Featured Faculty: M. Cathleen Kaveny
A View from the Bridge
Whether the subject is torture, electoral politics, cloning or assisted suicide, Professor Cathleen Kaveny is unlikely to shy away from controversy. In her teaching and writing, she embraces tough topics and dissects them from every angle—and not only as an academic exercise.
“I’m interested in general questions about what respect for human dignity requires, and how we live in a pluralistic society when we can’t all agree on the answer to those questions,” explains Kaveny. “I think of lawyers, especially Notre Dame lawyers, as potential leaders in their communities. Leadership requires them to be able to integrate moral and legal concerns in a sophisticated, nuanced way, and so I want to show them how that can be done.”
Kaveny says she is just as happy teaching a large class on contracts as leading a small seminar on a topic like ethics and law at the end of life. “I enjoy the range of teaching that’s available to me [at Notre Dame]. I really like teaching first-year contracts because I like what’s involved in introducing students to a rich, long and complicated tradition of thinking about justice in the context of private relationships,” she says. Advanced seminars let Kaveny explore one complex issue at a time with students, including its theological, moral, ethical, public policy and legal implications.
With undergraduate and graduate degrees from Princeton and Yale in philosophy, theology and law, Kaveny is well-prepared to cross disciplinary boundaries. She has produced an impressive body of scholarly research, but also contributes to Commonweal and other publications that reach readers beyond academe. This spring, she and Associate Professor Vincent Rougeau joined Sen. Barack Obama’s National Catholic Advisory Council, a role that provides yet another opportunity to bridge divergent worlds.
“The reason I got involved [in the Obama campaign] is that I do think he’s the best candidate for president,” says Kaveny. “It’s partly because of his message of hope, partly because of his stance on the war, and partly because he’s offering a way beyond some of the polarization that has caught the country in a morass of difficulty in the past years.”
Kaveny describes Obama’s advisory committee as a “bridge” between the candidate and Catholic voters, allowing each to learn more about the other through dialogue. Her own work at Notre Dame serves a similar function. “I think law and theology are both interested in bridging the past and the present and preserving values—not in a dead, desiccated way, but in a living way that honors the real commitments of people who lived in a different time,” she says. “At our best, that’s what we try to do as teachers and scholars.”
To learn more about Cathleen Kaveny, visit her faculty profile page.
