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Listening for the Future in the Voices of the Past: John T. Noonan, Jr. on Love and Power in Human History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

M. Cathleen Kaveny
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Extract

With the publication of After Virtue in 1981, Alasdair Maclntyre revolutionized the study of post-Enlightenment moral philosophy by insisting that it repent of its current pretensions to a view from eternity and confess its temporal roots in the long and motley history of human reflection about the good life. Almost a quarter of a century earlier, John T. Noonan, Jr., a young Harvard-trained legal scholar who possessed a doctorate in philosophy from Catholic University, had waged a similar battle against the widespread misconception of the medieval concept of usury as monolithic, self-contained, and immutable.

Working with medieval authors who were themselves largely insensitive to the idea of historicity, writing in the context of a pre-Vatican II Catholicism still imbued with the abstract and ahistorical spirit of nineteenth century neo-Thomism, Noonan demonstrated in his first book that the concept of usury was in fact a fusion of concrete theological, ethical, economic, and legal concerns which were not stagnant, but organically developing. In so doing, he gave Catholic Christianity a more adequate conception of its past. More than that, he gestured optimistically toward its future. Tracing how the absolute prohibition of usury, defined as any lending of money at interest, was circumscribed, attenuated, and finally abandoned by succeeding generations of moral theologians and canon lawyers, Noonan underscored that the Church could and did change its mind about important moral issues which were held to implicate unalterable strictures of the natural law. Revealing that an increased willingness on the part of moralists to acknowledge that moral experience of Christians professionally involved in the practices of commerce and banking had fueled the evolution of the usury doctrine in past centuries, Noonan nourished the hope for a stronger voice of lay experience in ecclesial discussions of moral issues throughout the years to come.

Type
Symposium in Honor of Judge John T. Noonan, Jr.
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 1994 , pp. 203 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1994

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References

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9. Noonan, Usury (cited in note 2).

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11. Id at 107-139.

12. Id.

13. Noonan, The Power to Dissolve (cited in note 5).

14. Id at 80-122.

15. Noonan, Bribes (cited in note 7).

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47. This is not surprising, since Noonan does not conceive the purpose of Persons and Masks of the Law as second-guessing judges but as exploring the interaction between individuals, rules, and the legal system.

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49. Id at 137-139 (emphasis mine).

50. Noonan, Persons and Masks (cited in note 25).

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65. National Council of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S.Economy at ¶¶ 261–293 (United States Catholic Conference, 1986)Google Scholar.

66. Compare Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation at xliv (Orbis Books, 1988)Google Scholar.

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68. Id at 533.

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80. For a helpful discussion of legal argument, see White, James Boyd, Heracles' Bow: Essays on the Rhetoric and Poetics of the Law (U of Wisconsin Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

81. For example, see Noonan, John T. Jr., The Morality of Abortion: Legal and Historical Perspectives “Introduction” and “An Almost Absolute Value in History” (Harvard U Press, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Noonan, John T. Jr., A Private Choice: Abortion in America in the Seventies (The Free Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

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83. Harrison, Beverly Wildung, Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion at 267 n 25 (Orbis Books, 1983)Google Scholar.

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86. Noonan, Persons and Masks of the Law (cited in note 30); Noonan, The Antelope (cited in note 6); Noonan, Bribes (cited in note 7); Noonan, The Believer and the Powers that Are (cited in note 8).

87. Compare Vatican, IIGuadium et Spes § 5 (cited in note 57)Google Scholar.

88. Id at § 10.

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90. She can. Midler v Ford Motor Company 849 F2d 460, (US Ct App, 9th Cir 1988).

91. Noonan believed that he does, but the majority disagreed. Harris v Vasquez 913 F2d 606, (US Ct App 9th Cir 1990).

92. No; she merely has to prove a well-founded fear of persecution. Lazo-Marjano v Immigration & Naturalization Service 813 F2d 1432 (US Ct App 9th Cir 1987).

93. An abridged version of this article was published in 18 Religious Studies 112-17 (1992).