2018/01/01 by Matthew Lee Anderson · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies #Medieval Philosophy and Theology
paper · doi:10.1093/jcs/csy048
openalex publication_date 2018/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Having largely left the world of analytic moral philosophy behind, moral theologians in recent years have been subject to appeals for close “engagement” with disciplines like social anthropology or ethnography. In Ethics at the Edges of Law Cathleen Kaveny makes a robust and compelling case that the methodology and categories of the law would help theologians clarify their work and navigate the controversies which beset them. Kaveny follows the format Paul Ramsey laid down in his Nine Modern Moralists and critically dialogues with a range of contemporary theological ethicists, forming an immaculately organized argument that considers methodology, the law’s usefulness for clarifying concepts such as love and justice, and the model it sets for navigating contemporary theological controversies. Kaveny’s critical interactions with such figures are unfailingly charitable and clear, even if the format of engagements becomes predictable and somewhat tired by the end of the book. Kaveny’s attempt to defend a robust engagement with the law begins with a defense of John T. Noonan’s lawyerly approach to the development of doctrine, an engagement that Kaveny describes as “the foundation” of her work (p. xvii). Kaveny explores Noonan’s distinction between magic and creativity in the development of doctrine, and contends that Noonan’s method of providing fresh readings of tradition that remain loyal to it functions as a model for Christian ethicists. Such an approach comports well with legal reasoning, which Kaveny suggests has an aspect of advocacy and thus approaches authoritative sources differently than non-lawyers. Kaveny helpfully argues that anxieties among Catholics—though not only among Catholics—about the nature and scope of the development of moral doctrine are in part attributable to the loss of a common canon, as lawyers have, and a subsequently narrow focus on the conclusions that people come to rather than the manner of reasoning they employ. Kaveny sees in Noonan’s legal cast of mind the ability to appropriate the tradition’s form of reasoning in order to come around to novel conclusions that are yet in continuity with it.