How to Be a Socially Just Person

Last week, in “A Little Creative Misdirection and Misunderstanding,” we addressed the issue of whether people should decide for themselves which laws they want to obey.  Of course, ultimately that is something everyone does anyway, but we were looking at it from the perspective of people as members of society, not as individuals with no connection to others.

How to Be Both a Good Person and a Good Citizen

 In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the belief that you can decide for yourself whether to obey a law, good or bad, and whether such a decision excuses you from taking the penalties for breaking the law.

A Little Creative Misdirection and Misunderstanding

    At first glance, it sounds like another instance of President Trump standing up for the little guy.  That’s okay, we all need a little help, and the smaller we are, the more we need someone with immense power to take up for us and give all those fat cats and oppressors of the poor and downtrodden what-for and tell them where they get off.

The Ungodly Have No Rights . . . Right?

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the question whether Jesus, whom Christians consider a divine person, was also a human person.  We decided that — whether you believe him to be divine, he was human, and therefore necessarily a person.

A Certain Personality

    A short time ago we got into an incredibly pointless argument on FaceBook which began when someone made the somewhat “interesting” remark that because Jesus, whom Christians regard as a divine person, was a convicted felon, then no one should have any problems with the current president of the United States.

The Meaning and Purpose of Life, IV: The Maker’s Answer

In the first and third parts of this article we — or rather our guest blogger Guy Stevenson — asked questions.  In Part I the question was, “Why do I exist?”  In Part III, the question was, “What is social justice?”  Today Guy gives Fulton Sheen’s version of “The Maker’s Answer.”

The Meaning and Purpose of Life, III: What is Social Justice?

 Last week we looked at the question of “justice as love.”  This week we look at the question of “social justice”.  This will baffle many people today, because they think they have already answered the question, and the answer they have is that something called “social justice” replaces and transcends both justice and charity as traditionally understood.

Dignity, Sovereignty, Faith, and Reason

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.

Personalism and Justice

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.

Why It’s Not Distributism

A little backstory.  A few years ago, we were asked to prepare an explanation of what we mean by “the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism.”  Even though we are an interfaith group, the request came from an official at the Vatican (not the pope or anyone you know).  We wrote the explanation based on universal principles of natural law applicable to all “natural” faiths and philosophies (mostly based on or compatible with Aristotelian philosophy).

Something Missing

Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

In response to the spread of socialism and the other “New Things,” Pope Pius IX, socialism and the other new things continued to spread.  Finally, in 1868 he convened the first ecumenical council since Trent in the sixteenth century.

Faith and Reason

Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Man, as Aristotle noted in the Politics, is the rational animal. Anything that shifts the human person away from reason as the foundation of a faith or a philosophy contradicts essential human nature, that is, what it means to be human.

An Introduction to Reason and Logic

We’ve repeated this so many times on this blog that most of our readers should have this memorized by now, but we’ll do it again anyway, if only for old times’ sake.  The “first principle of reason” can be stated in two ways, one positive and one negative.  The positive statement of the first principle of reason is called the law or principle of identity.  It can be stated, “That which is true is as true, and is true in the same way, as everything else that is true.”

Its Name Is Legion

Whatever you call it, it is quite possibly the biggest problem in the world today.  No, that’s not to denigrate or belittle poverty, racism, war, climate change or any of the other ills that plague humanity.  It is, however, to denigrate most of the attempted solutions to poverty, racism, war, climate change, and many of the other ills that plague humanity.  These have been increasing geometrically in magnitude, largely as a direct result of the modern world’s abandonment of common sense, that is, truth and reason.

Rights and Wrongs About Rights

Recently in a discussion about something else entirely a question came up about rights and duties.  This is an important topic in the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism, for “personalism” derives from “person,” and “person” — legally speaking — is that which has rights.  This is important in the greater scheme of things because it is by exercising rights (especially life, liberty, and private property) that we become “virtuous,” that is, more fully human . . . which, according to Aristotle and other philosophers, is the reason and purpose of life.

Social Justice and Liberal Democracy, II

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the origins of the term “social justice.”  While it has and continues to mean many things, Msgr. Luigi Taparelli gave the first consistent and “scientific” definition of social justice in the 1830s.  As he defined it, social justice is a “general virtue,” meaning — strictly speaking — that it is not a true virtue, but a principle guiding the practice of actual, “particular” virtues, such as prudence, fortitude, temperance and, above all, justice among the natural virtues, and faith, hope, and charity among the supernatural virtues.

Social Justice and Liberal Democracy

A popular meme floating around social media shows actor Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.”  The problem was bad enough with a single word in a work of fiction.  It gets much worse when it is many words in real life.

A Question of Jurisprudence

Today we look at abortion from a natural law perspective.  In our opinion, looking at it an any other way is at best a misdirection, and at worst a serious strategic and tactical error.  In particular, making it a religious issue does little good in the long run, although in the short run it makes it easier to get emotional support and raise funds.

More Than an Individual Problem

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, life in the early nineteenth century had thrown a lot of curves at most people in the form of massive social, economic and political change, and the institutions of the social order were not keeping up.  Instead, radicals were calling for the abolition of all old institutions, such as private property, organized religion, and marriage and family, and their replacement with what was called by many names, but with one substance: socialism.

Scrooge v. the Socialists

In the previous posting on this subject, we noted how, in contrast to today’s super-rich, and traditional capitalists and socialists, when Ebenezer Scrooge saw the light (and the three spirits), and became charitable, he didn’t call it “justice” and he used his own money.  He also didn’t consciously control Bob Cratchit, despite the fact that the system of the time pretty much forced employees into a condition of dependency, which a master could make burdensome or easy.  Naturally, many masters really rubbed their employees’ noses in it, as they knew their employees were inferior beings or they would have been in charge . . . right?