Social ethics and the basis for social and economic policy DCM Social Sciences stream March 21, 2015; Tom Simpson.

Social ethics and the basis for social and economic policy

DCM Social Sciences stream

March 21, 2015; Tom Simpson

A famous theologian and ethicist once proposed the following rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat’

What is social ethics?

A first pass: what lies between personal morality and the state

Outline

Approaches: • Biblical• Catholic social teaching• Contemporary secular frameworks

• Utilitarianism• Libertarianism• Liberalism

• Anthropology

Q1. What social and economic arrangements are most conducive to human flourishing?

1. Biblical social ethics

Focus on OT: set in a specific historical and cultural context. Source: CJH Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

How can we use the OT to develop Christian social ethics?

theological angle

GOD

ISRAEL LAND

social angle economic angle

LAW

God’s character, as constituted by his • Acts• Words • Purposes • Way • Goodness

Theological angle

Economic angle

The Land

• in Israel’s history • as divine gift to the whole nation (Joshua 13-21)• under divine ownership (Lev 25: 23 – people as ‘aliens

and tenants’)• Responsibilities of land-holding

- to God: tithes and firstfruits- to family: land inalienable, redemption procedures- to neighbours: boundaries, gleaning laws, treatment of labourers- to natural order: sabbatical rest for the land, treatment of animals

Social angleIsrael as the People of God

1. Community life is an expression of worship‘They were to be a model of what a redeemed community should be like, living in obedience to God’s will’ (Wright)

2. Israel as God’s paradigm - Ex 19: 4-6: to be a ‘kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ in context of all nations and the whole earth’- ‘…[these Scriptures] render to us a paradigm, in one single culture and slice of history, of the social values that God looks for in human life generally’ (Wright)

1.1 Principles for economic life in the Old Testament

Four contrasts

Creation• Shared access to

resources for humanity as a whole

• Right and responsibility to work, as part of our humanity

Fall• Conflict over resources

• Corruption of work: bondage, necessity, futility (Ecclesiastes)

Creation • ‘Be fruitful and multiply’:

material goods as blessing

• Distribution: right to consume/ enjoy limited by needs of all – an obligation to share

Fall• Greed and discontent:

goods no longer a blessing, but an end in themselves (idols)

• Ownership rights asserted: responsibility for others ignored

Creation values restored in Israel’s economic system

Under covenant relationship with creator/redeemer God, economic relationships to be constrained by and expressive of love for neighbour, not self interest

• Access to resources: equitable initial distribution of land, concentration of land holdings forbidden, land could not be sold in perpetuity

• Rights and responsibilities of work: limitations on slavery, wages paid in full, rest, release from bonded labour

• Warnings against idolatry and self-sufficiency brought about by abundance (Deut 8)

1.2 Responding to poverty

OT understanding of causes of poverty

• Natural events (famine in Canaan)• Laziness (Proverbs)• Oppression (most cited cause)

- exploitation of: the socially weak (widows, orphans, aliens); the economically weak (debtors, wage labourers); and ethnic minorities (Ruth)

- royal excess, corruption, abuse of power: Solomon, Ahab, Jehoiachim- corruption of justice

Responses to poverty in OT Law: rooted in redemption from Egypt

• Poverty must be addressed (Lev 25): care for the poor is criterion of covenant obedience (Deut 26: 12-15, and generally in the prophets)

• Provisions addressed to those with economic/ social power – creditors, employers, slave owners – not to the poor themselves

• Kinship/family structure is the key• Systemic ‘welfare system’ – right of gleaning, triennial

tithe, sabbatical year, cancellation of debts• Equality for the poor and rich in the administration of

justice

Responses to poverty in the Wisdom literature

• Social ethics based in creation: oppression of the poor = contempt for their Maker (Psalm 14: 31)

• Eloquent and compassionate descriptions of the plight of the poor

• Ethic of justice, compassion, and generosity (Proverbs 29: 7)

• Responsibility of rulers for defending the rights of those in poverty (Proverbs 31: 8,9)

What difference does the NT make?

Community ethics in the NT

Changed covenantal context• People of God defined creedally, pneumatically, and soteriologically,

not nationally• Land not relevant

Functional equivalent of OT law, in terms of Church leadership and administration

Substantial overlap of content in areas of community ordering

The Church exists in the context of the secular power (“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”; Mk 12:17)

Community ethics in the NT

Considerable lattitude for Christians in terms of the regimes they can live under, with integrity

Principles for ordering the Church are (pretty) clear

Note that Q2. need not have the same answer as Q1

Q2. In what ways, if at all, should Christians seek to influence their wider political community?

2. Natural Law and Catholic Social Teaching

Sources: Papal Encyclicals and other key Church documents – Rerum Novarum – ‘The condition of labour’ – Pope Leo XIII,

1891– Laborem exercens – ‘On human work’ – Pope John Paul II, 1981– Centesimus annus – ‘On the hundredth anniversary of Rerum

Novarum’ – Pope John Paul II, 1991

Summarised in Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 2005.

Reason and Natural Law

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and Thomism– Human reason is part of ‘goodness of creation’: human beings

must uncover by reason what God wants us to do – deductive rather than inductive

– Natural Law: what contributes to human goodness, fulfilment and happiness – an ordering of reason – commanded because it is good.

– Teleology– ‘Natural law is human reason directing human beings to their ultimate end in accord with nature’ – fixed, unchanging, universal

Questions. Role of Scripture? Sin’s effect on reasoning? Role of Jesus Christ and the gospel

2.1 Natural law: work

See Laborem Exercens ‘On Human Work’, 1981

Priority of the worker

• Theologically

• In terms of value

Implications of worker as subject

• wage related to the worker, not the output: living family wage (equality) – so minimum wage

• requires effective participation in the whole productive process – not just an input – so cooperatives

• role of, and need for, worker solidarity – associations of workers or worker controlled companies (relational/ responsibility) – so Catholic TUs

2.2 The ‘preferential option for the poor’ in Catholic Social Teaching

Basis in Catholic Social teaching? Traced back to Rerum Novarum 1891 - but POP first appears in Centesimus Annus 1991. Basis is human solidarity

Liberation theology (mainstreamed by US Catholic Bishops 1986 in Economic Justice for All)

• Biblical basis: direct in OT, indirect in the Incarnation• God is prejudiced in favour of the poor, not detached• Reflection on liberating praxis/commitment to change:

addressed to the heart rather than the head

Justice and the distribution of goods in the Natural Law tradition

Justice includes all social virtues that are demanded by the common good of human society – including commutative, distributive, and social/contributive justice

Distribution of material goods • fundamental criterion is human need• just wage and welfare system• limits on differences in wealth, as inimical to solidarity in the

community

Distribution of burdens – progressive taxation to fund social goods and welfare system (contributive justice).

3. Utilitarianism as a social ethic

State of the art in normative economics• Individual is best judge of own welfare• Social decision rule: maximise aggregate welfare• Seek Pareto-optimality• i.e. efficient markets the answer

This is applied utilitarianism

The principle of utility is that which

‘approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish [happiness]’ (Bentham)

Features• Subjective account of the good• Cardinal measure of wellbeing• Utility function is maximisation of aggregate• Purely prospective

4. Libertarian view

Nozick, Hayek, Friedman

• (negative) freedom – independence of the arbitrary will of another

• Absolutist theory of rights (Nozick: side constraints). Liberal theory of property rights – justice in acquisition, justice in transfers

• market economy – arises spontaneously from property rights and market freedoms, within a framework of law

• Minimal state - all that’s required to prevent abuses of rights

5. Liberalism (a la Rawls)

Principles derived from thought experiment of original position and veil of ignorance. A fair procedure results in a just outcome

Veil of ignorance excludes all morally irrelevant factors about identity, plus ‘comprehensive conception of the good’

How would the society be structured, including distribution of ‘primary goods’: rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and wealth?

Rawls’ Two Principles of Justice

1. “Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all”

2. “Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions:

• first they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and

• second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society”

A Christian evaluation?

6. Anthropology

What are the goods that are conducive to human flourishing?

John Finnis, Natural law and natural rights (1981)• ‘a study of the nature of a being is… a study of the potentialities or

capacities of that being’• human beings flourish by participating in some combination of basic

goods, which we value and have reason to value• basic goods identified by practical reason – discerning the intelligent

direction towards human fulfilment

Dimensions of human flourishing

Where are goods for us? Finnis proposes seven

Life – survival, life, reproductionKnowledge – understanding, education, aesthetic experience

PlayAesthetic experience

Sociability – relationships of all kinds

‘Practical reasonableness’ – participation, self-determination,

Religion – a source of meaning and value

Human flourishing

• Natural law approach (consistent with CST)• Avoids appeal to theological/ biblical concepts –

enables dialogue with secular thinkers, such as Sen and Nussbaum

• Not inconsistent with biblical understanding of human person – a ‘thick’ concept of humanity

• Omits fallenness, need for salvation, work of the Spirit

Q2. In what ways, and by what means, should Christians seek to influence their wider political

community?

Q1. What social and economic arrangements are most conducive to human flourishing?