Posted on by Mark Movsesian

ICLARS Conference: “Religion, Democracy, and Equality” (August 21-23)

The International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS) will host a conference, “Religion, Democracy, and Equality” next month in Virginia. The conference will be split among Richmond, Williamsburg, and Charlottesville. Seventy law and religion scholars from around the world, including CLR faculty Mark Movsesian and Marc DeGirolami, will participate. The most recent version of the conference program is here.

ICLARS is an international network of scholars and experts of law and religion begun in 2007. Its purpose is to provide a forum for exchange of information, data, and opinions among members, which are then made available to the broader academic community. Currently, ICLARS has members from more than 40 countries.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Villanova Starts Project on Religious and Economic Freedom

Congratulations to our friends at Villanova, especially Vice Dean Michael Moreland, on receiving a $200,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation to start the Libertas Project, a series of workshops and conferences for academics and policymakers on religious and economic freedom. The National Law Journal has the story here.

 

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Event: “Faith, Values and the Economy”

On July 18 in Washington, Brookings will release a new survey on economic policy and the views of religious progressives and conservatives:

On July 18, the religion, policy and politics project at Brookings will co-host an event with the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) to release a new survey and accompanying report co-authored by Brookings Senior Fellows E.J. Dionne and William Galston and PRRI CEO Robert P. Jones, PRRI Research Director Daniel Cox, and PRRI Research Associate Juhem Navarro-Rivera.

The 2013 Economic Values Survey tackles a range of topics, including perceptions of economic wellbeing and upward mobility; the role of government; how well capitalism is working; the importance and availability of equal opportunity; values that should guide government policy on economic issues; and specific economic policies. With its large sample size, the survey explores a range of fault lines on these issues, including racial and ethnic or generational divides. Additionally, the survey takes up the question of the existence and vitality of religious progressives compared to religious conservatives, and examines the relationship between theological beliefs and the views of both groups on capitalism and economic policy.

After the program, the speakers will take audience questions.

Details and the event registration form are here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

CLR Faculty at Annual Law and Religion Roundtable

This week, CLR Director Mark Movsesian and Associate Director Marc DeGirolami will participate in the Annual Law and Religion Roundtable, hosted this year at Stanford Law School. Now in its fourth year, the  ALRR “provides a forum for scholars of religious freedom to share cutting-edge works and engage in discipline-shaping conversations.” Movsesian will present an early-stage project on the Psychic Sophie case and the rise of the Nones. DeGirolami will participate in the meeting as a discussant.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Call for Papers: “Cooperating With Evil, Complicity With Sin”

Joel Nichols and Alan Brownstein are putting together an interesting and timely panel for the Law and Religion section at the January 2014 AALS meeting, to be held in New York City. The subject of the panel is “Cooperating With Evil Complicity With Sin.” I wish I had the time to do it, but I’ve long thought that it would be interesting if a criminal law scholar who had studied accomplice liability wrote an article comparing the idea of complicity in criminal law and in various religious traditions in which complicity figures as a theologically important concept. See below for the call for papers.

Section on Law and Religion

Call for Papers for January 2014 AALS Annual Meeting Program:

“Cooperating With Evil, Complicity with Sin”

From Alan Brownstein and Joel Nichols, Program Chairs for AALS Section on Law and Religion

The AALS Section on Law and Religion invites the submission of papers or abstracts (no more than 5 pages) for the purpose of selecting one or two speakers for a panel at the Section’s program at the January 2014 AALS annual meeting in New York. The program is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 4, 2014, from 2:00-3:45. Other invited speakers will also be on the panel also. The program description follows:

What does it mean for religious believers and groups to refrain from “cooperating with evil”? When does involvement with government action rise to condoning it? And who decides whether a religious objector is “participating” in and thereby “complicit” with religiously objectionable conduct? Such questions play a central role in the HHS contraceptive mandate debate but they arise in other controversies as well – ranging from religious objections to same-sex marriage to the conscience claims of pharmacists opposed to stocking or selling abortifacients.

Numerous doctrinal issues are relevant to a discussion of this problem. These include whether allegations of moral complicity satisfy the “substantial burden” requirement a RFRA or free exercise claimant must satisfy, and how courts should take attenuated causation questions into account if a substantial burden is found to exist. Other questions relate to the concern that an expansive conception of moral complicity may extend so broadly that general accommodation statutes (or constitutional interpretations) would become unacceptable in their scope and unmanageable in their operation.  This panel will explore these and other problems arising from the relationship between conceptions of moral complicity and the evaluation of religious liberty claims under constitutional or statutory law.

Submission Deadline and Procedures: Deadline is August 15, 2013. Abstracts should be submitted by email to Joel Nichols, Univ. of St. Thomas (MN) School of Law, joel.nichols@stthomas.edu

Proposal Requirements: An abstract of not more than five pages, or a completed paper.

Presentation and Publication: Any speaker chosen from this call will be expected to produce an original substantial paper, or to have already produced a substantial paper, a draft of which  will be available to be posted on the AALS web site prior to the annual meeting and that will be published in the University of St. Thomas Law Journal (MN) during the 2013-14 academic year.

Selection and Eligibility: Selection will be by blind review. Under AALS rules, only full-time faculty members of AALS member law schools are eligible. Faculty at fee-paid law schools; foreign, visiting, and adjunct faculty members; graduate students; fellows; and non-law-school faculty are not eligible. AALS rules require any speaker to pay the annual meeting registration fee and travel expenses.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Call for Papers: “The New Cosmopolitanism”

The Contending Modernities Global Migration Working Group has issued a call for papers for a conference to take place in London in October, “The new cosmopolitanism: Global migration and the building of a common life”:

The global expansion of migration, within and between the global north and south, and the global resurgence and “publicization” of religion – have combined to bring religious and secular models of citizenship and civic education to the fore.  Nonetheless, there is surprisingly little consensus among religious leaders, educators, and policy makers as to what framework might allow people from different religious and ethical backgrounds to live together tolerantly and inclusively.  The lack of consensus is all the more vexing in that migration and religious revitalization today have created multicultural and multi-ethical landscapes all over the globe.  The question of the place of religion in modern multicultural societies is not an academic one, then, but one of the most pressing ethical challenges of our age.

Details are here.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Non sum Oedipus, sed Morus

I am greatly looking forward to participating toward the end of the month in a workshop on the thought of Sir Thomas More, to be held at the University of St. Thomas under the auspices of the excellent Murphy Center.  But I wanted to point readers to a very worthwhile extended review by Louis W. Karlin (one of the conference’s conveners) of Travis Curtwright’s recently published The One Thomas More (2012).  Because I am scheduled to teach Professional Responsibility in spring 2014 and am fixing to reconstitute the course substantially, I found the following in the review especially interesting.  One issue I’ve always wanted to learn more about–and have thought might be rightly considered in a legal ethics course–is the relationship of equity to law and specifically the question whether equity may be understood as within law or instead as sitting outside it.

A particularly important aspect of Curtright’s study is his focus on More as a lawyer and jurist, demonstrating how More integrated his formative humanistic studies in classical literature with his professional career.  Contemporary legal practitioners and scholars will find much to ponder in Curtright’s extended analysis of the organic connection between rhetoric and jurisprudence in More’s thought, as it is developed in readings of Richard III and Utopia.  More believed that an education in the liberal arts, especially when combined with the study of law, informed and strengthened the practical judgment.

Curtright detects in More’s Utopia the foundations of a unique humanist jurisprudence.  By cultivating one’s practical judgment through careful study of poetry, history and law, a would be lawyer or legislator can discern the highest ideals for human flourishing, while simultaneously recognizing the inherent limitations in human nature that militate against radical reform.  More’s humanist jurisprudence reached its fruition in the expansion of equity jurisdiction that he championed and applied as a judge in the Chancery and Star Chamber courts to ameliorate the unfairness arising from strict application of legal rules under common law.  For More, equity, as the application of practical reason according to conscience, did not give a judge license to ignore the law in favor or his own understanding of justice. Rather, equity provided a moderating, ameliorative function to be exercised to better the law’s intent.

The notion that a young humanist champion of utopian reform gave way to a conservative statesman is to mistake the voice of Utopia’s Raphael Hythloday for the author’s.  As Curtright persuasively argues, the “real” More’s voice heard in The Life of Pico and Utopia is distrustful of “[s]ystematic answers to political problems,” advocating instead “engagement and accommodation applied toward modest goals” (86).  Thus, in his jurisprudence, it is the “rigor of the law, not the law itself, that should be reformed.”  As a judge and statesman, More distrusted radical reform in the manner of “sweeping Utopian legislation because More’s ideas of reform, such as they were, deal with the application of equity through conscience” (99).  This did not reflect “‘an Augustinian belief in the total and helpless depravity of fallen man,’” as Elton thought (7).  Rather, it follows from the same realization that inspired Dr. Johnson’s compassionate conservatism:  “The Cure for the greatest part of human Miseries is not radical, but palliative.”  (The Rambler, No. 32, July 7, 1750.)

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Blogging the Religious Legal Theory Conference

TouroI spent this morning at the fourth annual Religious Legal Theory Conference, hosted this year by Sam Levine at Touro Law School. I moderated a panel, “Religious Legal Theory and the Perspectives of ‘Others.'” The idea for the panel, which was Sam’s, was to bring together scholars who write about law in religious traditions other than their own, something that I tried to do a few years ago at the first Religious Legal Theory Conference with my essay, Fiqh and Canons.

The presentations were interesting and covered a variety of perspectives. Randy Lee (Widener) spoke about his experience as a Christian studying Jewish law. He said that this experience had taught him the importance of “listening Jewish”–to find the best in others. He wondered whether “Godly lawyers” who listened to clients in this way might actually transform lives. In response to a question from me, Randy stated that he did not think that all lawyers who study religious law would have his experience, or should; but, in studying Jewish law, he realized that he himself was a “variable,” not a “constant,” and that he himself had been transformed.

David Friedman (Santa Clara) is an atheist who studies the history of religious legal systems. He argued that Jewish and Islamic law both rest in part on pre-existing, decentralized  “feud systems,” characterized by private retaliation for wrongs. He gave examples from both systems. Friedman also addressed the problems that arise in legal systems that have God, rather than humans, as “the legislator,” and the various interpretive devices such systems employ to mitigate what seem to be disproportionate penalties called for in sacred scripture- Islamic law rules calling for amputation as punishment for theft, for example.

Philip Ackerman-Lieberman (Vanderbilt), who is Jewish, spoke about his work on the interactions between Islamic and Jewish commercial law in medieval Cairo. He argued that scholars should not concern themselves only with a comparison of legal details, but should study social and legal structures as a whole. Structural analysis reveals that the Islamic legal culture and Jewish legal subculture influenced each other in a kind of “dialogue.” The two systems shared ideas, but also differentiated themselves from one another–and in this differentiation may be found the distinctive elements of each legal tradition. Philip suggested that the study of legal theory and commercial practice in medieval Cairo could have an impact on contemporary issues faced by Islam and Judaism.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Religious Legal Theory Conference at Touro (April 11-12)

Over the next couple of days, Touro is hosting the fourth annual Religious Legal Theory Conference. Both Marc and I are on the program tomorrow, moderating panels on “Philosophical and Political Perspectives on Religious Legal Theory” and “Religious Legal Theory and Perspectives of ‘Others.’ Stop by and say hello!

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Conference: The Rise of Non-State Law

Former guest and Center for Law and Religion friend Mike Helfand passes along a notice for a very interesting looking conference entitled, “International Legal Theory Interest Group Symposium: The Rise of Non-State Law.”  Proceed here to view the symposium in full, which will be held in Washington D.C. on May 2; here is the description:

Trends in legal philosophy, international law, transnational law, law & religion, and political science all point towards the increasing role played by non-state law in both public and private ordering.  Numerous organizations, institutions, associations and groups have emerged alongside the nation-state, each purporting to provide their members with rules and norms to govern their conduct and organize their affairs. Indeed, questions regarding non-state law have moved to the forefront of recent debates over legal pluralism and transnational justice, forcing scholars and practitioners to consider the new and multifaceted mechanisms ways in which we govern ourselves.  This International Legal Theory Interest Group Symposium will explore this Rise of Non-State Law by bringing together experts on international law, transnational law, legal theory and political philosophy to consider the growing impact of law that derives from outside the nation-state.

The symposium is co-sponsored by the American Society of International Law and Pepperdine Law School.  Michael’s own work also treats some of these subjects and is well worth your consideration.