In the
previous posting in this series, we introduced our subject by noting that
Pope John Paul I was head of the Catholic Church for a bare thirty-three days —
one day for every year of the traditional age of Jesus’s life on Earth . . . which
has no significance of any kind whatsoever (the coincidence, that is!). Nevertheless, John Paul I still managed to
say a few things about the Church’s social teachings, at least enough to see
that he was in tune with every pope since Gregory XVI, which is when Catholic
social teaching emerged as a discrete discipline within the larger body of
Catholic thought.
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| Pope John Paul I |
Of course, we know
that John Paul I did not have time to issue any encyclicals, social or
otherwise. All he had time for was to
make a number of statements regarding his plans for the future and indicate the
general direction of his thought. That,
however, is enough, given the fact that, according to the Catholic Church, doctrine
may be developed and applied in many different ways, but changed in its
essence, never.
Having said that,
we do have to issue a caveat. There is massive confusion today between knowledge and opinion. The late Mortimer
Adler, the “Great Books” philosopher and convert to Catholicism, noted in his
book, Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1985),
that far too many people cannot tell the difference between knowledge and
opinion, and may not even know there is a difference — another crime to be laid
at the door of modern Academia.
Consequently,
many people today, even quite a large number of Catholics, are absolutely
convinced that the Magisterial teachings of the Catholic Church are not only far
from absolute, they are subject to change if enough people think they should be
changed. Almost as bad (if not worse)
are those experts — every age has its
experts, but modern mass media seem
to have made anyone who can scream loudly enough into an instant expert . . . especially those who have
no idea what they are talking about — who claim that of course Catholic
teaching has not changed. What has
changed is our understanding of it.
Either people in the past were so stupid they did not realize the truth
now revealed to the experts, or
people today are so stupid, etc.
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| Saint Thomas Aquinas |
Nowhere is this
more evident than in the understanding of “social justice,” a relatively new
term as such things go in philosophy — a new term describing an old thing; as
far as truth is concerned, non novum sub
soles, “nothing new under the sun.”
Nor does justice itself or any of the other virtues, natural or
supernatural, get any better treatment.
In the New Age (which is not all that new) and modernism (which is not
all that modern), all absolutes, such as virtues, rights, and even truth itself,
are subject to change, redefinition, or outright abolition if those who desire
the change have enough power — but more about that, later.
So how do we
define justice and social justice? Today
we’ll look at the classic definition of justice and get to social justice
tomorrow. According to Aquinas, it is by
justice that one renders to another his or her due by a perpetual constant will
(IIa IIae, q. 58, a. 1.). Justice
directs each person in his or her relations to others according to some kind of
equality or rightness (IIa IIae, q. 57, a. 1; De Veritate 23, 6.).
In somewhat more
simple terms, justice means that you make certain if someone is due something,
he or she gets something. “Classic”
justice is divided like all the virtues into two kinds, particular and general.
A “particular”
virtue is directed at something (or, more accurately, someone) specific; like a sentence, it has a “direct object.” You cannot owe $5 without paying $5 to
someone specific or particular to
satisfy the obligation. Nor can you be
owed $5 unless someone specific has incurred a debt to you of $5. You cannot love God with Whom you have no social
contact, or mankind in general, and hate your particular brother or neighbor with
whom you interact socially without being a liar. (1 John 4:20)
As implied in the
definition of particular virtue, a “general” virtue differs from a particular
virtue in not having a direct
object. With respect to justice, “general
justice” is that type of justice that “infuses” all other virtues, that
motivates you to act prudently, temperately, courageously, lovingly, hopefully,
and faithfully (to include the supernatural virtues as well as the natural
ones) toward others, thereby rendering those others their due as fellow human
persons. “In the most extensive sense of
the word ‘justice’ differs little from ‘virtue’; for it includes within itself
the whole circle of virtues.” (“Justice,” Black’s
Law Dictionary.)
In fact, no
virtue is a true virtue unless it conforms in some way to the demands of
justice. Charity, for example, is not
really charity unless the demands of justice have been fulfilled. Refusing to treat others prudently,
temperately, or with courage is to render them less than their due as human
persons. Thus, someone who dislikes
another and acts imprudently toward him or her without bothering to try to become
reconciled or to get to the root of the problem is a “triple threat” with
respect to violating the demands of virtue, transgressing against prudence and
charity in particular, and against justice in general.
In classic
justice, there are two types of justice, commutative
and distributive. Commutative justice is the “justice of contracts,”
and the most basic form of justice from which all other forms of justice
derive. “It consists in rendering to
every man the exact measure of his dues, without regard to his personal worth
or merits, i.e., placing all men on
an equality.” (Ibid.)
Distributive
justice is the “justice of proportion” —
. . . that which should govern the distribution of rewards
and punishments. It assigns to each the
rewards which his personal merit or services deserve, or the proper punishment
for his crimes. It does not consider all
men as equally deserving or equally blameworthy, but discriminates between
them, observing a just proportion and comparison. (Ibid.)
Thus,
distributive justice is the justice that demands what benefits or losses are
assigned to individuals in a joint endeavor in civil society. If A
contributes 80% to a project such as a business, and B contributes 20%, then — unless there is a free agreement
otherwise — A receives 80% of the
benefits and suffers 80% of the losses, while B receives 20% of the benefits and suffers 20% of the losses.
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| Father William J. Ferree, S.M., PH.D. |
Due to the
terminology, the final part of today’s discussion may be the one that gives the
most trouble. It has given so much
trouble that in his doctoral thesis, The
Act of Social Justice (1941, © 1943), and again in his pamphlet, Introduction
to Social Justice (1948), CESJ co-founder Father William J. Ferree,
S.M., Ph.D. noted that most philosophers have carefully avoided discussing this
particular topic for at least 2,500 years . . . and it is all Aristotle’s
fault. This is because classic justice
is not only divided into particular and general justice, it is divided into
individual justice (commutative and distributive) and . . . “non-individual
justice,” which we are calling that for reasons that will become immediately
apparent.
Confusion starts
with the fact that, as far as Aristotle was concerned, there is only one “non-individual
justice.” This is “general justice,”
which, since it is not a particular justice, is . . . a general justice.
You see the
difficulty here. Aristotle tried to
explain something in terms of itself, or at least by using the same
terminology, which is a sure way to confuse the issue. It only helped a little when he tried to
explain that general justice (a general justice) when it is applied is called “legal
justice,” because it is most often by the State passing good laws, and by
citizens obeying them, that the common good is indirectly benefitted and the
aspect of justice that permeates all other virtues has its effect. . . . which
causes another problem, because “legal
justice” also means the
administration of the law!
And that is why
we are going to address the whole “problem of legal justice” tomorrow, and then
only briefly, just to get our definitions and understanding straight.
#30#