REASON OF STATE. — Ratio is the principle, the rule that governs the life of the State. R. di S. is the translation of ratio reipublicae. The celebrated phrase first appears in the Italian language in Francesco Guicciardini’s Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze (cf. ed. by R. Palmarocchi, Bari 1932, p. 163). Its original meaning (according to the Latin etymology of ragione: ratio Status) is concept of the State, and this is the sense BORGO (v.) to his book on politics: Della r. di S. (Venice 1589), famous in its time as a work intended to be set against Machiavelli’s Principe (v.). But already at that time (the end of the 16th century) the phrase began to be given a somewhat different meaning, taking ragione in the sense of reason for acting and hence necessity.
At first it was restricted to the existence of what is necessary in order not to perish, that is, to guaranteeing the State’s right to exist. The r. di S. was invoked to justify exceptional measures that limited the ordinary rights recognized, either by law or by custom, to peoples, or that seemed to violate international justice. The phrase had a very elastic meaning, thus serving in politics and diplomacy to cover with a mantle of dignity the selfish interests of a nation or of a dominant caste (cf. G. Chiaramonti, Della r. di S., Florence 1635). In this sense it had no lack of precedents in the maxims and practice of politicians of all times, such as the Roman salus publica suprema lex and Caiaphas’s plea: “You understand nothing at all: you do not consider that it is expedient for one man alone to die for the people rather than for the whole nation to perish” (Io. 11, 49-50).
In the political doctrine that developed in the footsteps of Machiavelli, what was initially presented as an emergency measure became a maxim: the interest of the State stands above everything (Principe, chap. 18 § 2). Gradually, as the Enlightenment mentality prevailed, the limits that respect for the moral doctrines of the State religion imposed, at least in appearance, upon that maxim fell away: the theory of the modern State was perfected and received from Hegel its metaphysical formulation. The r. di S. thus ends in the identification of reason with the State: the State is the highest realization of reason, of Spirit.
The medieval doctrine, summarized by St. Thomas, assigned to the State an end that lies beyond the State itself, namely the bonum humanum, the good of the human person (cf. Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃᶜ, q. 102, a. 1; 2ᵃ-2ᵃᶜ, q. 174, a. 2; I. Leclercq, L'Etat ou la politique, Namur 1929). The modern State, on the other hand, recognizes no end beyond itself: it absorbs the individual into itself, and the individual is not truly human except insofar as he is a cell of the State; he has no rights except those he receives from the State, nor can he assert before it any demands that do not coincide with the life of the State. Likewise, the lesser societies intermediate between the State and the individual (among which the family comes first) do not exist for a reason of their own, but only as an emanation of the State: the State is not content to direct and discipline them by its sovereignty; it absorbs them into itself as the principle of their very existence. The State entirely monopolizes the social nature of man, denying or ignoring that it can be realized in ways that do not fall within the sphere of the State itself, as occurs through the bond of universal humanity, or through the spiritual bond that unites Christians with one another in the supernatural society, the Church of Christ (M. Missiroli, Date a Cesare, Rome 1931, pp. 7, 339 ff.; A. Hitler, Mein Kampf, Munich 1933, especially pp. 451 ff., 490 ff.; G. Del Vecchio, La crisi dello Stato, in Saggi intorno allo Stato, Milan 1936, p. 49 ff.; C. Benoist, La crise de l'état moderne, Paris 1936). In this conception, characteristic of the modern State, the r. di S. is no longer merely an uncompromising affirmation of the precedence that the interest of the State has over any other consideration, including moral considerations; nor is it merely the politics (v.), as a category irreducibly different from that of ethics (a doctrine in some way traced back to Machiavelli); rather, it becomes the supreme rationalization of reality, and therefore the very principle of ethics identified with politics (cf. C. Schmitt, Politische Theologie, Munich-Leipzig 1922). The inhuman consequences to which such a doctrine leads in practice have entered the historical experience of recent decades. A reaction (cf. C. Dawson, Il giudizio delle nazioni, Milan 1946; H. Belloc, La crisi della civiltà, Brescia 1948) has already appeared, and the doctrine of the modern State mentioned above is beginning in our own day to provoke objections, even outside the circle of Catholic scholars, who have always rejected it as false in itself and the mother of despotism (cf. J. Huizinga, Lo scempio del mondo, Milan 1948).