Kevin Lee offers up a very interesting post on the Citizens United case from the perspective of Catholic social thought re corporations. Although I disagree with Lee's view that the case is "a dangerous development for the American democracy," I found the brief essay highly thought provoking:
Corporations, not being ontological persons, have no inherent rights. They are creatures of the states in which they are chartered by the authority of the executive, typically acting through the secretary of state. The Supreme Court seems to seek to federalize the ability to shape the rights that states give to the entities they create.
Catholics have traditionally affirmed that the physicality of real human persons is foundational for their dignity. Philosophical systems that have sought to ground the dignity of the person apart from the physical embodiment of actual beings run two risks--first, they devalue the dimensions to human existence that cannot be communicated conceptually--thus conscience can be viewed as a collective discourse. They mystery of persons revealed in Christ escapes such discourse. The mystery of the person is not disclosed in discourse, but in the mystery of the Eucharistic presence and the mystery of the Church as communion. Second, by devaluing the physical, the body becomes an object of inconvenience and subject to scorn when it becomes an interference with one's lifestyle. Life as a physical reality loses meaning.
I'm always glad to see law professors taking CST seriously, even though they usually deploy to ends with which I find myself in disagreement.
