The principles which he had already clarified in his own mind, and intended to apply to the rapidly changing drama of modern history, were Social Justice and Social Charity. In this view, all society is simply a habitual organization (technically: an “institution”) of human actions; which is in constant and necessary flux precisely because it is an organization of action, but which at the same time is kept constantly we could even say unchangeably organized for the same end, human and Christian perfection, by the Laws of Social Justice and Social Charity.
Pope Pius XI seems to have invented the very term “Social Charity” himself; but he picked up the term “Social Justice” from a growing popular usage which began about 1850. Before 1850, “Legal Justice” or “General Justice” were the only terms used to designate what we now call “Social Justice.” The history of “Legal Justice” had been a long and none too happy one; and when Pope Pius XI finally wrote the last chapter, he solved a philosophical “mystery story” whose solution had eluded the world’s best thinkers from Aristotle on down.
It was in the Fourth Century B.C. that the story began. Then Aristotle discussed “Legal Justice”—and probably invented the term in the Fifth Book of his Ethics; but he left the idea fuzzy and anemic. For him it wasn’t a special virtue at all, but rather a name for all virtues insofar as the law required their practice. It offered little help towards building a good society beyond the rather obvious information that law-abiding people made better citizens than gangsters.
There the matter stood until the greatest thinker of the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas, took the idea up and made something of it. What he did was to redefine it as a special virtue which has the Common Good for its direct object. Of course, the common good of society is so all-embracing that every act of virtue done by the members of society will contribute something to it. In this “indirect” way, Aristotle was right. That was why Legal Justice, whose direct object is the Common Good, was also called “general justice”: for the sake of that Common Good it could also (i.e., “indirectly”) demand acts of every other virtue. Thus, in defense of the Common Good of a country, it could demand bravery (“fortitude”) from a soldier. In this example the soldier’s virtue is not only that of fortitude (facing death bravely), but also that of Social Justice (defense of the Common Good); and every other virtue whatever could also become an act of Social Justice in the same way, i.e., by being done for the Common Good.
This is a great improvement over Aristotle’s imperfect notion, but it still leaves a tremendous question unanswered: If this Social Justice is now really a special virtue, does it have any special and direct acts of its own? It is easy to see how acts of the other virtues could all give the Common Good a “lift” once this Common Good is already a “going concern”; but is there an act of this special virtue which directly “makes” the Common Good starts it off and builds it up, or rebuilds it if it happens to be destroyed?
Much as he did for Social Justice, St. Thomas, did not ask or answer this crucial question, and for over seven hundred years after him, few philosophers asked it and none gave the answer. Of those few who did ask it, some denied that the question was a good one, and the rest said, No! In fact, one of the most recent of these, actually commenting on Pope Pius XI’s teaching, was so blinded by his own training that he could not see what the Pope was driving at, and ended his discussion of Social Justice with the awful statement:
“The Common Good is not an object which can be directly attained.” When it is remembered that the Common Good is the greatest of natural goods, that only under its sway can individual goods be attained or retained, that without it each individual’s share of personal perfection is either limited or destroyed, one can begin to realize what a mess society would be in if that statement were true! It may even be that the status quo (“Latin,” as someone said, “for the mess we are in!”) results, as much as anything, from our widespread belief that it was true.
The best that the social philosophers of the past could manage was to teach that in every action Social Justice required “a good intention” for the Common Good. But how uncertain this “good intention” is when not backed up by a complete theory of Social Justice, can be seen from the fact that the high-priest of unrestrained individualism, Adam Smith, appealed to it constantly to justify his destructive theories! Few books profess devotion to the Common Good more often or more insistently than his Wealth of Nations. It was left for Pope Pius XI to put the question clearly and accurately after twenty-three centuries! and to answer it right.
thanks for sharing...
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