Good, Rich, or Secure?
Good, Rich, or Secure? Spanish Scholasticism and Law’s Development of Virtue
‘¿Bueno, rico o seguro?’. La escolástica española y el desarrollo de la virtud por la ley
Elisabeth Rain Kincaid
Nashotah House Theological Seminary, EE.UU.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15366/bp2021.26.006
Bajo Palabra. II Época. Nº26. Pgs: 123-140
In this paper, Dr. Kincaid argues that the work of Francisco de Vitoria (1483-1546), Domingo de Soto (1494-1560), and Francisco Suárez (1548-1617) presents a sustained tradition arguing that the proper end of civil law is formation in true virtue of the citizens, making citizens capable of achieving natural happiness. Although this development in virtue may prepare citizens to obtain the supernatural happiness made possible ultimately by God’s grace, it still contains its own integrity and moral importance.
The last few decades have seen a revival of interest in the connection between virtue and law in both popular and philosophical discussions. These contemporary virtue-oriented legal theories all share the conviction that the proper end of law is not simply to be a sword coercively restraining evil doers or even a shield protecting individual rights, but rather a social instrument promoting the common good. The common good is pursued not by coercive policies but rather by the individuals developing stable dispositions which will consistently guide their actions towards excellence and thus towards the common good. For example, Lawrence Solum describes how a virtue-based theory of legislation contributes constructively by “setting the goal – providing opportunities for rational and social activities that express the human excellences.”(1)
Kathleen Kaveny argues for the substitution of a view of law as “pedagogue” in place of law as “policeman.” (2) The idea of law as virtue is not the exclusive purview of any one theological or philosophical school, but rather appears in different forms in a vast array of approaches, including “Aristotelian, Humian, Stoic and Confucian.” (3) For many Christians, the Aristotelian tradition, especially as developed by Thomas Aquinas, has proven particularly appealing. Many Christian virtue ethicists interpret the Thomistic view of law’s development of virtue as compatible with crucial traditions of liberal democracy such “as the ideas of society as a fair system of social cooperation in which citizens see each other as free and equal, and the idea of reasonable pluralism, which holds that in any free society, citizens acting in good faith will affirm a wide range of comprehensive religious, ethical, and philosophical views.” (4)
However, a movement of Catholic theologians and philosophers have recently begun to challenge this approach as a surrender to modernity, which compromises traditional Catholic teachings on the proper relationship between the church and the state, and fails to recognize the state’s proper subservience to secular power. (5)
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1 Solum, Lawrence, “Virtue as the end of law: an aretaic theory of legislation”, Jurisprudence,
Vol. 9, No. 1, 2018, pp. 6 – 18, 13.
2 Kaveny, Kathleen, Law’s Virtues, Washington D.C., Georgetown University Press, 2012, p. 17.
3 Solum, “Virtue as the End of Law”, op. cit., p. 7.
4 Schwartzman, Micah, & Jocelyn Wilson, “The Unreasonableness of Catholic Integralism”, University of San Diego Law Review, Vol. 56, 2019, pp. 1039 – 1067, p. 1043. See also Kaveny, Law’s Virtues, op. cit.; Porter, Jean, Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2010; George, Robert, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993; Maritain, Jacques, Man and the State, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1951.
5 See specifically Thomas Pink, “In Defense of Catholic Integralism,” Public Discourse, https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/08/39362/. See also the resources on contemporary Catholic integralism gathered at https://thejosias.com/.
For the full journal article, please visit Bajo Palabra. II Época. Nº26 at this link.