Archbishop Dolan on letting the bishops speak first
I have high regard personally for Sr. Carol [Keehan, head of the Catholic Health Association]. I’ve worked with her, I hope we can continue to do that, and I have a lot of respect for the Catholic Health Association. I was disappointed. Some people have said that the bishops don’t want anybody in conversation with the White House besides themselves, but that’s not true. I’m thrilled that Sr. Carol has an entrée, and that she’s making the Catholic voice heard. My disappointment is that she made an announcement that was pretty much popping the champagne cork before we could even respond….
I think Fr. John Jenkins [president of the University of Notre Dame] was excellent. I don’t mind telling you that he called me early Friday morning to say, ‘Archbishop, I have been reached by the White House with news of a possible announcement today. My posture has been, you need to be talking to Archbishop Dolan.’ He waited, as did the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, Catholic Relief Services, and Catholic Charities, to hear what we bishops were going to say before they put any release out. I highly appreciate that.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/bishops-are-not-obama-haters-dolan-insists
Now that the bishops know that scores of Catholic Universities and Catholic Hospitals have BC coverage and even some social ministries, for up to ten years, how long can bishops wait before they DEMAND that these entities cancel and change policies. Not too schooled in all the nuances of Catholic conscience formation, I ask how long can you delay praxis when confronted by evil.. it’s two weeks now. It would even seem small delays causes scandal. weeks more , how about ten years.. ??? Don’t complaints about who got called first from the WH, border on farce?
Matthew,
Thank you for the clarification. I think we are fairly close in our views on this. And while you do not contend that the fictitious compromise is justified to be imposed on others merely because it is fine with some liberal Catholics, Mr. Penalver among not a few others on Commonweal are indeed arguing not merely that Catholic theology does not consider this cooperation illicit, but that that conclusion justifies the President’s mandate on the nation and makes it acceptable. So they must answer for that non sequitor, which is simply not describable as anything other than their imposition of their theology on other Catholics, Christians, Jews, and other religionists in America. I would add that I did not mean to contend that toleration means tolerating beliefs without any reason. In fact all the opponents of this mandate across religions have given ample reasons. However, it is also worth noting, as I have here several times and that Mr. Penalver recognizes but has not grappled with in explanation of his views, that federal law contains the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that applies the most rigorous form of scrutiny in federal law to this very mandate. Under such scrutiny a religionist has a very low burden of showing “reasoning” his belief–it needs to be sincere. Much beyond that it is none of the court’s d–n business whether the court agrees or disagrees with the soundness of the religionist’s theology. To probe those reasons is in fact recognized as a violation of the Establishment Clause. Now when it comes to scholars such as the President of CUA, and the Evangelicals who have sued Sebelius, their reasons far surpass such a minimalist burden. But I quibble with you that it is the President’s right to ask why he should not impose–which he has done, 100%–Sr. Keehan’s view of Catholic theology on all the other Catholics objecting to this policy. If he cared at all about following the law of the land in this country he would recognize it is none of his d–n business either. His rule filed last Friday makes absolutely no effort to explain why he is not in blatant violation of RFRA. He simply recites the statute and says they comply. This position is impossible in relation to the mere fact that the government could give this stuff away for free without any nexus to an objecting employer. End of analysis. In fact, we all know that the President’s decision in this matter was made without any care about RFRA, but instead about NARAL and Emily’s List breathing down his neck to impose his mandate “without change,” which is exactly what he did, and nothing more did he do.
Don’t bishops have a great deal of freedom to do as they see fit within their own dioceses, without having to clear things with the USCCB, Matthew?
Seems to me that would be making a distinction that the wider world would likely misunderstand as a concession, not a distinction. And when people see a concession, they assume you’re willing to go even further. In other words, it’s sensible, I think, for the bishops to make the contraception-pill/abortifacient distinction among themselves, and among Catholics, but keep it simple and clear for the wider world.
Maybe.
It seems to me that the bishops and their supporters have not been consistent in saying just what they are objecting to. They have variously complained about”
1. Having to pay, against their religious beliefs, for employees’ contraceptives via insurance plans (the religious liberty argument)
2. Necessity to cooperate with the ins. co. which pays for the contraceptives of employees of other organizations (the “pooling of premiums” argument)
3. Having to give scandal to others (another religious liberty argument?)
4. Having to materially cooperate with people actually using contraceptives by materially cooperating with the supplier of their means, i.e. the ins. co’s.
Just what are they after?
“Reason is tricky, Matthew. Logic cuts just about any way you want it to cut. It all starts, like it or not, with predisposition. When the arguer chooses the operative definitions of the terms in her argument, she will almost certainly bias them in the direction in which she wants to go.”
David S. –
Reason is about as tricky as math — it’s not tricky at all. That’s what makes it so valuable. It’s utterly predictable — if you start with true premises. What you say in the rest of this post shows that you don’t have the foggiest notion of what logic is and what it can and can’t do. Learn some.
Ann, I’ve not studied logic, but I’ve lived long enough to observe that when people reason, they use words, and I’m absolutely certain that words have – especially when used in conjunction with other words – next to no precise meanings at all. This is why good, smart, intelligent people can and do frequently differ substantially about quite a number of things.
Very few important things in life require a college degree to understand adequately – and a college degree is no guarantee of competency in anything. The expert is greatly overvalued in this technophilic*Over 11 million American women aged 15-44 use oral contraceptives.
*58% use contraception at least in part for reasons other than family planning (e.g., menstrual pain and regulation, acne, endometriosis). society. No position can be demolished – or even undermined – by the claim that someone is ignorant, or uneducated, or stupid.
Apologies for the garbled comment. Typing and editing on a iPad seems to require more manual dexterity than I can manage at the moment.
Again.
Ann, I’ve not studied logic, but I’ve lived long enough to observe that when people reason, they use words, and I’m absolutely certain that words have – especially when used in conjunction with other words – next to no precise meanings at all. This is why good, smart, intelligent people can and do frequently differ substantially about quite a number of things.
Very few important things in life require a college degree to understand adequately – and a college degree is no guarantee of competency in anything. The expert is greatly overvalued in this technophilic society. No position can be demolished – or even undermined – by the claim that someone is ignorant, or uneducated, or stupid.
Ann,
Years ago I talked with a staffer at the USCCB pro-life office. This must have been in 2001-2002, the year our paths crossed. I asked what they were working on, and he said that they were preparing for challenges to conscience. I think he gave the example of doctors and pharmacists having to prescribe medicine they object to.
What I find rather appalling is the nature of the mandates. People complain that they are pelvic. They are not. They are about population, about human lives that never will be, or that will be ended far too early.
Catholics tend to want to be fair, and I respect that some folks taking the Obama side here are really making an effort to give the benefit of the doubt. But I think we should in charity think of others. If we are denied our civil liberties now, we set a precedent for others down the road. Right now our own bishops are fighting for the right to act according to their consciences. Will imams and rabbis be next? We’re first, for some reason. So we have to do this one well.
I doubt individual business owners who contest this law under RFRA have a good chance of winning. In 1993, a Quaker sued under RFRA because, she claimed, as a Quaker, paying federal taxes burdened her conscience. She lost. Again in 1993, a group of taxpayers sued because, they claimed, Social Security numbers related to the “mark of the beast.” They lost.
If the bishops want to go to the mat for the individual business owner, they will have to explain why their argument shouldn’t allow the Amish to avoid paying taxes and shouldn’t allow some religious believers to practice polygamy.
It’s really an interesting problem. We have the HHS proceeding under the assumption that contraception is for the common good. Then we have the bishops arguing that governmental interference in religious practice is not for the common good. Which we have plenty of evidence for in history. Underlying the bishops’ position is the conviction that contraception is not for the common good–which we have evidence for, in spades, in our own lifetimes’ history.
David.. you say ” Typing and editing on a iPad ‘ Do you think you have materially cooperated with those Chinese Apple parts factories where employees are so harassed they jump out windows to their death? I give you a pass on that.
Yesterday, Comonweal print arrived.
As in many cases, the part I find most interesting are the letters to the editor.I thought Kathy’s assertion that contraception is not for the common good of which we have evidence in our lifetime was contradicted there and struck me as a gratuitous assertion.
How much the accomodation will affect insusrers is stil unclear (as per NPR report this morning) but there seems to be consensus that the Guttmacher institute report holding that it reduces costs and produces heathlier families over time seems sound.
I think the common good is not put forward by the USCCB in this matter and that more drift, disbelief or departure may be the outcome for the Church no matter what Robby George, Geoerge Weigel or Cardinal George have to offer.
While I’m sure this argument (from an unlikely source) has been posted on one of these threads already, I think it argues compellingly that contraception is not for the common good: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-02-08/politics/31036663_1_sexual-revolution-moral-standards-marriage
“But, as far fetched as it seems to me that people will consume more contraception because, as a result of this mandate, they think the Catholic Church isn’t serious about opposing contraception, the argument really sputters when we turn to private employers. Applied to such employers, this appearance-of-endorsement point depends on an extremely implausible causal mechanism — who takes the lead from their employer in deciding (as a moral matter) which medical services to consume (unless their employer also happens to be their church)? Religious institutions have a unique position in this regard, one not shared with other kinds of employers, and the compromise recognizes this (as did the original proposal, to a lesser extent) by providing it with special opportunities to distance itself symbolically from the provision of contraception. By focusing on this appearance-of-endorsement point, George’s argument brings this difference into stark relief in a way that hadn’t occurred to me before.”
Hi, Eduardo, regarding other kinds of employers whose owners oppose contraception: I do think there is something to be said for the appearance-of-approval argument, although I agree with you that we need to think about the extent and importance of the danger this represents.
Beyond questions of appearance and scandal, though, it seems to me inescapable that, given our current system of employer-sponsored and -delivered group health insurance, the employer is a moral stakeholder in these arrangements, and some weight need be given to the employer’s moral concerns. In other words, if the employer has a genuine and weighty moral culpability at stake in a given arrangement of group health care sponsorship and provision, then appeals to the common good or democracy or public health don’t obviate that culpability – at least not in every case. This is not a specific religious-liberty claim; the views of a ‘secular’ employer whose personal views are atheistic, but who harbors a moral objection to contraception, are deserving of respect in this regard. It’s not clear that government mandates should always and everywhere override such qualms.
I read this headline in the NY Times – Obama Shift on Providing Contraception Splits Critics – and immediately thought of all the comments on these pages. I was dismayed and disheartened. Here’s why based on what I think I know:
1) Our government wants to assure all women access to contraceptives at zero cost to the user.
2) Our government is motivated by politics and trying to satisfy its constituents, as it best understands them.
3) Our government will not provide the benefit directly because it cannot pass the necessary laws.
4) The Bishops are the leaders of our Church
5) At least one of the Bishops considerations in making their decisions is trying to discern the will of God and act in accordance with it.
6) The Bishops are humans and have made mistakes in the past.
7) Both of these statements cannot be true
a) Infertility is a malfunction of the human body
b) Medically-induced infertility is preventative medicine
8) The original cramped religious exclusions were questioned and commented on, then published and made effective completely unchanged.
9) The new proposal cannot work for self-insured organizations.
10) There is a heated debate over whether the new proposal is a fig-leaf or offers adequate protections.
I believe I owe any benefit of the doubt to the Bishops, notwithstanding some comments by well-know Catholics that they are willing to live with this new mandate. And all this internal dissension is wounding our church. And mandating untruths hurts our government as well.
Our government wants to assure all women access to contraceptives at zero cost to the user.
This is a point people have made many times, but it is worth making again. Nothing coming from employer-provided health care comes at “zero cost.” Employer-provided health insurance is an employee benefit. To be an employee, you have to work. Most employees also pay part of the cost of their health insurance coverage. I have good insurance through my employer, but I don’t get “free” medical care.
Eduardo — here’s a good and fairly unanswerable explanation of why the supposed modification (which has yet to be seen even in draft form, let alone to be finalized) would not make any moral difference whatsoever:
David,
I agree that medical care provided through an employer is not free and I was careful to say zero-cost to the user though I should have included out-of-pocket as a modifier. But I’m not really sure what point you are trying to elucidate. The zero out-of-pocket cost is the same in the original and current proposal.
As an aside, I sincerely doubt the administrations claim that providing contraceptives ‘saves’ money but thats neither here nor there.
Right, Ed. The capitalists are forcing me at certain times of the day to use not even an iPad, which is almost big enough to accommodate my clumsiness, but a microscopically small iPod, which was in fact the culprit last night. We’re all in their thrall, Ed, even you. Come the revolution, all will change. No more jumping out factory windows – any attempt at that sort of nonsense will be met with a five-year sentence to a reeducation center, where contraceptives will be not only free, but mandatory.
Grant,
Your argument equating the governments right to collect taxes and the contraception mandate does not hold water. Paying taxes is an obligation of all people and a governmental right. How the tax money is spent is completely divorced from the collection. As you well know, in our systems of government, citizens influence the expenditure of tax monies by voting and lobbying their legislators. There are no moral issues about paying validly assessed taxes. That obviously isnt the case with the contraception mandate.
And your comment about polygamy is also off-base since polygamy is immoral.
“I believe I owe any benefit of the doubt to the Bishops, notwithstanding some comments by well-know Catholics that they are willing to live with this new mandate. And all this internal dissension is wounding our church. And mandating untruths hurts our government as well.”
But truth and untruth aren’t at issue. The government is not trying to tell Catholic bishops what is or is not true about the morality of contraception. And, as far as I know, the initial motivation of the bishops was not to prove what’s true about contraception, but simply to complain that the religious liberty of Catholic organizations such as hospitals and social agencies was being trampled by requiring them to purchase insurance policies that cover medications and procedures the Church considers immoral.
As conservative Catholics so often say, even the hierarchy can be mistaken on matters of prudential judgment, and the USCCB is making prudential judgments in this case, judgments that also matter to thousands of American citizens who aren’t Catholic.
Now that the government at least tried to respond positively to the bishops’ original religious liberty objection, the ball is in our court, and the response or responses have become so hopelessly convoluted, it would seem to require Solomon or the Holy Spirit come to earth as a lawyer to decipher a prudential end to it all. Now, in other words, is no time to be giving the benefit of the doubt to our hierarchy. It’s not prudent.
Ann at 2:06 am: “Reason is about as tricky as math — it’s not tricky at all. That’s what makes it so valuable. It’s utterly predictable — if you start with true premises.”
If and only if… (Actually, I don’t think the comparison works. Premises in math are often quite easy to understand; it’s the conclusions that are hard to derive, and by no means predictable.)
But in the current controversy, it is mostly the premises that are at issue. If you start with:
(a) God has chosen, from among a great range of human sexual thoughts and activities, a small number that are licit, and has condemned all others;
(b) He has ordained that the leaders of the Catholic Church are uniquely qualified to ascertain and communicate His will on such matters, their vowed inexperience of them being no drawback, but rather a guarantee of impartiality;
(c) the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that (a) and (b) be determinative, all other claims and goals of public policy notwithstanding;
then you will “predictably” reach one conclusion.
If you start with another set of premises, you will reach another conclusion. Reason has little to do with it.
The government didn’t try to respond, Beverly, it tried to appear to respond. Solomon’s not necessary. If someone does a stupid thing, all that’s required is to apologize and try to undo the damage. The ball has always been in the government’s court – the people who object to the government’s actions can only continue to object. The only aggressor here is the government. Everybody else has been on the defensive all along.
“No position can be demolished – or even undermined – by the claim that someone is ignorant, or uneducated, or stupid.”
David S. –
That is your opinion. If you think that the opinion of a person who is ignorant, no matter what the cause, is as valuable as one who has studied an issue, is motivated to find the right answers, and is competent in logic, then lots of luck trying to find any sort of truth at all. (No, wonder you’re such a cynic. You think it’s dumb to trust anyone’s judgment, including those with special training. Do you go to doctors? Lawyers? Do you ask anyone how to get to Carnegie Hall? Oops. . . ignore that one.)
Now that I know you don’t think we can ever find truth, I’ll quit trying to persuade you of anything. You’re literally hopeless.
John P. ==
I didn’t say that logic was easy for people to use. I said it isn’t tricky and it’s predictable — given true premises it always gives true conclusions. It’s also valuable because if you derive false conclusions using it, then you know something is wrong in your premises. That’s something we really, really dislike about logic — our opponents can use it to show we’re mistaken.
Ann, I wouldn’t necessarily value the opinion of a professor of philosophy over that of a dockyard worker in anything but the study of philosophy, would you?
Beverly Bailey wrote in part:
But truth and untruth aren’t at issue. The government is not trying to tell Catholic bishops what is or is not true about the morality of contraception.
But of course truth and untruth are at issue. The government is most certainly trying to tell the entire population that contraception and sterilization and abortifacient drugs constitute right behavior. Right behavior is morality. And the Bishops are saying not only is it immoral but we will not and cannot participate in this untruth.
FYI, here is George Weigel’s view of the hierarchy:
Everyone understands, for example, that Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks for the Church in the United States in a singular way, especially when he speaks for a united bishops’ conference on matters of first principles.
You can read the rest of the article here:
http://eppc.org/publications/pubID.4672/pub_detail.asp
One thing that quickly becomes apparent is that the hierarchy is not responsible for the error in determining who-speaks-for-the-Catholic-Church-in-America. The hierarchy deserves your support.
Bruce, thanks for that link. It’s worth reading, even though the strong language is no doubt offputting to many here. It lays out rather well the challenges in all this as seen by the “conservatives”, including some interesting historical context. Even “progressives” and “liberals” need to know what their counterparts in the Church are saying, since this is an issue that will not go away. Here it is again:
http://eppc.org/publications/pubID.4672/pub_detail.asp
Ann,
You’re quite right about logic. It’s great for deriving new truth from old truth, and for exposing bad old ideas by exhibiting the badness they lead to. But I don’t think that’s how most people argue against something. They start higher up the chain by attacking or denying or ridiuling the premises themselves and their antecedents. “All men are created equal” is a premise with pretty clear implications, so our history is replete with attempts to qualify and limit it before reason could get to work.
And beyond argumentation, we come, often very quickly, to mere name-calling and imputations of wickedness. One side yells “Traitor” and “unAmerican”; the other responds “Retard!” and “Hypocrite!” And on the incendiary subject we are dealing with here, “baby killer” is answered by “woman hater.”
Logic never has a chance.
Maybe I misunderstand what Ann’s getting at. It seems to me she’s saying that everything is susceptible to being righted by the marvelous tool of formal logic. Natural language being what it is, I don’t see how that can possibly be the case. I think she’d reply that I need to study logic to see just how wrong I am. Since I can’t do that, I’ll just have to take her word that I’m wrong. But that’s not logical, is it? Sigh.
Pope Benedict seems to have a healthy respect for reason and evidence as a way to understand the basic fabric of being (aka God’s creation).
“From the beginning, Christianity has understood itself as the religion of the Logos, as the religion according to reason…It has always defined men, all men without distinction, as creatures and images of God, proclaiming for them…the same dignity. In this connection, the Enlightenment is of Christian origin and it is no accident that it was born precisely and exclusively in the realm of the Christian faith….It was and is the merit of the Enlightenment to have again proposed these original values of Christianity and of having given back to reason its own voice… Today, this should be precisely [Christianity’s] philosophical strength … In the so necessary dialogue between secularists and Catholics, we Christians must be very careful to remain faithful to this fundamental line: to live a faith that comes from the Logos, from creative reason, and that, because of this, is also open to all that is truly rational.”
http://www.zenit.org/article-13705?l=english
David S. — You worship at the altar of LAA — Logic Awesomely Applied — every time you bow your head to your iPad. Logic is a tool like a hammer — it can be used to make a dent for good or bad depending on the skill and purpose of the user. It can save a person from wasting time on concepts like “everything is susceptible to being righted”.
A quick note from Gary Wills in The NY Review of Books 9with at leats some truth,Bruce et al., “we’re on a stampede to temporary lunacy.”
I agree with Bob. We’re on a stampede to temporary lunacy. Hopefully the Bishops will help our poor country, which has lost its way due to Planned Parenthood’s remarkably effective power brokering.
John Prior –
I fear that what you say is only too true. But why is this so apparent in t his country? I think a part of it is Americans’ legendary anti-intellectualsim. Our anti-hard thinking is reflected even in our everyday language. My generation talked about “eggheads”, while this one insults nerds and wonks. Absent-minded professor never loses its popularity. There is a distrust of hard-thinking in this country that not only won’t go away but it seems to be proud of itself. It’s the main reason that we don’t support education as the children need and deserve it to be supported — we’ve convinced ourselves it doesn’t matter all that much. (The Chinese, of course, are eating our lunch because they’ve learned better.)
Yes, when we find experts on both sides of an issue it is discouraging. But the rational thing to do is not to trash both of them but to extract whatever truth each has. The world is just too complex to expect to find all descriptions of it in agreement. An obvious solution is to make discovery a communal project. The internet could help with this, but we’re just so intent on maintaining our imagined superiority over others and insulting “them” it usually doesn’t get us very far. We *enjoy* being clods!! That’s reflected in our everyday language too — see “zinger”, “put down” and “slam”.
This is a moral thing. In the first place, to throw out logic shows a lack of humility, an unwillingness to be critical of oneself. Then, in the absence of logic people go with their feelings, but feelings are not usually inclined to self-criticism. (That’s why feelings of loyalty are so important to in-groups! Mustn’t disagree with our own — it weakens the Almighty Group!! And if we do they’ll throw us out of the group.) Also, when we dispense with logic and act according to our feelings only, we are put at the mercy of demagogues. See Hitler and Mao!
No, logic isn’t the only kind of thinking. There’s creative thinking which is not a matter of it-then but, rather, it’s a matter both-and, of synthesizing new patterns out of disparate elements. It’s intuitive and life-giving, but even it is subject to logic when it goes beyond the boundaries of facts. And facts do bind, whether we want them to or not. Sigh.
” I think she’d reply that I need to study logic to see just how wrong I am. Since I can’t do that, I’ll just have to take her word that I’m wrong.”
David S. –
No, you’re quire capable of learning it on your own. Get a good freshman text book that’s good on fallacies especially. Or get a used, old edition of Copi. The 14th ed. costs $100!, but the old editions are fine. Geisler’s intro looks good. (Some vidence: it’s popular.) I haven’t taught in years, so I’m not sure what the good new ones are.
My free advice to you: beware of hasty generalizations. They seem to be your Waterloo. But they are tempting, I’ll grant you.
Bob Nunz
Thanks for the Garry Wills article. Of course this statement is patently false:
The bishops’ opposition to contraception is not an argument for a “conscience exemption.” It is a way of imposing Catholic requirements on non-Catholics. This is religious dictatorship, not religious freedom.
Everyone in the US is free today, and remains free under the Bishops most restrictive proposal, to purchase contraceptives. The coercion is going in the other direction, forcing the Bishops to pay for which they would not otherwise purchase: contraceptive services.
Incorrect logic leads to incorrect outcomes.
I’ll stick with Ann’s logic and advce to David. Of course Bruce can think the bishops by extension gave to pay ,bu tthat’s his logic.
The beat goes on, but david was righ tabout one thing – peope wil speak out of their own perceptions.
However,,there is logic which is not the same as rhetoric .