Consumers and Wage-Earners: The Ethics of Buying CheapRoss, J. Elliot (John Elliot)
Philosophy
Consumers and Wage-Earners: The Ethics of Buying Cheap
Ross, J. Elliot (John Elliot)
Consumers -- United States; Wages; Wages -- United States
The present Pope, Pius X, has quoted these words of his predecessor and
agreed that workmen have a strict right in justice to a fair wage, time
to fulfill their religious duties, and freedom from work unsuited to
their age, strength, or sex.[3] The Rev. J. Kelleher, one of the most
recent and respected writers on the question, goes even further. "_The
right to work_," he says, "or some other right that will secure an
opportunity of providing for reasonable living to the less fortunate
members of the social body who do not happen to be possessed of
property, is an essential condition of any equitable economic
system."[4]
Cardinal Capecelatro has said that each one has "a right to raise
himself towards the infinite, a right to the intellectual nourishment of
religion, and, therefore, a right to the time necessary for the worship
of God, a right to repose, a right to honest enjoyment, a right to love
in marriage, and the life of the home. In woman Christianity recognizes
with her function of child-bearing in Christian marriage, a right to the
time for the nurture of her children. In children it recognizes a right
to the supreme benefit of health, given them by God, but endangered by
overmuch work. In young girls it recognizes a right to such moderation
in their duties as may assure them health and strength. In all,
finally, it acknowledges the immortal soul, with its rights to
education, to salvation, to the time that these things need."[5]
Now when Pope Leo and the other authorities quoted used the words
"right," "just," "duty," what did they mean? These words are often
employed vaguely and carelessly, but we may be sure that here they were
taken in a strict and well-defined sense, such as usually found among
Catholic ethicists.
A right, as it is thus ordinarily defined, is "a legitimate power of
doing or acquiring something for one's own good."[6]
The word power is not taken here in the sense of physical ability. It
means that moral potency or capacity without which nothing can be
acquired or recovered: for a person may have a right to do what he has
not the physical power to perform. "Legitimate" means granted by or
conformable to law: hence we have not a right to do everything for which
we have the physical power.
Once we get this idea of "right" firmly fixed in our minds, the
concepts of "justice," "injustice," and "duty" easily follow. For
"justice," in a definition of Ulpian that has been accepted all down the
ages since, is simply the constant and perpetual will of giving to each
one his right.[7] And injustice, naturally, is merely a voluntary
violation of another's right.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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