Social Justice

SOCIAL JUSTICE. - A new and very frequent term, born of the vague unease that derives from something lacking in modern society and from the feverish aspiration to seek it out.

I. DEFINITION

In reality the idea itself is not well defined and, in its many equivocations, offers good ground for the agitational actions of so many demagogues, more or less interested or deluded servants of national and international hegemonic tendencies, whether political or social in content or, more often, economic.

Therefore social justice is the magic expression that resounds from the most opposite shores, and peoples, made credulous by exasperated needs, ceaselessly fluctuate between the opposing shores. Serious doctrine, especially in the Catholic field, has made and is making great efforts to define exactly the concept of social justice, with the aim of then proceeding surely and effectively to its concrete realization.

The results of these efforts are considerable, thanks especially to the light of pontifical documents, but they are not yet complete; probably the reality, both techno-economic and ethico-juridical, that one wishes to interpret, is not itself definitive, but still in a phase of evolution. Reserving for last a brief mention of the systematic question of the placement of the virtue of social justice among the other moral virtues, it is above all opportune to give its concept as precise and complete as possible.

Social justice, before being specifically social, is first of all generically justice (v.) in its proper and not merely metaphorical meaning. It therefore comprises the essential elements of every type of justice, which are three: the duality of the subjects, which justice brings into relation; the obligatory nature of that relation, which is therefore a characteristic relation of right-duty; the quantity that delimits the content of the relation itself, a quantity beyond which the right is no longer conceived and in which the duty is extinguished. The duality of the subjects presupposes their physical or moral distinction. By virtue of it every justice is essentially social, at least in the generic sense of establishing and regulating relations among men, thus influencing their social life.

In this sense the other virtues that are exercised for the benefit of one's neighbor are also social, as, for example, charity. These, however, are either not obligatory or, if they are, their obligatory nature is not founded in the right of the person for whose benefit they are exercised, but elsewhere; for justice, on the other hand, the source of the obligatory nature is not extrinsic but intrinsic to the relation itself, which is therefore a characteristic relation of right-duty.

As for the content of this relation, more than the qualitative aspect, the quantitative aspect is relevant; not only because it measures the greater or lesser gravity of the obligation but above all because, the entire obligatory nature of the relation being exhausted within the limits of the quantity, it guarantees the personal independence of the two subjects, who nonetheless remain united to one another by the bond of justice.

Although every justice is social, as has been said, there nevertheless exists among the various species of justice a specifically social justice, with which we are concerned here. In it the threefold element essential to every type of justice assumes a characteristic configuration, which constitutes social justice as a species of its own, distinct from every other.

II. DUALITY OF SUBJECTS IN SOCIAL JUSTICE

Social justice, with its relationships, brings face to face not individual with individual, but individual with society, in such a way that society is the subject of the right, and the associated individual is the subject of the duty.

Since society is the subject of the right, social justice, even though it immediately benefits individuals or groups of them, always aims at the good of society as a whole, and therefore from this type of justice derives its proper specification as social.

But what precisely is society insofar as it is the holder of a right to which, by social justice, the duty of the associates corresponds? A preliminary observation is necessary.

A well-constituted society presents a multitude of men, suitably organized and operating toward the same end, of whose advantage all proportionally avail themselves. That end, seen thus at the center of social reality, constitutes in concrete terms what is called the common good.

It is common twice over: insofar as it is the product of the cooperation, more or less immediate, of all, and then insofar as all, more or less mediately, enjoy it. Around the common good gravitate the two essential moments of social life: the moment called productive, insofar as it shows the social organization directed toward the production of the common good; the moment called fruitive, insofar as it shows the social organization directed toward the enjoyment of the common good. It is evident that the two social moments, the productive and the fruitive, although in concrete reality they are inseparably interwoven, from the point of view of morality and of law are entirely distinct.

This being established, when it is said that in the relationship of social justice the subject of the right is society, what is meant is society considered above all in its productive moment.

In the very fact of their belonging to society it is intuited that the associated individuals have duties toward it, considered as the complex of the organizations socially operating for the common good.

It is usually said that social justice obliges toward the common good. To be precise: the common good is the end of social justice; only the productive social moment is the subject of its rights. But since the common good is the goal to be attained in the productive social moment, by metonymic language the expression is correct. To avoid dangerous misunderstandings, however, the distinction between the common good, as the end of social justice, and the productive social moment as the subject of its rights should be duly recalled.

Like the common good, so society, seen in the productive moment of the common good, are very complex realities; the more complex the more numerous the associates are and the higher their social end. For the state society, for example, which is the one that interests everyone most, the common good comprises very many and among the most disparate elements, from private and public economy to culture of every kind, from demographic conditions to sporting events, and so on. It must, however, be carefully noted that the common good does not consist only in the sum of these elements, but more in their stable equilibrium, insofar as they realize the end of state society, which is temporal well-being, informed by morality and by law, subordinate to the ultimate, even supernatural, end of man.

To the complexity of the common good corresponds the complexity of society, seen in the productive moment of the common good.

Remaining with the same example, the productive moment of state society will present itself as the ensemble of all the organizations which by their efficacious influence contribute to producing, consolidating and improving the specific common good of state society, from economic institutions to cultural ones, from demographic provisions to sporting associations, and so on. Here too it must be diligently noted that the productive moment of society does not consist so much in the totality of these organizations and institutions as in the stable and balanced dynamism of those operating for the common good.

In the midst of the society of peoples, social justice must establish and preserve the equilibrium of a social organism much more complex than the national one; of an organism, on the other hand, much simpler and more elementary within the lesser associations more or less directly subordinate or coordinated to the social life of the nation. But whatever the nature and extent of society, the subject of the social justice operating in it is always the productive social moment.

It is self-evident that over against this not only the subjects of society but also the authorities have obligations; indeed, the latter, influencing the efficiency of the common good more, have greater obligations than the simple subjects.

It would be a most serious error not to distinguish between society and authority and to designate the latter not as the subject of the duties but as the subject of the rights of social justice. At no point does legal positivism prove more pernicious than here. It is true that among the tasks of the authorities is that of defining the duties of subjects toward society and of watching over their observance; it is also true that this task of the authority presents itself to subjects as a right of the authority; but this does not mean that this same task, when it is referred to society as a whole, is not a rigorous duty and in no way a right. Thus, over against society, subjects and authorities are on the same plane of collaboration for the common good, equally bound by duties of social justice, though in different ways.

St. Thomas expresses this truth in truly elegant terms. The duties of social justice, which he calls general or legal, are «in principe principaliter et quasi architectonice; in subditis autem secundario et quasi administrative» (Sum. Theol. 2a-2ae, q. 58, a. 6). The authority is the subject of the duty of social justice architectonice. For it falls to the authority, following an exact knowledge of the general state of social affairs, to architect a system of laws in which each subject finds defined the sector and the limits of his concrete collaboration for the common good. They could not indeed know this of themselves, if for no other reason than that they lack the general vision of things within which to frame their own action.

In this observation lies the most evident condemnation of economic liberalism. Who then does not see how the authority influences the efficiency of the common good principaliter, by architecting the law well, and that subjects instead influence it secundario by faithfully observing it? The law formulated by the authority and observed by subjects is the ordinary instrument of social justice. That is why St. Thomas calls this type of justice legal.

Therefore the authority and the subjects are the primary subjects of the duties of social justice, but neither the one nor the others could effectively and easily determine and practice their respective social duties without the help of intermediate associations. Their well-arranged network, filling the enormous distance that runs between the central authority and the individual, performs most precious tasks. It provides the authority with more complete information on the needs and the resources of individuals, so that the laws may respond to the real exigencies of the common good and to the possibilities that truly exist of realizing it. Conversely, by means of these associations the subjects of every condition can be better informed, supported and supervised for an observance of the laws, not only according to their literal tenor, but according to the spirit of their purposes. Above all, many questions can be resolved within the associations themselves, many individual duties of social justice being fulfilled in them, something that neither could the subjects do on their own, nor would it conveniently engage the higher authority. The solutions given by these bodies (one need only think, for example, of collective labor contracts) prove more agile, more attuned to the particular conditions of time and place, and lighten the already too heavy volume of business that weighs upon the authority and that today often transcends the reasonable limits of human possibilities.

Moreover, this system of associations, legally regulated, while it favors private initiative and respects individual freedom, does not permit them to develop outside the common good, and still less against it. It further guarantees a minimum of stability to social life, even in cases of crisis of the authority, a malady all too frequent in modern politics. For these and many other reasons the pontifical documents warmly recommend, as necessary and most useful for the solution of questions of social justice, a broad network of lesser associations within the bosom of modern society. It goes without saying that the extent of such a network will be proportionate to the extent of the society in which it unfolds.

In conclusion, like every justice properly so called, social justice too, through its relationship, sets face to face two subjects really distinct from one another. The subject of its right is society, considered in its productive moment of the common good; the subject of the duties is threefold: the authority, individuals, and intermediate associations.

Between these two subjects, that is, of the right and of the duty of social justice, there is a real distinction, though more or less inadequate, inasmuch as authority, individuals and intermediate associations are not set in opposition to society as a whole, but are an integral part of it.

But is the part not really distinct from the whole?

III. OBLIGATORINESS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

The nature of man and of the things he needs - at least in our present state - obliges him to live in society; on the other hand every society, by reason of its end and its nature, obliges its members to collaborate for the common good, which constitutes the duty of social justice; therefore it is the very nature of man, of things and of society that gives an obligatory character to the duty of social justice. This means that social justice obliges by force of natural law.

But toward which society in particular will the duty of social justice oblige man? Evidently toward those societies to which he in fact belongs. That is: toward the Church, to which he must belong by force of divine-positive law, in order to attain his supernatural perfection; toward a state society, to which he must belong by force of the law of nature, in order to attain a complete human perfection; toward those associations to which he belongs in fact by force of his free contracting, in order to attain - in the various sectors of human activity - those particular ends that are proportionate to his own aptitudes and needs.

It is self-evident that the number and the binding force of the duties relating to each of these societies cannot be the same. Moreover the duties toward one society are subordinate to the duties toward the others, in the same order in which the societies themselves and their respective ends are subordinate: thus from the lowest up to the greatest, which is the society of all peoples, whose common good is to be harmed by no people, but increased by all. The same subordination is to be observed on the part of all these societies of the natural order respectively toward the Church, which is the greatest society of the supernatural order.

But in which concrete actions or omissions will the duty of social justice be determined for each member? Only in those that will prove to be in necessary connection with the common good of the society to which he belongs.

It is true that the said necessary connection with the common good will ordinarily prove certain and precise thanks to duly promulgated positive law, but it is not always so. For the omission of very many acts harmful to the common good, as for many positive acts, their necessary connection with the common good may prove clear even from private knowledge: then they will be obligatory by natural law, antecedently to every positive law.

IV. QUANTITY IN THE DUTY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

First of all, both qualitative and quantitative limits are necessary to the right and respectively to the duty of social justice. Without them, the associates would have to devote all their activity directly to the common good; nor could they directly reserve any part for the defense and development of the personal individuality, as an entity distinct and independent from the social totality. It would be the entire sacrifice of all the associates for the advantage of society. But - since society is nothing outside of the associates - in the end, the sacrifice of all of them would resolve into nothing. It is the absurdity of those who babble that the individual exists for society and not society for the individual. Communism is founded on this absurdity, aggravated by the other absurdity of considering the common good either exclusively or subordinately in function of the dominant economic values.

Granted this necessity, the limits, qualitative and quantitative, to the right and to the duty of social justice are in fact marked by the same criterion, stated above, of the necessary connection to the common good. Every associate, that is, must work for the common good only in the sector and to the extent indicated by his own possibilities together with the exigencies of the common good.

Any other collaboration would either be impossible or would harm the rights of the human person, without social advantage. Here applies the observation made above, namely that the law is not always necessary to establish these limits.

It is true, however, that in the present conditions of society, without the light of the law and without the pressure of its sanction, spontaneous collaboration for the common good is effectively reduced to nothing. Peoples and rulers, preoccupied with their own personal interests, look upon the common good as something only to be exploited, not to be produced before enjoying it. And it follows clearly that, in such a spiritual disposition, no one sees his own social duty: that everyone enters into particular associations, considering them only as a more powerful instrument for exploiting the common good, not as a more effective means of realizing it; that in the face of the laws themselves, which make present to subjects, to authorities and to associations the form and the obligation of their own social duty, one takes a systematic attitude of hostility, so that all excuses and all maneuvers are good for eluding their observance.

This disintegrating disease is certainly not of recent date, but in modern society it seems to find the most favorable ground for its development and its destructions.

The level of technique and of modern civilization demands a more complex common good and consequently a broader, more intense, more balanced organization in producing it; especially in the economic sector. In this sector, the largest national units alone are no longer sufficient; international collaboration is by now necessary. But this unfortunately proves so frail, because it is not only unsupported by the equilibrium of analogous international organisms in the other sectors, for example, of politics; but is rather subordinated to nationalist politics.

Hence the imbalances so sudden and profound that today too frequently upset the social life of nations and of the entire world. The vastest and most intense earthquakes are not so harmful by comparison.

In conclusion, today, beyond the effort to possess clearly and precisely the concept of the common good, according to the reality of things and not according to ideological or political prejudices; beyond the effort to determine in function of the common good the social duties of individuals toward particular associations, of these toward the nation, of nations toward the entire human society, of all toward the Catholic Church, the effort must be strengthened to awaken as soon as possible, by all means, individual and collective, and in everyone, peoples, rulers, private and public collectivities, a more sensitive social conscience.

Not only does he have no right to participate in the common good who does not collaborate in realizing it, but it is in fact impossible to participate in a good that cannot subsist without the collaboration of all. By right and in fact the fruitful social moment presupposes the productive social moment.

V. SYSTEMATIC QUESTION

What place should be assigned to social justice in the Thomistic system of the moral virtues? The majority of Catholic scholars maintains — and rightly so — that social justice coincides with the legal or general justice of St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 2ᵃ-2ᵃᵉ, q. 58, a. 6). Only a few observations need to be added.

Social justice, by subordinating the acts of all the other particular virtues to the requirements of the common good (hence its name of general justice), certainly modifies them in some way. Social justice always adds to their original moral goodness that goodness proper to its own formal motive. By virtue of this, moreover, it can render obligatory an act which is indeed good but free within the sphere of another particular virtue. Such is the behavior of charity, which is likewise a general virtue in the supernatural order, as social justice is in the natural order.

But does the sphere of action of social justice coincide with the sphere of action of the other virtues, or does it transcend them all, thus constituting a sector proper and exclusive to its influence? One thing is certain: because of its complexity, the equilibrium of modern social life can no longer sustain itself on the observance of the particular virtues alone. In the past, in a simpler system of social life, the associates, attending only to their own interests without harming those of others, more or less also realized the common good of all. Small gaps were sufficiently filled by the exercise of charity, so that the necessity of a broad application of social justice was not felt. For this reason the ancient authors speak little of it. Today this is no longer the case. The observance of the particular virtues is required, charity must intervene; but — to preserve the stable equilibrium of social life — it is indispensable that social justice exercise a vast and efficacious influence, both within the sphere of positive law and within that of natural law. Indeed, one may reasonably foresee that the necessity and the extent of its influence will go on growing.

Therefore sociologists in general, and jurists and moralists in particular, are called upon to undertake a joint and up-to-date investigation, one that proportions the quantity of duties of those who make up social life to the successive developments of that life. The task is extremely delicate, especially for moralists, who are always cautious when it comes to binding men's consciences with grave duties that decisively affect their eternal salvation. But the reality of things is this, and its problems must be courageously faced and resolved. Moreover, there is no reason to be to be pressed. Social j. is not a new virtue, nor is its duty new; it has existed since the world began. What is new are its applications to the renewed conditions of modern society. This happens thus for all the virtues, though in smaller proportion, because of the limitation of their formal object. And moreover, moralists have a sure guide in their investigations, an infallible guarantee in their conclusions: the Chair of St. Peter.

Leonardo Azzolini