MORE LIBERALISM, NOT LESS:

Frankly, the strongest case to be made against Roe v. Wade is that it was a highly illiberal decision. The reason for the embittered fights in the US over abortion is precisely because a group imposed, by undemocratic means, a significant culturally-loaded piece of legislation through a court decision and not through liberal democratic processes. John Rawls was in favor of abortion, but not every liberal needs to be.

The crux of Culbreath's argument against liberal democracy is the fact that democratic processes could result in legislation fundamentally at odds with moral norms. Specifically, rights to life, but many other moral norms as well. However, his argument against the good of such processes involves a non-sequitur.

He begins: "There is something fundamentally wrong with a political system in which no institutions exist where the rights of the unborn may find permanent protection." This I grant. There is something unjust about societies that allow abortion, assuming (as I do) that abortion involves the intentional killing of a human being. But then he continues: 'since all the major institutions [in liberal democracies] are subject to the whims of a majority.'

Here, I'm already off the train. Nothing about liberalism requires our institutional arrangements be subject to whims of a majority. In fact, it strikes me as entirely not the aim of the American system that this be the case. Even were abortion legalized in the US by a tyrannical majority, that would only show that majority tyranny is problematic -- not liberalism.

In fact, classical liberals such as Mill were very much concerned about such 'tyranny of the majority' and proposed remedies for it. It is not freely to be granted that liberal institutions are functioning well, then, when they produce illiberal outcomes.

"For the protection of the natural law and the rights of the unborn," Culbreath then suggests, "a constitutional order is required that is in some respects pre-democratic, even 'authoritarian,' which will relentlessly pursue the common good without tolerance for those who would commit radical evil against the most defenseless among us."

What kind of 'authoritarianism' is Culbreath promoting? The claim appears to be that a regime should have political or legal mechanisms that do not allow legislation contrary to the right moral norms. I find this puzzling: while I agree a constitution should not be amended to allow abortions, I don't quite see how we could implement a legal mechanism for making it impossible to do so without seriously bad consequences.

In the United States, no majority of persons voted in favor of abortion laws, and no constitutional referendum was conducted. Yet imagine that we had. If we suggest that the federal government should have stopped this, by disallowing certain kinds of legislation (including constitutional referenda) that conflicts with its governing philosophy, this seems to slide pretty clearly and immediately into straightforward authoritarianism.

It seems to me that Culbreath's suggestion about 'authoritarianism' is left vague because there is no real alternative being advanced. And that's the problem. These kinds of illiberal critiques of democracy and procedural fairness in favor of the 'common good' strike me as ill-thought-out (and often romantic) approaches to government.

The basic sales pitch for the illiberal ideal is simple: as long as our political policies are achieved, we can destroy all the other political institutions and let God sort it out. I know personally many of these zealous young Catholics, like Jonathan, who think illiberalism is going to pay dividends for them and who mean well in wanting to see the 'social reign' of Christ the King.

The naïveté of the approach is staggering. The proponents of this kind of 'common good authoritarianism' just think that their friends will be the ones in charge. That, to put it mildly, is improbable in the extreme.

It is foolish and dangerous to think authoritarianism comes in 'good' varieties. The illiberal programme -- if it can be called that -- will only end in disaster.

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