A recent presidential "appointment" and its likely impact on corporations in the financial sector generated a post by corporate law professor Stephen Bainbridge here. One might ask what relevance that has to this blog’s focus on Delaware corporate and commercial litigation. Well, some issues are of such fundamental importance that they impact almost every field of endeavor. Specifically. as one of the nation’s leading corporate law scholars, Professor Bainbridge’s erudite comments on the interface between social justice and corporations as well as its role in public life/politics, are relevant to the question of what is appropriate for corporations to consider when they make decisions. An excerpt from the post follows:

Is social justice now a verboten subject in the new, post-Palin conservative movement? And, if so, why?

As a Catholic and Christian, do I not have a moral obligation to promote social justice? The Catechism treats social justice as part of the life in Christ. Pope John Paul II wrote that "peace is built on the foundation of justice." He situated "daily work and struggles for justice in the context of bearing witness to Christ the Saviour." 

Coincidentally, this week also brings us reports in the mainstream media of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Great Britain and his historic address to Parliament in Westminster Hall during which he discussed the proper role of religion in the public square. In a speech by His Holiness to members of the British Parliament, he referred to St. Thomas More, an English scholar and statesman who was martyred (after a sham trial), for refusing to agree with King Henry VIII on matters of faith. The following excerpt from the speech is especially noteworthy:

And yet the fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident – herein lies the real challenge for democracy.

The inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex social and ethical problems has been illustrated all too clearly by the recent global financial crisis. There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world. Just as "every economic decision has a moral consequence" (Caritas in Veritate, 37), so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore. A positive illustration of this is found in one of the British Parliament’s particularly notable achievements – the abolition of the slave trade. The campaign that led to this landmark legislation was built upon firm ethical principles, rooted in the natural law, and it has made a contribution to civilization of which this nation may be justly proud.

The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This "corrective" role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves. And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

Religion, in other words, is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation. In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance. There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none. And there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience. These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square. I would invite all of you, therefore, within your respective spheres of influence, to seek ways of promoting and encouraging dialogue between faith and reason at every level of national life.

In the same vein, the Pontiff discussed the "dictatorship of relativism", a refrain of his papacy and one of the most memorable sound-bites of his Pontificate. As I understand it, part of that theme is that religion is informed by reason, and likewise, science is improved by considerations that only religion can offer. Similarly, in remarks to Queen Elizabeth II by His Holiness during his trip this week to the U.K, the Successor to St. Peter, who before he became Pope was a first-class scholar in the fields of theology and philosophy, had this to say:

"There are some who now seek to exclude religious belief from public discourse, to privatize it or even to paint it as a threat to equality and liberty,” the pope said. “Yet religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect, leading us to look upon every person as a brother or sister.”