Morals Charge. - "The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis" - book review

The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis, by Robert P. George (ISI, 403 pp., $24.95)

To think reasonably is to think morally, said Samuel Johnson, for whom it was self-evident that human life is predicated on a moral structure. Not so in today's America, where moral relativism and "do your own thing" have long been fashionable. Of course, the proponents of moral relativism actually do count on some underlying principles to prevent disorder (more of this later), but they like to keep these principles vague and amorphous, the better to serve their own ends. Allegedly make some off-color remarks to a female subordinate, and you will be branded a serious criminal and face an inquisitorial firestorm -- if, that is, you are a Republican. If you are a Democrat, on the other hand, you can fool around with young interns, feel up a woman job-seeker, be credibly accused of rape on a national news program, and lie under oath: It all becomes either a private matter, of interest only to an obsessed, sexually repressed puritan, or simply irrelevant. Arthur Miller's The Crucible is frequently revived, lest we ever forget the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, but genuine contemporary witch hunts, in which human beings have suffered long prison terms owing to fantastical accusations of sex crimes elicited from children by ideologically motivated prosecutors, attract little notice.

Such is the moral anarchy of our supposedly enlightened age, in which even conservative-leaning writers seem addled by moral relativism. In his otherwise lively, interesting, and useful book Bobos in Paradise, David Brooks presents the differences in past and present behavioral codes as a wash. We don't live in an amoral age, he insists, it's just that our modern morality is different from that of our elders. Where they had stringent codes governing sex, for example, we have stringent codes governing smoking and recycling. The puzzled reader is left to wonder if such an intelligent gentleman could really believe that there is any kind of equivalence between these two types of strictures.

Thankfully, there are still some among us who uphold changeless moral principles, including, notably, former drug czar William Bennett and Robert P. George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton and author of this important new book. Provocatively, the "orthodoxies" to which George refers are traditional Judeo-Christian morality on the one hand and what he calls the "secularist orthodoxy" on the other, which contains the various "isms" that govern contemporary life -- "feminism, multiculturalism, gay liberationism, lifestyle liberalism." George aims to puncture the notion that secular liberalism is merely a matter of tolerance and procedure, possessing no substantive vision of its own. He shows instead how it is actually based on definite, if faulty, ideas about human nature and human life, and how under the guise of its supposed neutrality, it is aggressively imposing its vision on the rest of us. A second goal of this book is to refute the idea that matters of religious morality are derived from faith and therefore have no place in a liberal society dedicated (supposedly) to rational discourse. While George would surely admit that revelation-based dogmas such as the Trinity have no place in civic discussion, he argues persuasively that religiously based morality governing human action is not only reasonable, but more reasonable than its secular counterpart, and is therefore eminently suited to such discussion.

George addresses three categories of issues: those having to do with sexuality, such as marriage and family; those concerning "the transmitting and taking of human life," such as abortion and euthanasia; and those regarding "the place of religion and religiously informed moral judgment in public life," such as the need for a concept of "public morality" and the "crisis" created by laws permitting abortion and euthanasia. These last, George argues, deeply violate the traditional moral vision, as well as the understanding of human rights that is the very basis of the Constitution.

Regarding sexuality, George begins with the integrity of body, mind, and spirit that is a principle of traditional orthodox morality. This integrity can be realized only in marriage, George insists:

Where sex is sought purely for pleasure, or as a means of inducing feelings of emotional closeness, or for some other extrinsic end, the body is treated as a sub-personal, purely instrumental reality. This existential separation . . . serves literally to dis-integrate the person: It takes the person apart, disrupting the good of acting as the dynamically unified being one truly is.

This eminently rational understanding contrasts with the secularist view, which, argues George, is based on a mind/body dualism, in which the body is used as a mere instrument to satisfy the individual's desires absent any vision of a larger moral good. Deficient in itself as a path to human fulfillment, such behavior would moreover lead to general chaos, which is why the secularist will insist on the proviso that the satisfaction of one's desires not violate the rights of others. But, George asks,

Why should anyone respect the rights of others? Merely prudential answers -- such as, people should respect the rights of others so that others will respect their rights, or people should respect the rights of others to avoid being punished -- simply won't do. The fact is that people can often get away with violating others' rights. And they know it. And many do it. If people shouldn't violate the rights of others, it must be because doing so is morally wrong, but on the secularist account -- why is it morally wrong? What is the source of its moral wrongness? . . . No satisfactory answer is forthcoming. None, I submit, is possible.

While the secularist stands shakily on slippery ground, searching for foundations he probably would not acknowledge even if he could find them, George can serenely declare that "free choice, rationally motivated action, and objective moral truth . . . point beyond themselves to a more-than-merely-human source of meaning and value, a divine ground of human intelligence and free will." Yes, a transcendent source, a revelation to be sure, but one that can be tested, affirmed, and chosen by human reason.

The Clash of Orthodoxies is superbly argued, wholeheartedly, confidently, and even joyfully dedicated to exploring the intricacies of the issues in its purview and dealing fully with the opposing views. (There could be more continuity between the chapters, which betray their genesis as separate efforts in different venues.) And while even traditionalists may disagree with some of his arguments and conclusions (particularly his view of John Paul II as a classical liberal), Robert P. George has done a great service in demonstrating that traditional morality still has an authoritative role to play in modern life, and in showing how a person of faith can enter the public square, fearlessly, unashamedly, intelligently, and, above all, reasonably.

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