As we’ve noted
once or twice on this blog, we like to get questions from our readers. This makes it easy to write the next blog
posting. The only thing we like better
is being able to, er, “borrow” somebody else’s answer to a question on some
aspect or point of the Just Third Way.
That’s why we
were pleased to receive the following question following up on an earlier
response we had given to a highly technical question that we won’t inflict on
you . . . unless you really want to know about the determination and
calculation of projected post tax rates of return on private sector enterprises
versus state-owned companies in the Eurozone. . . .
No, we didn’t
think so. Suffice to say that (at least
according to a
research paper prepared by the European Investment Bank), privately owned
enterprises typically have rates of return on invested capital twice that of
state-owned enterprises, and — according to the
National Center for Employee Ownership in Oakland, California — private
sector companies that are 100% owned by the workers, have participatory
management and profit-sharing typically out-perform otherwise comparable
companies by 150%. ’Nuff said.
Now, on to the
new question. As our correspondent
asked,
I would like to ask one more
question, I am really struggling with this. What does it mean “to have full access to the
opportunity and means to become virtuous”? It’s from the post, “Life, Charity, and Justice” on January 23, 2020. How can we know whether this condition is met
or not? —
When someone has full
access to the opportunity and means to become virtuous
and fails — for whatever reason — only then does charity step in to make up
where justice may have been lacking. Again, charity does not in this
way invalidate or replace justice, but completes or fulfills justice.
That is an
excellent question . . . which is not a way of dodging the question, but of
introducing the answer. We have answered
this question before, but not directly, so it bears repeating.
 |
| Aristotle |
To begin, we have
to know the meaning and purpose of life.
Within an “Aristotelian” framework or philosophy such as the Just Third
Way, the meaning and purpose of life is to become more fully human. This is not to say that there aren’t other
answers to this question, but this is the Just Third Way blog, and we’re giving
the natural law, Just Third Way answer.
. . . which
actually raises another question. That’s
only to be expected, as we haven’t yet answered the main question, which is, What
does it mean to have full access to the opportunity and means to become virtuous? We have a number of other questions to answer
before we can answer that.
And the next
question is, What do you mean by “become more fully human”?
Now, keep in mind
that this entire discussion is framed within the philosophy of Aristotle,
especially as corrected and expanded by Aquinas. In Aristotelian-Thomism, all things and
persons are fully what they are from the first moment of their existence.
The difference
between things and persons is not in the fullness of their existence, but in
the difference between the nature of a thing, and the nature of a person. Yes, we’re actually answering the main
question, but we have to build up to it.
 |
| Aquinas |
A thing has a
determinate nature, that is, a thing is what it is. A tree is a tree just like every other
tree. A rock is a rock the same as every
other rock. You can have different kinds
of trees and rocks, but they are still trees and rocks because they have the
specific characteristics common to all other trees and rocks.
Persons, on the
other hand, have determinable natures, that is, a person is not defined
by what it is, but by what it has the capacity to become! The commonality shared by all persons of a
specific type (e.g., human persons) — the good common to all persons of
that class, or “common good” if you will — is not a specific set of
characteristics, but the capacity to acquire and develop a broad range and
degree of characteristics.
Thus, the
difference between a thing and a person is that a thing is defined by its characteristics,
while a person is defined by its capacity to acquire and develop
characteristics.
But wait, there’s
more! We’re talking about human
persons here, not other natural persons such as angels or God, or artificial
persons created by human beings such as political entities and business
corporations.
 |
| Persons and things are fundamentally different. |
A human person
does not have all human characteristics from the moment of conception or even
birth. It does, however, have the
defining characteristic of what it means to be human, which is the only one
that really matters: the innate capacity to acquire and develop human
characteristics.
The job of each
human person is therefore to acquire and develop human characteristics, thereby
becoming more fully human. The complete
package of human characteristics is perfect or perfected human nature. Since no mere human being is perfect (we’re
not concerned here with a perfect God-man such as Jesus, since that is a matter
of faith), we conclude necessarily that human persons are not perfect,
but perfectible.
 |
| Human persons must pursue virtue, it doesn't just happen. |
Human persons
become more fully human or “more perfect” by conforming themselves more closely
to perfected human nature. This is done
by working to acquire and develop characteristics that, while they do not define
human nature, conform to human nature.
The more a human person conforms to human nature, the more fully human
he or she thereby becomes.
Don’t worry, we’re
getting to the answer. . . .
Conformity to
human nature consists of acquiring and developing human-ness, or what in Latin
is called “virtue.” Thus, the more you
conform to your perfectible human nature, the more “virtuous” you become.
Another way of
describing virtue or humanness is “the habit of doing good,” “good” in
Aristotelian terms being that which conforms to nature. When Aristotle declared that “all things aim
at the good,” he explained that what he meant was that all things tend to
conform to their own nature. And if they
don’t? It’s because they have a bad or
inadequate idea of what good consists.
 |
| Justice is the premier natural virtue. |
Traditionally,
the virtues of human nature are temperance, fortitude, prudence, and (above
all) justice. We’re not concerned here
with the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity. That’s another whole discussion.
How do human
persons acquire and develop the natural virtues? By exercising their natural
rights of life, liberty, and private property.
(By the way, the right to be alive, to be free, and to be an owner are
not the same as the rights OF life or how you live, OF liberty or what you can
do within the limits of law, custom, and common sense, and OF private property
or what you can own and how you can use it, but that, too, is another whole
discussion.)
Now comes the
hard part. Human persons are not mere
individuals who can do what they want when they want without concern for
themselves, other persons, or the physical and social environment within which
we subsist. Nor are we faceless members
of “humanity,” mere indistinguishable cogs in society.
 |
| "Man is by nature a political animal." |
No, we are what
Aristotle called “political animals.”
Human persons by nature live in an organized institutional environment
called the pólis, hence political. We are individuals with individual rights,
but we can only exercise those rights within the constraints established by our
“political environment,” within which other people are also exercising their
rights, all presumably working to acquire and develop human-ness or virtue.
The problem is
that sometimes the institutional environment is badly structured. That is, the institutions no longer do the
job(s) for which they were designed, which is to help people acquire and
develop virtue. We can tell when that is
happening when there are people being treated unjustly as a matter of course,
or there are problems that no one acting by him- or herself is able to
correct. As a result, people are being
prevented from becoming virtuous, or are even being encouraged to become vicious,
or the opposite of virtuous.
When that
happens, social justice demands that people get organized to correct those
institutions that prevent people from becoming virtuous. In modern society, what seems to be the
single biggest flaw that prevents people from becoming virtuous is lack of
capital ownership. Capital ownership is so
important to being able to participate in society and become virtuous that
Aristotle declared (wrongly) that people who own nothing except their labor
aren’t even able to become virtuous!
So, ordinarily
the first demand of social justice in any society is to make it possible for people
to become capital owners by opening up access to the means to become
owners. Usually, that means access to
money and credit to be able to purchase capital assets that pay for themselves over
time out of their own future profits.
This is not automatic, of course.
People don’t just get handed money.
New money can be created, but ONLY for new capital that will pay for
itself and is adequately collateralized either with existing wealth or capital
credit insurance.
When people do
not qualify to use capital credit to become capital owners, it is essential
that whatever is preventing them from becoming capital owners be corrected. Someone who lacks collateral can use capital
credit insurance. Someone who can’t find
good capital to purchase can be helped to locate good investments. Someone who is a bad manager can hire a
professional. And so on.
And that is the
answer to the question that began this discussion. When there are institutional or other
barriers that prevent people from having access to what they need to become
virtuous, social justice demands that people get organized to remove those
barriers so that people have full access to the means to acquire and develop
virtue.
Any (more)
questions?
#30#
