Lesson 18: Wisdom and Witness--Just War and Pacifism

AGENDA

• Catholic Social Teaching and the Demands of Justice
• Catholic Social Teaching and Just War and Pacifism
• Review Case #10: Just War and Pacifism

CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING AND THE DEMANDS OF JUSTICE

1. In Augustine
1. “Justice is love serving only the loved object and therefore ruling rightly.” (OMCC, p. 331)
2. In Aquinas (ST, Q61, a2)
1. “The formal principle of virtue is the good as defined by reason.
2. “Justice is reason putting its order into something else;
3. “the will is the subject of justice.” (the rational appetite)
3. In U.S. Catholic Bishops (in selection from Economic Justice for All)
1. Begin with "Biblical Justice"—“a just society [is] one marked by the fullness of love, compassion, holiness and peace.” (p. 35)
2. Norms for basic/minimum justice:
1. Commutative Justice: fundamental fairness
2. Distributive Justice: allocation of resources in light of those whose needs are unmet
3. Social Justice: mutual obligation of persons to participate in social life and society’s duty to enable participation
3. Society has the capacity to exclude people and deny justice
4. Common Good: “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.”
5. Rights:
1. Every right has a corresponding duty, as both are bestowed by God not granted by the State.
2. Rights are not licenses for self-determination but means by which people in society realize authentic human flourishing. [Implies debate about human flourishing]
6. Fundamental/preferential option for the poor (par 87-90)
4. Review Handout on Catholic Social Teaching

CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING AND THE TRADITION OF JUSTIFIED WARS

1. The tradition of justified war is best understood as a test of the ideals of Catholic social teaching in an imperfect world where one has assumed the responsibility of governance in the civil order.
1. If one is committed to the basic elements of Catholic social teaching that one ought to emphasize the dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good (which, you will recall, is not the net economic good of all persons but the sum total of all conditions necessary for all persons in society to work toward their full potential), then the tradition of practical reasoning that has come to be known as justified war is a logical extension of these concerns in situations of conflict
2. These same principles of Catholic social teaching can be employed to assess the propriety of justifications for military conflict
3. Note that the basic issue of self-defense was examined in light of the discussion of moral acts in categories pertaining to human persons. We are now more properly in the area of thinking that deals with the witness of the Church in the world, which includes the important question of whether and to what degree the Church and its members ought to be involved in the affairs of the world
4. This is related to but not the same as the question of the individual professional vocation of the Christian which we discussed earlier in the course.
5. Review Handout on Case #10: Just War and Pacifism