In today’s posting, we’re taking a look at some basic principles of the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism. As we understand it, the Just Third Way begins and ends with the dignity and sovereignty of the human person. Any plan, program, activity, or thought contrary to or which undermines the dignity or sovereignty of the human person must be rejected or reformed to the point where it either enhances human dignity or at least does no material harm.
How does this first principle apply to the place of the human person in society?
To answer, we look to the concepts of personalism and solidarity. We define personalism as any school of thought, or any intellectual movement, which focuses on the reality of the human person and each person’s unique dignity.
Solidarity is a “virtue,” virtue being the habit of doing good, but not in the same sense as, for example, justice and charity. A characteristic of groups per se, solidarity is a principle which fulfills and completes “general justice,” general justice being the principle of justice which permeates all virtues. Solidarity is thus a sort of “general social charity.” It appears to relate to social charity as legal justice relates to social justice, viz, a general virtue as it relates to a particular virtue.
Solidarity describes an awareness of rights and duties within a particular group which define how sovereign individuals relate as persons to one another and to the group. All people as members of a group have solidarity when they have that awareness and can participate fully as members of the group.
A right is strictly defined as the power to do or not do some act or acts in relation to others. All rights have correlative duties, a duty being strictly defined as the obligation to do or not do some act or acts in relation to others. It is important to note a duty is not the opposite of a right; the opposite of right is “no right,” meaning no power to act or not act.
Solidarity is an essential prerequisite for social justice, social justice defined as the particular virtue directed to the common good which makes acts of individual virtue possible. People act in a socially just manner when they organize and carry out acts of social justice to repair or reform institutions to make acts of individual virtue possible. Social justice does not and cannot substitute for or replace individual justice or charity or anything else. The role of social justice is solely and exclusively to restore the just structuring of the social order so individual virtue is once again effective.
Only members of groups acting in solidarity with all others in the group and on behalf of the group can carry out acts of social justice. By this means cooperation is achieved, not by absorbing people into the group or collective, but by mutual interaction and give-and-take in exercising rights and attaining the common goals and aspirations of the group.
Together, solidarity and personalism provide a practical means for applying natural law principles to many of today’s otherwise overwhelming problems. Solidarity motivates our care for the common good. Personalism focuses our actions on promoting the dignity of every human being and on how each person can relate fully to society and to the common good. Combined, the two concepts offer a way to solve problems which puts even the biggest tasks within the reach of every person. What, however, does it mean to be a person or a human being?
And where do faith and reason fit into this?
Man, as Aristotle noted in the Politics, is the rational animal (1252a.). Anything which shifts the human person away from reason as the foundation of a faith or a philosophy contradicts what it means to be human.
In contrast to personalism is fideism, the idea truth is determined by what one believes, rather than what can be proved by reason or is consistent with reason and thus conforms to natural law. Natural law is defined here as the universal code of human behavior, while truth is defined as conformity to reality, reality being something independent of the human mind which perceives it. (Mortimer J. Adler, Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990, 21-22. Cf. J.M. Bocheński, The Methods of Contemporary Thought. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968, 3-5, 6.)
Objective truth is unimportant, even irrelevant in fideism. Disagreements become settled not by facts or logical argument, but by whoever’s faith is stronger or (more accurately) whose opinion can be expressed most forcefully or becomes most popular; “Might makes right.” This leads to the belief right and wrong depend only on the will of some authority. This leads in turn to nihilism, the belief life is meaningless. Nihilism leads to contempt for other people, then for everything except oneself, and finally even for oneself.
Fideism thereby directly undermines the dignity of every child, woman, and man. We define dignity as the “quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed.” By calling fundamental truths into question, fideism undermines or nullifies the power every person needs to control his or her own life.
What we call the “Just Third Way” does not force people to conform to abstractions imposed by whomever happens to have power. Rather, people guide themselves by their own understanding of the absolute values of ultimate reality reached through reason and observation.
As such principles are discerned by observation and reason, they must be based on or consistent with reason. In this way, although the process is imperfect, we all grow and prosper when every person can relate to each other, society, and the common good as a whole in conformity with universal values, such as truth, beauty, love, and justice.
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