Vermeule's Explanation of the Common Good

Here is @Vermeullarmine discussing 'What is the Common Good?'https://t.co/9tUlYhXnSC

— CommonGoodProject (@CommonGoodProj1) February 25, 2021

“What is the Common Good?” https://t.co/2vSfnUZx1q

— Ius & Iustitium (@iusetiustitium) February 25, 2021

A Blackfriar Project

What is the Common Good? Join @RMeade1215, Research Fellow at @AquinasOxford and Director of Regulatory Compliance Studies at @LoyolaLaw in conversation with @Vermeullarmine, Professor of Constitutional Law at @Harvard_Law: https://t.co/XiC47RJWD9

— Blackfriars, Oxford (@BlackfriarsOx) February 22, 2021

Enjoyed watching this—particularly liked @Vermeullarmine’s focus on aggregation as an antonym of the common good. Lots of today’s classical liberals (not including AV in this descriptor!) have forgotten about the CG; too many of those who haven’t conflate it with the aggregate.. https://t.co/vmfl4xc9hb

— Rebecca Lowe (@RMLLowe) February 22, 2021

A Reminder: Confucianism Is Allied to Statism

in practice, if not in spirit, and "imperial Confucianism" is not such a distortion of Confucianism as some modern proponents of contemporary Confucianism make it out to be.

How does the American administrative state look from across the Pacific? In the new @AmericanAffrs, Daniel Bell (@DanielB89913888) puts @Vermeullarmine & @CassSunstein’s Law & Leviathan in dialogue with Han Feizi as well as Confucian political thought 👇 https://t.co/e6d25hj8vO

— Gladden Pappin (@gjpappin) February 22, 2021

TCA Podcast with Vermeule and Deneen

This discussion by ⁦@GChristiemd⁩ with ⁦@Vermeullarmine⁩ and then ⁦@PatrickDeneen⁩ is compulsory listening for all sound (and even unsound) people on the unwritten constitution, the Leviathan state & Liberalism’s unmourned passing. https://t.co/Emh4awTvhd

— Gray Connolly (@GrayConnolly) October 7, 2020

TCA Podcast Ep 74

The Authority to Punish Heresy and Apostasy

Integralism as Christian Default by Kevin Vallier

It’s a sign of the times when ⁦@kvallier⁩ argues that “Christian political theologians now must either work within an integralist framework or explain why not.” (Not to say I agree with all of the analysis here, by any means). https://t.co/MIy4TRM9PU

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 20, 2020

Vallier:

Religious coercion has some limits, but it can be used to punish heresy and apostasy, and to ensure that Catholicism is the religion of the state.

Nowhere in the Kerygma or Tradition is political authority vested with the authority to punish heresy and apostasy. So why should we accept the claim that the political authority

It is not up to critics of integralism to show this claim is wrong when it is not a principle but a conclusion that must be given a demonstration/proof/derivation by its defenders. Repeating Aquinas or Augustine on this point could be one response, but Latin integralists must acknowledge the possibility that their arguments are flawed.

Act-consequentialism and integralism are plainly quite different normative theories. They are elegant approaches to ethics and political theory respectively because they make the good the sole normative master conception in a straightforward way. So much so, that one might even think that they’re the default normative theories.

I think that work on act-consequentialism has shown why it is axiologically mistaken. But I don’t think we yet have an account of why integralist axiology is mistaken if we take the truth of Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, for granted.

Latin integralism can hardly be said to be the "default" even for Roman Catholics when it doesn't have a place on the hierarchy of truths. I don't know how Vallier is able to make this claim, as if it were somehow self-evident.

Vermeule's Response to Straussian Josh Hammer

MOJ: On “Common-Good Originalism”

I was so engaged by Josh Hammer’s thoughtful work that I did an unusually long response — with bonus collateral remarks on some other varieties of originalism https://t.co/1HvKEn7rA1

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 10, 2020

Law and Leviathan

In 2018, @CassSunstein and I published a piece connecting administrative law with Lon Fuller’s account of law’s morality. (For a valuable response: https://t.co/DnDCybyuHE). Two years later, our project is almost finished. Release date is September 15! https://t.co/dl8HbRz5FU

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 1, 2020

Trolling Liberals

Some thoughts on abuse of power, addressed to my fellow classical liberals https://t.co/dGbtsxRiN2

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) April 25, 2020

Having written about one challenge that integralists face, I find today that Adrian Vermeule posted the following over at MOJ: Abuses of Power. He gives a list of abuses of concern, and ends with "Worst of all, the very grave abuse of state power identified by a defender of true liberty," citing Pope Leo XIII's Libertas:

Those who are in authority owe it to the commonwealth not only to provide for its external well-being and the conveniences of life, but still more to consult the welfare of mens’ souls in the wisdom of their legislation. But, for the increase of such benefits, nothing more suitable can be conceived than the laws which have God for their author; and, therefore, they who in their government of the State take no account of these laws abuse political power by causing it to deviate from its proper end and from what nature itself prescribes.

Of course those who are secular or anti-Christian would not accept that this is an abuse, nor is it the case that the imposition of a Catholic integralist state by force alone will solve this last abuse or any of the others. Changing the law through raw power is not sufficient. Is Vermeule trolling classical liberals, or is this just an inside joke, if Vermeule knows that serious classical liberals aren't paying attention to what he writes at MOJ?

It is one thing to use rhetoric or even dialectic to discredit intellectuals who are threats to a good political or social order. But I doubt a post like Vermeule's is going to convince someone to convert to Christianity or make Latin integralism more appealing to non-Christians.

There is also the theological issue of using an individual text of a pope of Rome as sufficiently authoritative in itself, but I will write more about that in a different post.

As for this abuse:

* The abuse of power by state and local governments, especially when abusively resisting attempts by the federal government to prevent or remedy abuses;

Liberals who are nationalists with respect to the powers of the Federal Government may agree that this is an abuse. Are there any liberals, other than libertarians and paleolibertarians, who still believe in states rights? Given what I have read of Vermeule's writings on the Constitution, I don't think he accepts the Constitution as it was ratified.

Related:
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae
Against the New Integralists by Raphael Fernandes
NOR: Dungeons and Dragons and Jurisprudence By Kevin D. Williamson

More on the Common Good

Me: “Authority is held in trust for and exercised on behalf of the community ... not for the benefit of individuals taken one by one.”

Patheos blogger, just making stuff up: Vermeule argues for aggregative utilitarianism! https://t.co/GYBvijIsMd

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) April 25, 2020

“A society constituted by persons who love their private good above the common good, or who identify the common good with the private good, is a society not of free men, but of tyrants.” — @ccpecknold

Exactly. A host of mini-tyrants is still a tyranny. https://t.co/Vq3Zwe2hs6

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) April 25, 2020

English Translation of the Vermeule Interview in Le Grand Continent

MOJ: Common-Good Constitutionalism Interview (English Translation)

This is what happens when Catholic intellectuals don't critically examine their own starting premises. They need to be called out on it, even if it doesn't lead to their opening their minds, because the rhetoric isn't for their benefit but for the benefit of the uneducated who know they are not educated.

An Interview with Adrian Vermeule

Le Grand Continent: Adrian Vermeule : « L’échelle géographique d’un programme de bien commun devra être celle de l’État administratif » (via MOJ)

Unfortunately it is available only for subscribers.

It is clear from the title though that he is a proponent of a centralized national government and a statist.

James Ceaser Responds to Vermeule

Law and Liberty: Adrian Vermeule’s Sixteenth-Century Constitutionalism by James Ceaser

"I found a court that agrees with me."

Fail harder.

This MoJ post by Adrian Vermeule.

So the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Governor Abbot's restrictions on "abortion procedures" during the COVID-19 emergency, referring to the same case that Vermeule did in his The Atlantic essay [Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905)]. Does he, ostensibly zealous Roman Catholic that he is, not know that just because a judge said it, doesn't mean it is right or moral? (Roe v. Wade, hello? Lawrence v. Texas? Obergfell v. Hodges? etc.)

Does Vermeule think that attempts to make HPV vaccination mandatory on our young people are justified? Or just those vaccinations he (or "experts") think are necessary and at the schedule they advocate? Weighing rights claims may not be easy but it is mistake to think that the "right to life" overrules all other "rights," or even other moral considerations.

Vermeule is a statist and no reasonable Catholic should pay any attention to his opinions. Maybe some of those postconservatism conservatives can align themselves with Vermeule but they deserve no support either.

Another Response to Vermeule

Adrian Vermeule’s Nosebleed by Thomas FitzGerald
Originalism has plenty of tools within itself to advance the common good.

Professor Vermeule can better serve the cause of Catholic integralism by pairing his laudable zeal for the natural law and for statecraft as soulcraft with a statesmanly rhetorical restraint in better accord with sensibilities shaped over centuries by the democratic republican traditions of America’s providential constitution. I would respectfully suggest to the learned professor that if he continues to puckishly troll the American democratic and scholarly publics with visions of an authoritarian bureaucracy that suppresses all vices, the integralist project he has seemingly made his life’s work risks being the work of a hero with a tragic flaw—an admirably pious and zealous, impressively clever, scorchingly witty, but recklessly imprudent crusader for Christendom who “violently bloweth his nose, and bringeth out blood.”

The question to be asked of integralists: "How many divisions do you have?" Do they realize they have no political power to implement their "ideals" at the national level or even at the state level? If we need political theorists doing intellectual work, it's to continue the work of Aristotle and the localists, and to look for concrete solutions to oligarchy in specific places.

Nate Hochman Responds to Vermeule

Is Vermeule still on a conversion high, with his particular theological development coming into play?

AmConMag: Adrian Vermeule’s Moral Madness by Nate Hochman
One can critique the limits of freedom and excesses of libertarianism without echoing the nihilism of totalitarians.

Adrian Vermeule on the Constitution

(via MoJ)

The Atlantic: Beyond Originalism by Adrian Vermeule
The dominant conservative philosophy for interpreting the Constitution has served its purpose, and scholars ought to develop a more moral framework.

But originalism has now outlived its utility, and has become an obstacle to the development of a robust, substantively conservative approach to constitutional law and interpretation. Such an approach—one might call it “common-good constitutionalism”—should be based on the principles that government helps direct persons, associations, and society generally toward the common good, and that strong rule in the interest of attaining the common good is entirely legitimate. In this time of global pandemic, the need for such an approach is all the greater, as it has become clear that a just governing order must have ample power to cope with large-scale crises of public health and well-being—reading “health” in many senses, not only literal and physical but also metaphorical and social.

Vermeule is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard? And he doesn't know that the Constitution is for the Federal Government and its powers are limited for a reason? Nor does he realize that the common good that is proper to the political community is not the same as the good of a federation because of the scale involved. In addition to being an integralist, Vermeule's a statist and a nationalist with respect to the Constitution. Those who disagree with him (I've included some reactions below), do so not because they disagree with the scope of power he is advocating for the Federal Government, but because of his favoring a confessional state or some other moral or religious principle. They would have a strong centralized government, so long as it promotes their ideology, and they too could talk about ruling for the common good as well, it's just that they have a different (and erroneous, though in their minds they think it correct and humane) opinion about how that common good is achieved and preserved.

Assured of this, conservatives ought to turn their attention to developing new and more robust alternatives to both originalism and left-liberal constitutionalism. It is now possible to imagine a substantive moral constitutionalism that, although not enslaved to the original meaning of the Constitution, is also liberated from the left-liberals’ overarching sacramental narrative, the relentless expansion of individualistic autonomy. Alternatively, in a formulation I prefer, one can imagine an illiberal legalism that is not “conservative” at all, insofar as standard conservatism is content to play defensively within the procedural rules of the liberal order.

This approach should take as its starting point substantive moral principles that conduce to the common good, principles that officials (including, but by no means limited to, judges) should read into the majestic generalities and ambiguities of the written Constitution. These principles include respect for the authority of rule and of rulers; respect for the hierarchies needed for society to function; solidarity within and among families, social groups, and workers’ unions, trade associations, and professions; appropriate subsidiarity, or respect for the legitimate roles of public bodies and associations at all levels of government and society; and a candid willingness to “legislate morality”—indeed, a recognition that all legislation is necessarily founded on some substantive conception of morality, and that the promotion of morality is a core and legitimate function of authority. Such principles promote the common good and make for a just and well-ordered society.

Let us do away with the pretense that the Constitution is even legally relevant with respect to preserving the order the Founders originally envisaged. That order disappeared a long time ago. What are we to do now? Do we do what we can to preserve observance of the moral law under the cover of the Constitution, interpreting it just so that for the sake of appearances, everything that is legislated is constitutional? Perhaps we would not disagree with this pragmatic approach so much, even if it involves a sort of "noble lie" or legal fiction that our observance of the Constitution is traditional. At least Vermeule admits that it is not. Our biggest disagreement remains - Vermeule looks to the central government as a solution; we look to decentralization and all that requires as the solution.

Common-good constitutionalism is not legal positivism, meaning that it is not tethered to particular written instruments of civil law or the will of the legislators who created them. Instead it draws upon an immemorial tradition that includes, in addition to positive law, sources such as the ius gentium—the law of nations or the “general law” common to all civilized legal systems—and principles of objective natural morality, including legal morality in the sense used by the American legal theorist Lon Fuller: the inner logic that the activity of law should follow in order to function well as law.

Doess the Anglo-American tradition recognize the Natural Law? It may depend upon its adherents, but I would think that the tradition would acknowledge that the Natural Law is embodied in the Common Law tradition; otherwise individual laws that are unjust are also invalid, and would or should have been nullified. Nonetheless, so long as we live in the shell of a federation of (sovereign) states we are tied to the Constitution, until that is replaced or some other agreement between the states is reached. Vermeule needs to stop imaging what power is able to achieve and consider instead what the limits of power are, after he has spent some time living in a true political community. Until that happens, his opinion (and that of integralists in general) is irrelevant as it has no basis in a true experience of community. It is just another version of received dogma with respect to political life.

How, if at all, are these principles to be grounded in the constitutional text and in conventional legal sources? The sweeping generalities and famous ambiguities of our Constitution, an old and in places obscure document, afford ample space for substantive moral readings that promote peace, justice, abundance, health, and safety, by means of just authority, hierarchy, solidarity, and subsidiarity. The general-welfare clause, which gives Congress “power to … provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States,” is an obvious place to ground principles of common-good constitutionalism (despite a liberal tradition of reading the clause in a cramped fashion), as is the Constitution’s preamble, with its references to general welfare and domestic tranquility, to the perfection of the union, and to justice. Constitutional words such as freedom and liberty need not be given libertarian readings; instead they can be read in light of a better conception of liberty as the natural human capacity to act in accordance with reasoned morality.

A "liberal tradition"? Perhaps some liberals wanted to restrict it. Maybe some oligarchs wanted to restrict it as well. But some originalists and paleoconservatives also wanted to restrict the reading of the general-welfare clause as well, because the Constitution enumerates the powers of the Federal Government, to which it is limited. Again, what sort of professor of constitutional law is this? One whose family background (his family name is Dutch) is tied to New England WASPs (Yankees), and a product of Harvard for both undergrad and law school. (A legacy admission? His mother was a member of the faculty for Radcliffe.) It's no wonder he is a Yankee Nationalist with respect to his understanding of the Constitution. He was also a clerk for Antonin Scalia -- was Scalia ignorant of the purpose and meaning of the Constitution as well, or were these lessons never given to his clerk, or never requested by his clerk? He converted to Roman Catholicism in 2016, and that grace is not going to remedy any defects in his opinions about the Constitution.

"Originalism has now outlived its utility, and has become an obstacle to the development of a robust, substantively conservative approach to constitutional law and interpretation," Adrian Vermeule writes: https://t.co/kqEQ4HD8Ql

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) March 31, 2020

Some reactions:

“Common-good constitutionalism is not legal positivism, meaning that it is not tethered to particular written instruments of civil law or the will of the legislators who created them.”

That’s certainly one way of putting it. https://t.co/4JNkZrEXwP

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) March 31, 2020

Originalism had a good run. Time for common-good constitutionalism, reason of state, illiberal legalism and direct, authoritative rule for the common good, says Adrian Vermeule at the Atlantic https://t.co/sLHB9HNMS9

— Gladden Pappin (@gjpappin) March 31, 2020

To add even more context, Adrian Vermeule has stated he believes liberal democracy is demonically inspired. That’s the meaning of the Biblical quotes discussing “liberalism’s true identity” in the piece below. Did the editors at The Atlantic miss that? https://t.co/CLGHDeY3S2

— Mark R. Yzaguirre (@markyzaguirre) March 31, 2020

The New Republic: The Emerging Right-Wing Vision of Constitutional Authoritarianism

No surprise here, Vermeule is receiving support from other Latin integralists: Adrian Vermeule’s Brilliant Essay on Common Good Constitutionalism

Even some "conservatives" are sympathetic to his argument:

Leave it to Adrian Vermeule to make everyone in the broader legal academy, commentariat, and profession alike lose their collective minds even while he’s off Twitter for Lent.

Good for @TheAtlantic for publishing such a bold argument. https://t.co/1QrIXZ99K2

— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) March 31, 2020

A critique: Rejecting Vermeule’s Right-Wing Dworkinian Vision by Lee Strang
NRO: Adrian Vermeule's 'Common -Good Constitutionalism': No Alternative to Originalism

The Problem with Catholic Integralism in One Tweet By Andrew T. Walker

Adrian Vermeule on Liberalism

Postliberal Thought: Liberalism as a Felix Culpa by Adrian Vermeule

Panel Discussion on the Common Good: Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., Prof. Jacqueline Rivers, Prof. Adrian Vermeule