7<4e Act aj Social ffuitice Rev. William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. S o cia l Rev. William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. An Analysis of the Thomistic Concept of Legal Justice, with special reference to the doctrine of Social Justice proposed by His Holiness Pope Pius XI in his Encyclicals Quadragesi- mo Anno and Divini Redemptoris, to determine the precise nature of the Act of this virtue. / IMPRIMI POTEST: W alter C. T redtin, S.M. -Superior Provindalis NIHIL OBSTAT: iGNATitJs S m it h , O.P., Ph. D. ‘s.?r J Censor Deputatus “ IMPRIMATUR: •^Mich ael J. C urley, S.T.D. Archiepiscopus Baltimorensis Copyright, 1943 Multilithed by Marianist Publications Mount Saint John Dayton, Ohio 1951 PIO UNDECIMO MAGNO TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE 1 CHAPTERS I. S t. T hom as’ A n alysis of L egal Justice . 9 The Doctrine of Aristotle ............................ 10 The Transition to the Doctrine of St. Thomas 19 II. Is there such a thing as an Immediate and P roper A ct of L egal Justice? ...................... 36 Did St. Thomas exclude the possibility? .... 42 What is the Immediate and Proper Act? .. 63 III. T he M odern S ocial Justice is L egal J ustice .... 79 The History of the Modem Term .................... 83 The Doctrine of Pius XI ............................ 91 IV. T he C ompleted T heory of S ocial J ustice .. 142 How did St. Thomas Overlook the Role of the Institution in Social Justice?.......................... 146 Institutions or Social Habits 159 The Significance of Social Habits or Institutions 179 V. Conclusion .. 193 The Act of Social Justice in its Four Causes 194 1. The Efficient Cause ............................. 194 2. The Material C a u s e ................... .. .. 202 3. The Formal and Final Causes .. 205 A ppendixes 212 A. On the Side of the Angels ........................... 212 B. “The Pastoral Theology of another day is now no longer enough.”—Pius XI . 218 B ibliography .... 235 PREFACE The traditional discussion of Social Justice, which is now generally recognized as identical with the Thomistic “Gen­ eral” or “Legal” Justice, has been limited very largely to the examination of the formal object of the virtue: the direct procuring of the common good. As to the material object, the treatment has been sketchy, since it appears to be rather idle to go into detail concerning a material object which embraces every act of virtue which can be referred to the common good. Most moralists and philosophers have there­ fore been content to let their whole treatise on the moral virtues stand im plicitly as the development of their doctrine on the material object of the virtue of legal or social justice. The same sketchiness has attended the discussion of the act of social justice. Beyond calling special attention to the acts of making and obeying laws, performing such public acts as voting, and having the intention of furthering the common good in one’s acts of particular virtue, little analysis has been attempted. In the face of the great and ever growing social disorder of the last century, the further analysis of both the material object and the act of social justice became an urgent ne­ cessity. The term “social justice” was invented by a sort of common consent since the older term “legal justice” had suf­ fered almost total eclipse in the six centuries of mere repeti­ tion that had elapsed since St. Thomas Aquinas borrowed the term from Aristotle and built around it a coherent doc­ trine. The many efforts, most of them very tentative, to define and further develop the concept of social justice attained what appears to be definitive success in the two Encyclicals of Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno and Divini Redemptoris. It is now possible to integrate the seven-hundred-years- old analysis of the Angelic Doctor with this modern develop­ ment; a task to which philosophers are urged (in Quadra- 1 2 Preface gesimo Anno) by the author himself of the modem develop­ ment: 48. That justice called commutative commands sacred respect for the division of possessions and forbids invasion of others’ rights through the ex­ ceeding of the limits of one’s own property; but the duty of owners to use their property only in the right way does not come under this type of justice, but under other virtues, obligations of which cannot be enforced by legal action. 49. Those, therefore, are doing a work that is truly salutary and worthy of all praise who, while preserv­ ing harmony among themselves, and preserving the integrity of the traditional teaching of the Church, seek to define the inner nature of these duties and their limits whereby either the right of property itself, or its use, that is the exercise of ownership, is circumscribed by the necessities of social living.(1)- To this should be added the observations of the most famous of the commentators of the Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, Oswald von Nell-Breuning, S.J.: The Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno has finally and definitely established, theoretically canonized, so to speak, social justice. Now it is our duty thoroughly to study this concept, .according to the strict re­ quirements of scientific theology, and to give it its proper place in the structure of the Christian doc­ trine of virtue on the one hand, and in the doctrine of right and justice on the other. Much remains to be done in this respect in spite of valuable contribu­ tions already made.(2) It is easy to miss the significance of these exhortations to further analysis and research. Most investigators who dis­ cover that the new word “social justice” simply names the long-neglected Thomistic “legal justice,” have been content to investigate carefully the Thomistic texts themselves for the development of the complete doctrine. One of the best Prejace 3 studies of this nature is that of Hyacinthus M. Hering in the Angelicum.(s) But to follow this course is to disregard an important in­ dication of the status quaestionis left by St. Thomas himself. When he wanted to leave a question open for further analy­ sis and research, he rather consistently indicated this by proposing his own as yet incomplete doctrine in a sort of figurative way, making liberal use of the particles quasi and tamquam, and of the indefinite adjectives, and employing synonymous expressions to illustrate different aspects of the question he was not yet prepared to settle. A celebrated ex­ ample of this is the Vis cogitative. “which is said by some” to be particular reason (4) and proceeds per “quamdam” col- lationem (5) “quasi” syllogistice inquirendo praeteritorum me- moriam (5) per “aliquant” affinitatem et propinquitatem ad rationem universalem, secundum “quamdam” refluentiam.^ This studious choice of figurative language is perhaps no­ where employed more consistently by St. Thomas than in those places where he must touch on the act of legal justice: Est in principe principaliter et “ quasi architectonice”; in sub- ditis autem secundaria et “quasi administrative.” (7) In prin­ cipe quidem est “sicut” virtus architectonica, “quasi imper- ans et praecxpiens” quod, justum est; in subditis autem est “tamquam” virtus “executiva et ministrans” w Such expres­ sions are a standing invitation to further research; and where St. Thomas uses them consistently, such research will have to be undertaken outside the letter of his text. Other investigators do indeed go beyond the letter of the text, but only to set up intermediate objectives by which the common good is to be attained. One of the most repre­ sentative examples of this procedure is Merkelbach’s treat­ ment of the “ Objectum materiale justitiae legalis magis spe- ciatim spectatum in necessitatibus hodiemis.” Following the Encyclical Rerum Novarum he lists the following objectives: “morum probitas,— recte atque ordine constitutae jamiliae,— custodia religionis — ac justitiae, — onerum publicorum cum moderata irrogatio turn aequa partitio,— incrementa artium 4 Preface et mercaturae — florens agrorum cultura” w Such subjects are really a more detailed consideration rather of the formal object than of the material; for they are ends of action—inter­ mediate, it is true, but still in the same final relation to the actions as “the common good” itself, which is their ultimate end. From the development of such intermediate ends we learn nothing new concerning “the inner nature of these du­ ties and their limits” (1) which is the real task pointed out to philosophers by the Holy Father. Even when this need for a new development has been discovered and explicitly pointed out, it is still possible for a serious student of social justice to leave the real problem untouched. Thus, in a sort of epilogue to his very good his­ torical study of the meaning of the term “social justice,” Dr. Leo W. Shields takes care to point out where the real prob­ lem lies: We have seen that the notion that social justice is an extremely ambiguous term is founded on the fact, not that it is used with too many different meanings, but that i‘ is commonly and primarily used to mean something that is not very well understood. The remedy for this condition is a wider and sounder understanding of the precise nature of the end, obli­ gations, and acts of the general justice with which social justice must be identified.(10) (Italics added) At the very end of his study, Dr. Shields has occasion to set forth briefly his own idea of what should be the precise nature of the obligations and acts which he had indicated thus as the most important question of study. Evidently no great development could be expected in what is after all only an epilogue to his real object of research (the history of the term); yet it is certainly legitimate to call attention to his answer as an example of how even those who correctly state the problem can fail to treat it: How is it (social justice) to be revealed in prac­ tice? In a democracy every voter, far more every influential person, has to have social justice prin­ Preface 5 cipally, as a ruler.