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An Essay On Christian Constitutionalism: Building In The Divine Style, For The Common Good(S), Patrick Mckinley Brennan
An Essay On Christian Constitutionalism: Building In The Divine Style, For The Common Good(S), Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Patrick McKinley Brennan
Theocracy is a matter of growing global concern and therefore of renewed academic interest. This paper answers the following question: "What would a Christian constitution, in a predominantly Christian nation, look like?" The paper was prepared for presentation as the Clark Lecture at Rutgers School of Law (Camden), where papers answering the same question with respect to Jewish and Islamic constitutions and cultures, respectively, were also presented. A Christian constitution would not have as its aim the comparatively anodyne -- and ultimately futile -- business of introducing more "Judeo-Christian values" into the life of the typical nation state. The paper …
Delivering The Goods: Herein Of Mead, Delegations, And Authority, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Delivering The Goods: Herein Of Mead, Delegations, And Authority, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Patrick McKinley Brennan
This paper argues, first, that the natural law position, according to which it is the function of human law and political authorities to instantiate certain individual goods and the common good of the political community, does not entail judges' having the power or authority to speak the natural law directly. It goes on to argue, second, that lawmaking power/authority must be delegated by the people or their representatives. It then argues, third, that success in making law depends not just on the exercise of delegated power/authority, but also on the exercise of care and deliberation or, in the article's terms, …
A Quandary In Law? A (Qualified) Catholic Denial, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
A Quandary In Law? A (Qualified) Catholic Denial, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Patrick McKinley Brennan
A contribution to the second law review symposium dedicated to Steven Smith’s Law’s Quandary (Harvard 2004), this paper asks whether the “quandary” in which Smith finds modern law and jurisprudence is not, at least in part, the consequence of misunderstanding the classical natural law jurisprudence. The paper advances an interpretation of natural law according to which the natural law is the human person’s “participation” in the eternal law itself, with literally cosmic consequences for how we understand the ends and measures of human lawmaking. Mounting an argument against Justice Scalia’s thesis that “God applies the natural law,” the paper goes …
Against Sovereignty: A Cautionary Note On The Normative Power Of The Actual, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Against Sovereignty: A Cautionary Note On The Normative Power Of The Actual, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Patrick McKinley Brennan
Drawing on classical and contemporary jurisprudence and political philosophy, this Essay argues that the Roberts Court should seize the next apt moment to abandon the doctrines of “sovereignty” and “sovereign dignity” that the Rehnquist Court developed over the decade that began with the 1996 decision in the Seminole case. Although pursued in service of the laudable goal of “our federalism,” these doctrines work a corruption of our legal, political, and moral self-understanding. As they do so, they distract the Court and the citizenry from the disciplined commitment to the rule of law and legal justice by which a body politic …
Harmonizing Plural Societies: The Case Of Lasallians, Families, Schools – And The Poor, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Harmonizing Plural Societies: The Case Of Lasallians, Families, Schools – And The Poor, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Patrick McKinley Brennan
The modern state characteristically assumes or asserts a monopoly over “group persons” and their right to exist; group persons are said to exist at the pleasure or concession of the state. According to Catholic social teaching, by contrast, these unities of order -- such as church and family, as well as corporations and schools and the like -- are, at least in potency, ontologically prior to the state. Such group persons both constitute conditions of the possibility of human flourishing and, correlatively, impose limitations on the “sovereign” state. Such group persons are not mere concessions of an unbounded state: They …