An Essay on Mediæval Economic TeachingO'Brien, George
History
An Essay on Mediæval Economic Teaching
O'Brien, George
Economics -- History -- To 1800; Property -- History -- To 1500
The question is then discussed whether liberality is a part of
justice. Aquinas concludes 'that liberality is not a species
of justice, because justice renders to another what is his, but
liberality gives him what is the giver's own. Still, it has a certain
agreement with justice in two points; first that it is to another,
as justice also is; secondly, that it is about exterior things like
justice, though in another way. And therefore liberality is laid down
by some to be a part of justice as a virtue annexed to justice as an
accessory to a principal.'[1] Again, 'although liberality supposes not
any legal debt as justice does, still it supposes a certain moral debt
considering what is becoming in the person himself who practises the
virtue, not as though he had any obligation to the other party;
and therefore there is about it very little of the character of a
debt.'[2]
[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, art. 5.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]
It is important to draw attention to the fact that _liberalitas_
consists in making a good use of property, and not merely in
distributing it to others, as a confusion with the English word
'liberality' might lead us to believe. It is, as we said above,
therefore certain that a wise and prudent saving of money for
investment would be considered a course of conduct within the meaning
of the word _liberalitas_, especially if the enterprise in which the
money were invested were one which would benefit the community as
a whole. 'Modern industrial conditions demand that a man of wealth
should distribute a part of his goods indirectly--that is, by
investing them in productive and labour-employing enterprises.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Ryan, _The Alleged Socialism of the Church Fathers_, p.
20, and see Goyau, _Le Pape et la Question Sociale_, p. 79.]
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