The Supreme Court and Religion by Richard E. Morgan (review)

626 BOOK REVIEWS Perhaps Ramsey does not mean to imply that there is a determinate set of moral standards just awaiting application by members of the medical profession. It is possible that by setting the discussion within the context of the existing standards of medical ethics, Ramsey means only to justify certain methodological assumptions, among them: {1) an assumption concerning the deontologic!Ll character of ethics, and {2) an assumption concerning the humanity of this fetus. This view is not without support. Ramsey tells us that medical ethics is not a net-benefit ethics alone (p. xvi) ILUd he resolves the question of the fetus's humanity by appealing to the Peel Report and NIH guidelines. {pp. 27-28) But if this is what Ramsey means he weakens his argument considerably. This comes out most clearly in his discussion of the relationship between abortion and fetal experimentation . Those who deny the fetus's humanity will certainly argue that there is no fallacy of one-wrong-justifies-a-lesser-wrong And if one begins by rejecting deontology in favor of teleology he might find numerous grounds rejecting Ramsey's arguments. Those of us who accept Ramsey's conclusions will look forward to his developing a full-scale ethical argument in support of his views. In the meantime, The Ethics of Fetal Research provides much food for thought. The book is bound to generate discussion within the classroom and should be required reading for anyone taking a course in bio-medical ethics. Georgia State University Atlanta, Georgia JAMEs M. HUMBER The Supreme Court and Religion. By RICHARD E. MoRGAN. New York: The Free Press, 1972. Pp. 224. $3.95. " The inherited attitudes of the early settlers, the nature of colonial religious and legal practices, religious ' settlement ' at the federal constitutional convention, and the framing of the First Amendment are all matters which need concern us." Thus does Richard E. Morgan in the opening paragraph of his book The Supreme Court and Religion indicate the four principles which he sees at work in Supreme Court decisions on religion during the first two hundred years of this country's existence. Although some contemporary observers once characterized the early American community as "tolerant" and "cosmopolitan" in behavior, the "cultural baggage of the vast majority of those who managed the affairs of the town and colonies was, according to Morgan, " English," with two tendencies deriving from the English Reformation: one, " an abiding hostility to Roman Catholicism" and the other, "an implicit notion of the state as BOOK REVIEWS 627 an inferior and potentially dangerous institution." These, he states, gave to American culture and tradition, constitutionally embodied, the separationist thrust which has characterized court decisions ever since. Morgan sees the history of the Supreme Court decisions on religion as an uneven struggle between accommodationists, on the one hand, and separationists, on the other, the latter consistently, he would say, with the historically derived and constitutionally expressed tradition. While he acknowledges that "an important group of constitutional critics has argued that the Madisonian reading given the establishment clause by Black in Everson is simply incorrect on historical grounds," he brushes aside their " superficially attractive advice " as somewhat irrelevant for the reason that "the historical materials themselves will not settle anything." The task of the constitutional court, says Morgan, " is precisely to choose between conflicting traditions," using " the available historical materials to legitimize the choice." Summarizing his own position, the author declares that the Court " has done well to the extent that it has retreated from the quite sweeping theory of separation articulated by Black in the early pages of his Everson opinion ." Moreover, he sees the possibility "in the coming decade" that " sufficient support may develop " for the view (Kurland's) that, " providing the primary purpose of the governmental program be secular and the legislative ends satisfy the public purpose requirement of the due process clause, governmental programs which provide substantial support to religious institutions are constitutional." Contributing to this possibility, says the author, are five new conditioning factors: (1) "The argument for separation based on creeded divisiveness is weakening"; (Q) An increasingly urbanized or "mass" society is prone " to encourage the development of a variety of private...