Recently we got an enquiry regarding a misunderstanding about our use of the term “Economic Personalism” and some potential confusion with the virtue of justice. Someone (Person A) had expressed disagreement with our using the term Economic Personalism to describe a type of economic democracy and then asked if we were trying to change the name of the Center for Economic and Social Justice to the Center for Economic Personalism. Quick answer: No.
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| Aristotle |
After another someone (Person B) had a conversation with Person A, Person B wrote us a note saying, in his view and as he understood it, “personalism and justice are not synonymous. The first refers to individuality. The second to fairness.”
To begin, we do not recall ever saying personalism and justice are synonymous. We certainly do not think so. Further, personalism does not refer to individuality, but in this context is an acknowledgment of the centrality of the human person in the Just Third Way. “Person” refers to a human being’s social identity, that is, his or her position and status in society.
As a person, a human being is not purely an individual with no connection to other individuals or any membership in groups, nor is any human being purely a member of society. Rather, every human being is a person, and as a person is both an individual and a member of society. This combination is what Aristotle called “political” and is why he said, “man is by nature a political animal” (Politics, 1253a).
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| Aquinas |
According to Aristotelian-Thomist personalism, which is the type of personalism we believe is consistent with the Just Third Way, every person has the “analogously complete” (think of it as “the same” or “equal” although that is not entirely accurate) capacity to become virtuous (or vicious) by acquiring and developing virtues (or vices). The most important “temporal virtue” a person acquires and develops is justice. Personalism is not justice in this framework. Personalism provides an understanding of justice, its role and purpose in human society, and fosters an environment within which justice can function.
To become virtuous, persons exercise their natural rights. Principal among these natural rights are life, liberty, and private property. While it can be argued that life and liberty are more important than private property, it is clear private property is the most immediate, for it is the chief prop of life and liberty.
For persons to be able to develop and grow in virtue, justice therefore demands they have access to the opportunity and means to own capital, thereby gaining the power to exercise rights. This is why the Just Third Way is based in part on the three principles of economic justice:
· Participative Justice, or the input principle, “from each according to his productive contributions through his labor and capital,”
· Distributive justice, or the out-take principle, “to each according to his labor and capital contributions,” and
· Social justice, or the feedback and corrective principle that repairs the institutional environment whenever anyone is denied equal opportunity to contribute to production through his labor and/or capital, or from receiving his just due according to his contributions.
In Aristotelian-Thomist personalism, the human person is both the subject and object of rights. That is, each person has both rights and correlative duties. In contrast, things — non-persons — have no rights; things are only the object of rights. Not being the subject of rights, things cannot acquire or develop virtue.
Rights, of course, come under justice. As the premier temporal or natural virtue, therefore, justice is the principal means by which persons become “naturally virtuous.” (We will not get into the theological or supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which would only complicate this discussion.)
Thus, personalism and justice are not synonyms, and we have never knowingly made such a claim. If we ever did so, we do not recall, but it would be grossly inconsistent with what we understand to be our own position.
Rather, justice is the means by which persons realize (acquire and develop) their capacity to become more fully human, that is, more fully persons and thereby recognize their status as the focus of all human endeavor. Personalism is a framework within which justice can function in a manner which puts the human person at the center. It is not — nor could it be — itself justice, any more than the road on which an automobile runs is itself an automobile.
Justice is a moral virtue (the “habit” guiding human beings in how they should act with each other and with their institutions and the vast network of institutions that Fr. Ferree and Pius XI referred to as “the Common Good.” It is the virtue which directs how we render to each what each is due.
Personalism (and in the economic sphere, Economic Personalism) refers to the philosophy and paradigm whose moral basis is the human person. This covers each person’s human dignity, rights, equality of opportunity, and access to the Common Good. Intrinsic to “Personalism,” as defined by both Pope John Paul II and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., are the principles of justice, social justice and economic justice that support “each person’s human dignity, rights, equality of opportunity, and access to the Common Good.”
The principles of justice, social justice, and economic justice must guide the actions of human beings with regard to other human beings and to our institutions. That is, these principles guide us in organizing and working together to reform unjust institutions which block equal access and opportunity to an individual person, group, or class of persons.
The understanding, expression and application of these principles of justice, however, can be totally different when viewed from the perspective of:
· “Individualism,” each person as an island unto him- or herself, acting only for one's own benefit,
· “Collectivism,” the individual human being is unimportant; the group or society is the only thing that matters, or
· “Personalism,” each human being is unique and equally deserving of dignity, equal opportunity and access to the Common Good with which to develop their human potential and human civilization.
Many of the people in CESJ believe this “ism” is completely compatible with what we have called “the Just Third Way.” We think it provides a philosophically and semantically appropriate counterpoint to the paradigms of “Individualism” and “Collectivism.” As applied in economics we call these “Capitalism” and “Socialism/Communism,” respectively.
For a more in-depth discussion of how we use the term “Economic Personalism,” and its relationship to the Just Third Way, social justice, economic justice, please see the book, Economic Personalism: Property, Power and Justice for Every Person. The book is available from Amazon and as a free download from the CESJ website.
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