Moral discourse in the United States tends to be difficult and usually fruitless as there is little agreement not only about particular moral precepts, but about the foundations of morality. Generally the various foundations which are proposed, or more often simply assumed, are deficient. An example from a few decades ago is the debate over acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual acts as normative, a debate which took place in the 1980s and 90s.

On the one side, there was little in the way of actual argument, but simply a demand that same-sex attraction must be accepted as in no way inferior to heterosexual desires and relations, or otherwise society would be guilty of discrimination, something which is simply assumed to be always and everywhere an evil, regardless of who or what is the subject of the discrimination. Those holding this position invented the useful term of reproach, homophobe, to demonize their opponents and reduce them to a confused silence, while, on the other side, those stalwart individuals who did speak up against the homosexual juggernaut, mostly Evangelical Protestants, usually based their argument on an appeal to scriptural passages from the Pentateuch, leaving themselves open to ridicule when it was pointed out that those same books contained prohibitions against trimming the corners of one’s beard (Leviticus 19:27) or wearing clothes made of wool and linen together (Deuteronomy 22:11). Despite their discomfiture in the public conversation, such as it was, many Americans continue to cling to Sacred Scripture as the source of morality. Hence the effort in some Southern states to display copies of the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, commandments regarded not as a convenient codification of natural law, but as the revealed law of God, acts of divine positive law, having no basis other than the divine will.

Of course, Americans, even Evangelical Protestants, do not really take their morality from Scripture, as if they carefully worked through the Old and New Testaments, noting down commandments and prohibitions in a list. Like most people, they generally follow the customs of their societies, dissenting only on some few particulars concerning which they like to cite some commandment from Scripture. And as with most peoples, this means that, until recently at least, the major precepts of the natural law were recognized as binding. For the interesting catalog of moral prohibitions from very diverse cultures collected by C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man^[1] shows that the primary precepts of the natural law have by and large been acknowledged, even if the basis for those precepts was uncertain, their precise application muddled and adherence to them spotty. As St. Paul wrote (Romans 2:14-15) “When Gentiles who have not the [Mosaic] law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts[.]” This law “written on their hearts” is, of course, the natural law, and despite the varied cultures that exist on the earth, it is possible, in most cases, to trace out the main lines of that law in the injunctions and prohibitions of different peoples.

Although Catholics in the United States have unfortunately been enormously influenced by Protestant ideas and practices, we have not ceased to speak of natural law. Thus, to the extent that Catholics took part in the debate about homosexuality, they generally appealed to natural law, not to the bare scriptural text. But I think that very often the discussion of natural law can be confusing, that it is sometimes presented in such a way that it seems to rest upon mere assertions without a type of argumentation that might resonate with many people.^[2] It is not always well explained what it means that it is written on our hearts, or that it is discoverable by reason, or how it relates to conscience, or even what or whose nature we are speaking of when we call it the natural law. I propose here not a new understanding of natural law or even a new approach to it, but simply a presentation which emphasizes certain features of the tradition that perhaps may make it more understandable to some.

In the first place, then, why is it called natural law? It is simply the law of human nature. Law, however, not in the sense of a legal code set forth in propositions, but a tendency, inclination, disposition or indication of human nature, stemming from what human beings are and tend to do.

So far, so good. But how do we go from a consideration of human nature to any specific moral prescriptions? One way to begin is to look at how we use the terms good and bad. We say something is good when that thing is whole and functions according to its inborn or “built-in” purpose. We say that a car that runs well is a good car, an athlete that usually wins in his particular sport is a good athlete, a race horse that can run swiftly is a good race horse. What a thing is when it functions successfully according to its purpose we call good. But according to its purpose as manifested by its nature or being as a whole. For it is not enough if a car’s engine works, if at the same time its roof leaks, its tires are bare, its headlights are broken. Unless it works according to the whole range of its functioning, we would hesitate to call it a good car.

This connection between goodness and right functioning is embedded both in our language and our thought. Perfect means the highest degree of goodness; it also means that something has been finished or completed, in fact, perfected. This is from Latin perficere, to complete, to perfect. The participle, perfectus, means simply something that is completed or accomplished. In other words, when something is perfect, it has been made or finished as it is supposed to be; it can act according to its function. It is good.

Now obviously we are not speaking in the first instance of moral good here. A wrecked car is not morally bad nor a lame race horse. The kind of good that we first uncover when we look at the relationship between goodness and functioning is ontological good, the good of being. But nevertheless it is a real goodness, as our ordinary use of language attests. What connection, though, does this kind of good have with moral goodness?

Moral goodness is in fact a subset of ontological goodness, a part of ontological goodness applicable only to creatures with intellect and will. A race horse is not blamed if it loses a race, and a car is certainly not legitimately blamed if it breaks down, even in the middle of a desert. If either of these is not functioning according to the fullness of its nature, there is no free choice on its part to blame. And similarly with many aspects of human beings. We are not blamed if we are blind or sick (assuming that we did nothing to bring about those conditions), for in these respects we are like the race horse. But there is another side to human actions. While we might say that human beings have a certain perfection if we are healthy and have the use of all our limbs and our five senses, what if someone is a glutton or is so suspicious and quarrelsome that he can hardly get along with anyone or is someone who never keeps a promise, and so on? These defects are ontological, to be sure, in that they are part of our total human functioning, but they are also moral because at least to some degree—and apart from cases of psychological pathologies—they depend upon our free choices and the habits that we form or allow to grow up in us. Moral goodness and badness are simply that part of ontological goodness or badness which is more or less subject to our free choice. And because our possession of intellect and will is what specifically distinguishes us from the other animals, who lack those endowments, the goodness or badness which depend upon our intellect and will mark out a human being as good or bad more clearly than any mere ontological deficits, deficits which have absolutely no moral aspect. Thus a bad man is not someone who is blind or lame, but someone who steals or cheats and so on.

But although we are justly blamed only with regard to those acts over which our intellects and wills have control, our moral acts are rooted in our ontological goodness. St. Thomas Aquinas shows how the various aspects of human nature, including the ontological traits or tendencies which we share with other animals or even with inanimate objects, as well as those which are unique to rational creatures, can give rise to moral precepts:

There is in the first place an inclination in man toward the good according to the nature which he shares with all substances, since each substance seeks the conserving of its own nature; and according to this inclination, those things pertain to the natural law through which human life is conserved. Secondly, there is an inclination in man to something more special according to the nature which he shares with the other animals; and according to this those things are from the natural law which nature teaches to all animals, as the union of the male and the female, and education of the young and so on. Thirdly, there is an inclination in man to the good according to his rational nature, which is proper to him, for example, man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God and to live in society, and according to this, those things pertain to the natural law which concern these sorts of inclinations.^[3]

But these inclinations and tendencies which we share with other created things become moral precepts only when they are subject to our intellect and will. The lack of any ontological good has no moral significance, nor is any criticism leveled at anyone for lacking some merely ontological perfection of humanity, unless, of course, by the use of his intellect and will he contributed to that ontological deficiency.

But how do we go from such general considerations about human functioning to prescriptions such as are found, for example, in the Ten Commandments? If we look at the precepts which Thomas derives from human nature in its fullness and complexity, we can organize them under the heads of the four natural moral virtues, temperance, justice, prudence and fortitude (courage), and if we do so, we can determine more specific precepts of behavior.

This is easily seen with regard to temperance, the virtue which regulates our use and enjoyment of bodily pleasures. It is interesting to note that the bodily pleasures of eating and drinking and of sex have as their natural (or biological) primary orientations the health and well-being, in the one case, of the individual, in the other, of society. This natural orientation is not something imposed upon them, it is part of the very structure of the acts and their results. If someone eats so much, for example, that his bodily health suffers, or becomes a drunkard by his own fault, then clearly he has injured his ability to function as a human being. He has misused food or drink so that instead of preserving his healthy human functioning, they now work against it. He acts against the inclination of “each substance [to] the conserving of its own nature.” Hence the precepts of the natural law that concern not eating or drinking in excess derive not from any external or arbitrary law, but from the obvious purpose of taking food and drink. This does not mean, of course, that when we consume food and drink we must always make our health our primary concern or intention, or that we cannot enjoy such goods for the sake of the pleasure they can convey or for the sake of other goods, such as the fellowship that often arises when we eat with others. No, it only means that when we seek one of these goods which accompany the act of eating or drinking we should not do so in such a way or such a degree that it seriously injures the primary purpose of eating, the maintenance of our health. If we do so, then we have turned things upside down, and allowed a legitimate but secondary purpose to usurp their primary purpose.

What about sex? Here we have a two-fold motive. In the first place, there is that which “nature teaches to all animals, as the union of the male and the female, and education of the young.” But along with this, as St. Thomas notes, “man has a natural inclination…to live in society.” But society can maintain and renew itself only by the birth of children, and their proper formation and education. Thus as eating and drinking are oriented toward the health of the individual, sexual activity is oriented toward the health of society. If sexual activity is engaged in so that it results in harm to society, its natural end will have been violated. But society needs not only the birth of children, but their careful upbringing and formation. This is the primary reason for the family, and hence for the restriction of sexual activity to a lifelong marriage. Children raised without both parents will, generally speaking, tend to lack the psychological and moral formation that people need to become well-functioning adults. The reason for the restriction of sexual activity to marriage is not because of any notion that sexual pleasure, when rightly ordered, is evil or should be barely tolerated and restricted or inhibited as much as possible, but rather for the obvious reason that by nature sex and procreation are connected. Sexual activity bears the same kind of relationship to the health of society that eating and drinking do to the health of the individual. Thus there is nothing wrong with seeking the one or the other on account of the pleasure involved provided that we do nothing on our part to distort or disturb its natural orientation, but there is something wrong with doing so when we violate the primary purposes of either one.

What about the next virtue, justice? We have seen that “man has a natural inclination…to live in society, and according to this, those things pertain to the natural law which concern these sorts of inclinations.” Now we cannot live peacefully and fruitfully in society unless we try to cultivate the virtues necessary for society, in the first place, justice, the virtue which directs us to give everyone his due and to work for a society whose institutions will tend to give to and demand from each member of society what is fitting according to his abilities, possessions, needs and status, for the sake of the good of the whole.

This perhaps seems vague, and in order to understand justice and its role in society, it is necessary to distinguish the different kinds of justice. In the first place there is the fundamental type of justice, commutative justice, the justice of exchange and contract, the justice which specifies exact repayment of what is due. It is often called strict justice.

The next kind, distributive justice, has regard to the benefits which an authority, usually the state authority, is obliged to confer, not with mathematical exactness, but according to the general character of the merits and needs of those subject to that authority. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2411) teaches concerning these two forms of justice:

Commutative justice obliges strictly; it requires safeguarding property rights, paying debts, and fulfilling obligations freely contracted….One distinguishes commutative justice…from distributive justice which regulates what the community owes its citizens in proportion to their contributions and needs.

Although distributive justice is concerned principally with the state or civil society as a whole, a homely illustration may help in understanding it. A mother borrows $50 from a neighbor to go to the bakery. She is bound in commutative justice to repay exactly $50 to that neighbor. But let us say she decides to buy treats for her children at the bakery. Is she obliged to give each exactly the same kind and amount of treat? May she not take into account the fact that one child did an extra household chore, unasked, that another is struggling with a weight problem, that a third has an allergy to a favorite kind of pastry? Of course she may do so, and this shows the nature of distributive justice. It takes into account the manifold differences that exist within any group subject to the same authority.

But there is yet another kind of justice, legal justice. Legal justice concerns the obligations each person owes to the common good, as the Catechism further says, “what the citizen owes in fairness to the community.” The traditional conception of legal justice is that it is:

a relation of the members to the community. It requires each man to contribute his proper share toward the common good….It is probably called legal justice because it shows itself chiefly in law-abiding conduct, but it goes beyond the bare requirement of the written law.^[4]

Typical examples often given of acts of legal justice by moralists were paying taxes and obeying just laws.

But there is one more, social justice, which is best conceived as a part of legal justice or as legal justice under a different aspect which emphasizes different facets of the virtue. Social justice, while likewise concerned with the “relation of the members to the community” and the contribution of each one’s “proper share toward the common good,” strikes a slightly different note. Pope Pius XI says of social justice, “Now it is of the very essence of social justice to demand from each individual all that is necessary for the common good” (Divini Redemptoris, no. 51). This sounds very like legal justice. Social justice, however, while likewise concerned with the duties of the individual to the common good, concerns not individual actions, such as paying taxes, but the fostering and establishment of organizations and institutions of society which contribute toward establishment and maintenance of the common good. This exact note of social justice is best illustrated by a contrast which Pius XI drew in Quadragesimo Anno. The pontiff wrote,

Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a sufficient wage adequate to meet ordinary domestic needs. If in the present state of society this is not always feasible, social justice demands that reforms be introduced without delay which will guarantee every adult workingman just such a wage. (no. 71)

Now elsewhere Pius XI makes it clear that a worker is due a living wage in commutative or strict justice. For example, in Divini Redemptoris he speaks of “the salary to which [the workingman] has a strict title in justice” (no. 49).^[5] Social justice, however, as a part of legal justice concerns the duty of members of society to introduce necessary reforms so that the just wage due in commutative justice can in fact be paid. In other words, social justice places demands on citizens to make social or institutional changes. This is why it is a part of legal justice, for it concerns “what the citizen owes in fairness to the community.” And in this case upon whom is this duty incumbent? This duty rests especially upon “contractors and employers” who are charged “to support and promote such necessary organizations as normal instruments enabling them to fulfill their obligations of justice” (Divini Redemptoris, no. 53), and no doubt upon all who have a role in shaping public opinion. The key point to note here is the distinction between what is demanded by commutative justice (payment of a living wage) and what is demanded by social justice (establishment of institutions necessary to achieve that).

There is considerable leeway in a society to determine rules and institutions that concern justice. Pius XI explains in Quadragesimo Anno that to a great extent property rights depend upon the positive law of various societies and can legitimately vary according to custom and culture:

History proves that the right of ownership, like other elements of social life, is not absolutely rigid, and this doctrine We Ourselves have given utterance to on a previous occasion in the following terms: “How varied are the forms which the right of property has assumed! First, a primitive form in use among untutored and backward peoples, which still exists in certain localities even in our own day; then, that of the patriarchal age; later came various tyrannical types (We use the word in its classical meaning); finally the feudal and monarchic systems down to the varieties of more recent times.”  (no. 49)

Justice, then, is not always a simple matter of quid pro quo, but must be looked at in its complex philosophical and historical aspects if we would avoid a one-size-fits-all approach which ends up distorting society. A failure to appreciate the nuances of the virtue of justice has contributed to the polarization of opinion in the United States, since people make often conflicting demands to remedy what seem to them obvious instances of injustice without appreciating all of the complex moral factors involved.

The need for the last two virtues, prudence and courage, arises from the fact that they are required for the proper functioning of the other virtues. Indeed, prudence holds a kind of primacy among the virtues as “the mold and `mother’ of all the other cardinal virtues, of justice, fortitude, and temperance”^[6] for “[w]ithout prudence fortitude becomes boldness, temperance becomes moroseness, justice becomes harshness.”^[7] Especially is prudence necessary for the just administration of the commonwealth, where, as we have seen, there are many complex factors that must be taken into account in devising just solutions to problems that arise.^[8]

Without courage (or fortitude), moreover, the other virtues are hardly secure, for a temperance or justice or prudence that ceases as soon as we encounter some obstacle or danger is not really a virtue, but at best a beginner’s attempt at virtue. Courage, moreover, is not just about bravely facing an enemy as on the battlefield, but in a different way is necessary for steadily facing the ordinary or extraordinary difficulties of life, for example, in a husband or wife who bravely cares for an ailing spouse over a period of years.

It is above all important to understand that these four moral virtues are not something extrinsic to proper human functioning, something added or extra. If something is good when it is whole and able to operate according to its specific nature, then the virtues are what perfect man and complete our nature. A thoroughly evil person is less of a human being than a morally good person, and the connection of morality with being is one of the most important points to grasp. The lack of recognition of this connection is probably the chief factor which has led people to regard morality as something arbitrary, added, unnecessary, or even effete. But this is not true, and someone who is deficient in one or more of the virtues is less of a human being then someone who is lacking a limb or the use of one of the five senses. Acquisition of the virtues is a kind of training in learning how to function as a human being, akin to how a race horse is trained in how to run well.

Above I mentioned that most people take their moral bearings from the society in which they live. I also mentioned the collection of moral precepts which C. S. Lewis compiled from various societies. The similarities in these precepts show that St. Paul was right, that “what the law requires is written on their hearts,” on the hearts of all mankind. But everyone is aware that the similarities in these moral precepts contain immense differences as well. How differently have different societies regarded polygamy, abortion, slavery, cannibalism, usury, and so on. Thus the vital role of the education of a culture as a means of education in virtue. When the barbarian nations of Europe received the Faith their members did not immediately begin living as well-instructed and serious Catholics. Rather their formation in the Faith was in most cases long and difficult. But the fact that the culture was officially changed contributed greatly to their personal adherence to better moral norms. When the ideals held up for public approbation in any society are just and generous, they can do much to elevate private and individual conduct, just as the opposite can do much to degrade it. Moreover, in cases where the natural law does not specify anything exact, such as the limits of property rights, or where it is difficult to determine what exactly it does specify, healthy cultural norms can inculcate good habits that even go beyond the minimum demands of natural law and mark out a society as especially virtuous and noble. Such efforts to elevate cultural norms regarding morality are aided immensely by the good example of persons and institutions, especially by the Church, which can do enormous good by both example and instruction.

Today in the United States, as in most of the Western world, opinions about morality vary greatly. But in this country there has never been a robust consciousness on the part of the public that the moral law is grounded in human nature itself. Either people accepted the moral standards they found around them, without questioning them much—whatever their actual behavior may have been—or they appealed to Sacred Scripture as a sufficient source of morality. The latter has now been discredited in the public mind, and indeed, the Protestant understanding of the relationship between revelation and morals was always deficient in any case. But it is possible that a revitalized presentation of natural law might appeal, by its freshness and novelty, to people disenchanted with either reliance on direct divine revelation or simple acquiescence in the standards of their neighbors. In any case, it is the duty of Catholics to promote a better understanding of natural law as part of our task of elevating the culture around us, and as a preparation for the Church’s constant duty to propagate the true Faith.

Notes

^[1] The Abolition of Man (New York : Macmillan, c. 1947). See pp. 95-121.

^[2] For example, in a discussion of contraception, Elizabeth Anscombe wrote, “In fact there is no greater connection of `natural law’ with the prohibition on contraception than with any other part of morality. Any type of wrong action is `against the natural law’: stealing is, framing someone is, oppressing people is. `Natural law’ is simply a way of speaking about the whole of morality, used by Catholic thinkers because they believe the general precepts of morality are laws promulgated by God our Creator in the enlightened human understanding when it is thinking in general terms about what are good and what are bad actions. That is to say, the discoveries of reflection and reasoning when we think straight about these things are God’s legislation to us (whether we realise this or not).” www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/AnscombeChastity.php

^[3] Summa Theologiae, I-II q. 94, art. 2, corp.

^[4] Austin Fagothey, Right and Reason, (St. Louis : C. V. Mosby, 1953), pp. 236-37.

^[5] See also, Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, no. 34; Pius XI, Casti Connubii, no. 117, Quadragesimo Anno, nos. 71, 110; John XXIII, Mater et Magistra, no. 71; John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, no. 8.

^[6] Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1966), p. 3.

^[7] Fagothey, Right and Reason, p. 234.

^[8] See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II q. 47, art. 10.

Header Image: John Frederick Herring, ‘Priam’ beating Lord Exeter’s ‘Augustus’ at Newmarket, 1831.

The word art generally suggests to most people some actual artistic creation, a sculpture or painting or the like. Or it might suggest a technique for making such an object. Either of these could be meant by a phrase such as, He is studying art, meaning either that he is studying works of art, art history, or that he is studying how to create works of art himself. The second of these two senses of art is closer to the classic definition of art as given by Aristotle in his Ethics VI, 4 as “the reasoned state of capacity to make” or “a rational faculty exercised in making something.”^[1] This definition was repeated and made his own by St. Thomas Aquinas, who expressed it in Latin by the phrase recta ratio factibilium, the right conception or reason or understanding of a thing that is to be made.^[2] The twentieth-century philosopher Jacques Maritain explains this definition in these words:

The essential character of art taken in its complete extension is to instruct us how to make something, so that it is constructed, formed, or arranged, as it ought to be, and thus to secure the perfection or goodness, not of the maker, but of the object itself which he makes. Art therefore belongs to the practical order in the sense that it instructs us how to make something….^[3]

The important point to take from this is that art concerns something made or to be made, and refers specifically to the learned human capacity or skill in being able to do so.

The human race requires such skills in order to create the necessary external objects and devices to assist and support a truly human life. We build shelters, make clothes, prepare our food, make music, tools, weapons, tame other animals, and the like. Although other animals do some of these things, mankind is unique in that we do these things not primarily by instinct, but rather we discover methods for doing them and can transmit the knowledge of these methods to the next generation. Hence we create various arts: the art of building, cooking, bookbinding, woodworking, etc.

We should note also that art presumes the social nature of humanity. Not only are the arts handed down from one generation to the next, but they exist in the context of human social life. Although Daniel Defoe’s fictional Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked on an island, made use of various arts in order to make his existence easier, he did not discover these arts as a lone individual, rather he had learned them as part of his upbringing in society. Even if an isolated individual did discover an art, he could not transmit that art to anyone else, and it would not become part of the patrimony of the human species.

From this we can understand that every art is a means for accomplishing some end appropriate to human life. But in this matter is there an essential difference between the fine arts and those arts called practical or useful? In fact, is it really correct to speak of one class of arts as more practical or useful than the other?

If we visit an art museum we will notice that the objects exhibited there that originated before roughly the middle of the eighteenth century were created not to be housed in a museum, but for some purpose considered practical and as part of human social life. Statues and paintings were used in religious worship, both in pre-Christian and Christian ages, or were made to commemorate historic events or to adorn public buildings or monuments. The same is true of most of the music composed in that time; it was intended as the musical accompaniment of divine worship or dancing or military marching, aspects of everyday life, not for performance at a concert. In other words, what we call the fine arts were not essentially different from the arts usually called practical. Both kinds had specific roles in social life, and moreover, both tried to incorporate beauty as best as the artist and the nature of his artistic purpose could manage. Every architect, every maker of furniture or swords or goblets was as interested as every composer or painter in incorporating beauty into his artistic creations, even if the latter had more scope for doing so because their particular arts admitted of a wider range of possibilities. In fact, the distinction between fine arts and practical arts is largely artificial, in that originally each had not only an obvious practical aim and social purpose, but their creators endeavored to incorporate beauty as far as the respective functions of their arts would allow.[*]

If it is correct that there is no hard and fast distinction between the fine arts and other arts, how does beauty relate to the arts then? Despite what has often been said, originally at least, creators of works of fine art did not aim at beauty directly as an abstract quality. The beauty of music for the sacred liturgy was not the same as the beauty of music for dancing or marching. Each artist aimed at a beauty appropriate to the object to be made. But so did makers of furniture or ceramic jars or carriages. In each case both function and beauty were sought according to the limitations of the art.

Thomas Aquinas remarks that while every artist seeks to make his products in the most beautiful way possible, the purpose or use of the object will override an abstract pursuit of beauty,

as the artist who makes a saw for cutting makes it from iron, so that it is suitable for cutting; he does not care to make it from glass, which is a more beautiful material, because such beauty would be a hindrance to its purpose.^[4]

This is a fundamental principle to understand: in any object of art, while beauty generally is sought, it is at the same time subordinate to the purpose of the object being made.

The composer of music for a liturgical text, for example, must remember that he is writing for an actual religious service, and not make his work over long. An ancient Greek sculptor, carving a statue of a Greek god, would have to consider the size of the temple in which it was to be placed. The constraints of making art objects which were to be a part of human social existence exercised a discipline on the artist, so that his creative genius had to be harmonized with the intended use of what he was making, as well as with the expectations of his patrons, who had some definite practical aim in mind when they commissioned the work.

It is true that during the last two or three centuries, numerous very beautiful paintings, sculptures and musical works have been created specifically for the purpose of being exhibited or performed in the special places or events set aside in our day for the fine arts. Painters and composers most often do not work nowadays to fulfill a commission to decorate a public building or set a liturgical text to music. One of the unfortunate results of this placing of fine art creations in these special places and events is that they are separated from ordinary public life. There are many people who never go to a museum or a classical music concert, but whose ancestors worshipped in churches adorned with the most exquisite paintings while hearing the music of a Palestrina or Mozart. This segregation of the best music, together with the near total death of true folk music, has contributed to the rise of an artificial and mass-produced, largely electronic culture, and to the banishment of classical art and music to a special world, which most people take no interest in, and consider alien to their lives. I am not advocating doing away with the artistic works of the past few centuries, certainly, but I do point out that the social circumstances of their creation were not healthy. Produced with little reference to the general life of mankind, they became increasingly a hothouse product, and thus the odd and even ugly artistic and musical productions that have so often disfigured Western culture since around 1900. The pursuit of beauty with no reference to any social purpose paradoxically led to the eclipse of beauty in a striving after novelty or effect by an increasingly alienated class of artists.

Thus part of the explanation for what has happened to the fine arts since around the end of the nineteenth century is that, having become divorced from their social roles, art was widely seen as directly related to beauty as an abstraction, and the pursuit of this abstract beauty was widely seen as the purpose of the fine arts. But this was not a sufficient motivation for artists. Other problems began to occupy them, and to this must be added the general nihilism that affected Western culture with the decline of religious faith, and the collapse of so much of the social order at the conclusion of World War I. Artists now often wished to say something, and what they wanted to say increasingly had nothing to do with beauty. Nor were they constrained any more by those who had commissioned their works, and who intended them to adorn or accompany ordinary public activities. Such patrons had helped to keep artists within the bounds of their social role, for they would not pay for an ugly or shocking piece of work, no matter what statement the artist was trying to make. But painters, sculptors and composers have managed to convince a sufficient number of rich patrons, and governmental entities, to pay for their artistic creations even if they are ugly, for they are seen as significant, and anyone who questions that judgment is immediately classed as a philistine. This has especially been the case with architecture, and buildings that most ordinary people saw as ugly, but which architects and architecture critics saw as interesting or significant, multiplied.^[5] Even before that, the pursuit of form or beauty sometimes triumphed over practical use, so that people were willing to pay for furniture which was uncomfortable, so long as it was beautiful or stylish.^[6]

It remains to say something about the arts which use the spoken or written word. They differ from the arts of painting or sculpture or music in that, in origin at least, they necessarily presuppose some special event, as the performance of a play or the recital of a poem. Before considering this difference, however, we must note that although today we are apt to look upon such written works as things to be perused in the privacy of one’ study, reading poetry or even a play by oneself, the original character of these arts was social. Homer, for example, did not write his poems in order for them to be read privately and silently; they were originally performed, that is sung or chanted, and with a certain amount of gesture as well.^[7] This is obvious of course in the case of dramatic works. In short, they were written for social occasions, although obviously, due to their nature, they were special occasions. But the changed sensibilities of modernity affected even the forms of the arts. “The self became lonely, self-conscious and withdrawn (and in literature the novel is born to mirror a new social class and replace the more public genre of drama).”^[8] Prior to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, extended prose works of fiction that were intended for private reading constituted a comparatively small part of literary production, whereas in the nineteenth century they became the norm.

But even with respect to the drama itself, the circumstances of their performance were not exactly like those of the modern theater.  Ancient Greek dramas were performed as parts of religious festivals, and the revival of medieval European drama took place in churches or at festivals connected with liturgical observances, such as the elaborate Corpus Christi plays of medieval England. They were community events, whose significance was seen as going beyond simply entertainment. Although as time went on, their connection with liturgical or religious actions was not as close as that of music or painting directly intended for use in church buildings, nevertheless such a connection remained. Some anthropologists have referred to these events as “cultural performances.” “Anthropologists have defined cultural performances as occasions on which a society dramatizes its collective myths, defines itself, and reflects on its practices and values….”^[9] In other words, communal dramatic performances, whether in ancient Athens or medieval Europe, were shared societal experiences, in their own way having a ritual significance, and thus having as practical a purpose as the celebration of the sacred liturgy. There was no “audience” in the modern sense, where each person goes to the theater or a concert on his own and with his own private purpose in mind. Rather, the entire community celebrated its ethos by affirming its fundamental beliefs and narratives. In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus John Paul wrote,

At the heart of every culture lies the attitude a person takes to the greatest mystery: the mystery of God. Different cultures are basically different ways of facing the question of the meaning of personal existence. (no. 24)

Traditional societies, including the civilizations of ancient and medieval Europe, held such “cultural performances” in order to affirm their own understanding of “the mystery of God.” Thus the arts of the drama, like the other fine arts, were seen as having a practical, social-oriented purpose.

There is one more kind of art which we must consider, those arts referred to as the seven liberal arts, traditionally grammar, rhetoric, logic, the trivium, and arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, the quadrivium. The medieval English writer and cleric, John of Salisbury, in his Metalogicon, characterized art as a “system that reason has devised in order to expedite, by its own short cut, our ability to do things within our natural capabilities.”^[10] Art depends on natural ability, but is more than simply that ability. Speaking then of the liberal arts, John says that they

are said to have become so efficacious among our ancestors …that they enabled them to comprehend everything they read, elevated their understanding to all things, and empowered them to cut through the knots of all problems possible of solution.^[11]

At first we might wonder how this relates to Maritain’s statement quoted above, that the “essential character of art…is to instruct us how to make something,…and thus to secure the perfection or goodness, not of the maker, but of the object itself which he makes.”

St. Thomas discusses this point in his commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius. He says

that among other sciences [the liberal arts] are called arts because they involve not only knowledge but also a work that is directly a product of reason itself; for example, producing a composition, syllogism or discourse, numbering, measuring, composing melodies, and reckoning the course of the stars.^[12]

We are not accustomed to regard the products of the liberal arts, such as syllogisms or geometrical demonstrations, as things that are made, as we do a painting or a pot. But their products are surely as much examples of artistic creations as poems or musical scores, and are equally works, products that can be separated from their creator.

There are thus three fundamental points about art: first, that every art concerns something to be made; secondly, that every art is practical, i.e., it is aimed at some activity of life that goes beyond itself, and lastly, in ordinary circumstances every artist hopes to achieve or incorporate beauty into his work, but the pursuit of beauty is subordinate and proportioned to the practical aim of the art itself. The beauty of a piece of furniture should not interfere with its usefulness, and the beauty of music composed for liturgical use should be compatible with its actual use in the celebration of the sacred liturgy. The second and third of these points have been widely forgotten or ignored for the past couple centuries, and the results have not been good for either the arts or for our understanding of them. But nonetheless, these are the points with which a philosophical consideration of art should begin.

Notes

^[1]   The first phrasing is by W. D. Ross (Oxford translation), the second J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin books, 1955).

^[2]  Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 57, art. 4. See also art. 3 and the Prologue to the Secunda Secundae and the Summa Contra Gentiles, book I, chap. 93.

^[3]   An Introduction to Philosophy, (Sheed & Ward, 1947), pp. 198-99.

[*] [Editor’s note: John Francis Nieto distinguishes the fine arts and the servile arts by the different relation that they have to the perfection and imitation of nature. All art is in some way perfective of nature and in some way imitative of nature, but servile arts imitate nature in order to perfect nature, whereas fine arts perfect nature in order to imitate her. The doctor, for example perfects (or completes) nature by helping attain the health that it was trying to attain anyway. In doing this he will imitate things that nature does, but he imitates in order to perfect. Similarly with the farmer who helps the vine grow the grapes. Carpenters and potters etc. also perfect nature in this way, and modify it to make it more useful to human purposes— one can use a fallen tree for a seat, but a chair is better. The fine arts too are perfective of nature in some way, but principally they imitate nature, for the sake of the delight that human soul takes in imitation. This delight is the delight that forms part of the definition of beauty (that which delights on being seen). Thus the dramatic artist delights by imitating human action in its relation to happiness and misery; the painter delights by imitating visible form, or the way in which human character is manifested in the human face, and so on. In every case, such imitation seems to clarify what it imitates. That is, part of the pleasure of imitative art is that they help us understand what is imitated. This clarification can be seen as a kind of perfecting of nature. But here the perfection is for the sake of the imitation, rather than vice-versa. – Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist.]

^[4]  Summa Theologiae, I q. 91, art. 3.

^[5]   For a popular account of what happened with architecture, see Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House, (Pocket Books, 1982).

^[6]   One art historian notes that many Renaissance chairs “were heavy and formal and architectural in structure; they were not yet designed for comfort and had to be used with cushions.” Erwin O. Christensen, The History of Western Art, (New American Library, 1959), p. 251.

^[7]  For a good account of this, see H. T. Kirby-Smith, The Celestial Twins: Poetry and Music Through the Ages, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, c. 1999).

^[8]  Michael Paul Gallagher, Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture, (Paulist Press, 1998), p. 93.

^[9]  Kathleen M. Ashley, “Cultural Approaches to Medieval Drama,” in Richard K. Emmerson, ed., Approaches to Teaching Medieval English Drama, (MLA, 1990), p. 57.

^[10]  I, 11.

^[11]  I, 12.

^[12]  Q. 5, art. 1, as translated and edited by Armand Maurer in The Division and Methods of the Sciences, (PIMS, 4th ed., 1986), p. 18.

In his Summa Theologiae II-II, St. Thomas devotes two questions to unjust acts which are committed in buying and selling or lending.

The first of these questions (q. 77), divided into four articles, deals with fraud in the broad sense (fraudulentia), while the second (q. 78) concerns usury. A study of these questions reveals important differences not only between St. Thomas’ teaching on injustices committed in economic life and the ethical attitudes common today, but differences in basic evaluations of the place of commerce in society. In order to make this clear, I will look at the first question, no. 77, setting forth first what Aquinas taught and then contrasting it with commerce and business ethics as these exist in a capitalist society. (For a discussion of question 78, on usury, see “The Sin of Usury.”)

The first article of question 77 is, Whether someone can licitly sell something for more than it is worth? As is usual, St. Thomas first brings up some objections to his own opinion, which he will answer later on. The first is that civil law permits the buyer and seller to “deceive each other” and buy or sell for less or more than something is worth. The second is that common opinion endorses the idea of buying cheap and selling dear. (I omit his third objection, which deals with friends giving each other gifts.)

After offering the objections, Thomas gives his own considered opinion. He first briefly notes that to deceive a buyer in order to sell something for more than the just price is altogether sinful.

But then he turns to the main question, where there is no actual deceit involved. In that case, he says, it is also wrong to sell something for more than it is worth: “to sell something more dearly than it is worth, or buy it more cheaply, in itself is unjust and illicit.” But he instances an exception, the case where a buyer might need or want something greatly while the seller would be especially hurt by its loss. In such a case the seller can charge a premium since he may charge for the damage he will receive by selling the item as well as for its value. But note that Aquinas is not talking about price gouging following a natural disaster. His statement applies only when the buyer will suffer harm (detrimentum or damnum) by its loss. St. Thomas specifically says that a seller may not charge a buyer such a premium price unless he will suffer particular damage by selling it.
Then he proceeds to deal with the objections that were raised. To the first, that civil law permits buying cheap and selling dear, Thomas’ answer is revealing. He states that human law must permit much that divine law will punish, but he also notes that civil law will demand restitution if the price deviates excessively from the just price, “ultra dimidiam justi pretii quantitatem,” i.e., more than half again as much as the just price. St. Thomas notes, however, that a just price cannot be calculated with mathematical exactness, but is a “certain estimate, so that a small addition or subtraction does not seem to remove the equivalence of justice.” With the second objection, that common usage allows such buying and selling, he simply states that “that common desire [to sell dear and buy cheap] is not natural, but is a vice, and therefore common to many who walk on the broad way of vices.”

Let us then go on to St. Thomas’s second article, Whether a sale is rendered illicit on account of a defect in the thing sold? He brings up three initial objections to the opinion. (I omit the first objection, which deals with goods whose appearances or qualities may have been altered by alchemy, as well as with the second, which deals with different measures being used in different localities.) The third objection is that it is unreasonable to expect a seller to be aware of all the defects in the thing he is selling, since “great knowledge is required which is lacking to most sellers.”

Thomas then gives his opinion, which is that whether a defect arises from the quality or the quantity of the thing sold, a seller who knowingly misrepresents what he sells sins and is bound to restitution, as likewise a buyer sins and is bound to restitution if he purchases something for a lesser price than it is worth because the seller out of ignorance is not aware of its true value. And although a seller or buyer who out of ignorance charges or pays an unjust price does not sin, if he later discovers his error, he is then bound to restitution.

His reply to the third objection is simply that one does not expect a seller to know about the “hidden qualities” of the thing to be sold, but “those only by means of which it is rendered apt for human uses,” such as whether a horse is strong or runs well, which “a seller and buyer are easily able to know.”
Then in his third article Aquinas asks, Whether a seller is obliged to reveal the defect of a thing sold? The first objection argues that since the seller does not compel a buyer to buy something, and is not required to examine the buyer’s decision to buy, therefore he may also assume the buyer’s due diligence in examining the quality of the thing sold. The second objection states that it would be foolish for a seller to hinder a sale by pointing out a defect in the thing to be sold, quoting Cicero to the effect that it would be absurd for someone to advertise a house infested with pests for sale. (I omit objection three which deals with one’s obligation to offer counsel or moral advice to someone else.) Then objection four argues that if a seller is not bound to reveal information he has about an impending drop in the price of a good (which usually would cause his own price to drop immediately), then neither is he bound to reveal defects in the merchandise to be sold which would likewise result in lowering the price.

Thomas answers with his own opinion, which is that a seller is bound to reveal faults which either make the item less valuable and would therefore lower its price, or defects which would result in some harm to the buyer. However, if the seller has already discounted the item on account of its defects, he is not necessarily bound to mention those defects if they are obvious, since in that case the buyer might demand an even greater discount.

Thomas replies to the first objection that a buyer cannot judge the quality of something if its defects are hidden, so that the comparison is invalid. As for the second objection, no one is bound to advertise something for sale mentioning only its defects, since the item may well have some good qualities as well. Then lastly, he answers the fourth objection, saying that a future event which will cause a fall (or rise) in prices is different from a present condition which does the same thing, i.e. that in strict justice one is not bound to reveal a future probable drop in price, but if a seller did give that information, or discounted his price, “he would be of very abundant virtue.”

Then we come to the last article in question 77, Whether it is licit by engaging in business (negotiando) to sell something at a higher price than was paid for it? There are three objections adduced. (I omit the first and third objections which are basically arguments from the authority of certain Fathers of the Church.) The second objection argues that anyone who by his commercial activity sells a thing for more than he paid for it, necessarily either buys it for less than it is worth or sells it for more, and thus commits a sin.

In his reply Thomas distinguishes between various kinds of commercial activity. In the first place he mentions a “natural and necessary” sort “on account of necessities of life,” and such exchange properly pertains not to businessmen [negotiatores] but to “oeconomicos vel politicos,” i.e., to those who have some duty concerned with the welfare of the household or the political community, and this sort is praiseworthy. Then there is the kind of commerce engaged in for seeking gain, and this kind “is justly blamed because in itself it serves gain.” But although gain in itself does not “imply anything morally good (honestum) or necessary, neither is it vicious or contrary to virtue in itself,” provided it is done for a good end “and thus commerce is made licit.” Thus gain may be sought moderately for the support of one’s household or to help the poor or to provide for the common good, and the gain sought is simply a payment for one’s labor (stipendium laboris).

In his reply to objection two Thomas notes that someone can licitly sell something for more than he paid for it if he made improvements in the item or because its price was higher on account of being exported to some other place or on account of the passage of time or on account of the risk he had in taking it to another place.

I think that anyone who compares the business ethics of St. Thomas with those of today will be struck not only by the differences at specific points–e.g., not taking advantage of a buyer’s ignorance–but on the whole approach to commercial life. But let us first look at some of the specific points before we raise more general considerations. At the very outset we are told that it is wrong to sell something for more than it is worth or to buy it for less than it is worth. This is surely one of the cardinal points at which capitalist economic thought is opposed to that of St. Thomas. For economics, as it has developed according to the spirit of capitalism, would reply not so much that Thomas’ answer is wrong, but that the question itself is absurd. The phrase, “more than it is worth” is meaningless. Prices are determined by a quasi-mechanical process which can be graphed in the familiar manner of neoclassical economics. It is true that under monopoly or other kinds of imperfect competition, firms can charge more than what economists consider the norm of marginal cost, still in the end something is worth whatever a buyer and a seller can agree on. No one forces a buyer to purchase an item, even at a monopolistic price. If a seller offers a product for too high a price, buyers will refuse to purchase it, and then (it is hoped) the self-correcting action of Adam Smith’s invisible hand will intervene and the seller either lower his price or new firms enter the market–all in the long run, of course. And while there is some truth in this account of the operation of market forces, and while, under the rare and elusive condition of “perfect competition,” the market price can sometimes even be an indication of the just price, it is merely an indication. Market forces are not the reason for a just price, even when they can be a sign of such a price. But in a capitalist economy, an economy characterized by the separation of ownership and work, many other factors must exist before we can begin to look at the market price as the just price. (One of the advantages of the distributist economic system proposed by such Catholic thinkers as Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton is that market prices would be more likely to be just prices, since no producer would be in a position to cut his labor costs so as to undersell his competitors). Although the concept of “marginal cost” is of little use in the real world, still the idea that the price should reflect a firm’s costs gets at the heart of a calculation of a just price. Of course, cost includes a just wage for the producer, and Aquinas’ statement in article 4 that we just noted, that the profit of a merchant should be simply a wage for his labor, reflects this understanding.

The next two articles both deal with defects in products and the seller’s duty to make these known to potential buyers. Here again we meet with a point of radical difference from capitalism. Not only is it generally held today to be stupid to reveal an unseen defect, but firms spend large sums on advertising and promoting products that are defective or harmful. In any case, if sellers today really revealed all the hidden defects in their products, I think it would change our buying habits quite a bit.

Thomas’ fourth article gets to the heart of commercial life by asking whether it is licit for someone by engaging in business (negotiando) to sell something at a higher price than he bought it for, i.e., to do this as an occupation. He sets forth definite criteria for any increase in selling price over purchase price. If the seller has made improvements in the product, if on account of a change of place or time the price has legitimately risen, if he underwent risk in exporting it somewhere–all these justify selling something for more than one paid for it. But clearly there is no justification here for unlimited profits. Every increase in cost must be accounted for by some definite title. So although one may licitly engage in commerce, the gain should be payment for one’s labor or risk.

We should also note the general attitude of St. Thomas toward commercial activity. Buying and selling which is for the sake of gain “is justly blamed (juste vituperatur) because it serves the desire for gain which knows no limit but tends into infinity. And therefore business (negotiatio) considered in itself has a certain baseness (quamdam turpitudinem) in so far as it does not imply of itself an honest or necessary end.” With regard to the first point, that “business considered in itself has a certain baseness,” there is ample confirmation of this in our own culture. Writing of New Left critics of American culture, the early neo-conservative scholar, Harry Clor, said in 1969,

American society is said to be devoted to low, dull, and unexciting goals; it is said to be devoid of moral and spiritual inspiration. It is moral mediocrity that is complained of. And this mediocrity is attributed to commercialism, a commercialism that produces an acquisitive, comfort-seeking, security-minded, and, hence, uninteresting way of life. This description of American life is no doubt exaggerated and oversimplified. But it is difficult, as well as unwise, to avoid the acknowledgement that there are some elements of truth in this description. In the United States a remarkable amount of attention is given to the accumulation and consumption of commodities. And we do not seem to mind being called a “consumer society.” It does appear to be the case that for most Americans the pursuit of happiness has come to mean, in large measure, the attainment of economic security and the continual multiplication of the means for personal comfort and enjoyment.[1]

I would like to hope that any of my readers who are Christians, whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant, would without demur agree that a society devoted “to the accumulation and consumption of commodities” is hardly a model of what Christians should strive for. Apart from anything else, St. Paul’s strictures in his first letter to Timothy ought to suffice to prove that point:

If we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall in temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs. (1 Tim. 6:8-10)

And further, as John Paul II wrote in Centesimus Annus, no. 36,

It is not wrong to want to live better; what is wrong is a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed toward “having” rather than “being,” which wants to have more, not in order to be more but in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself.

And yet the fact remains, “In the United States a remarkable amount of attention is given to the accumulation and consumption of commodities.” This is in a nation made up largely of people with some degree of Christian heritage and commitment, and which often likes to think of itself as one of the most religious nations on the earth. Any Christian critique of American culture which fails to comment on this “accumulation and consumption of commodities” and concentrates simply on (say) sexual misdeeds serves only to discredit any claims that might be made for the religion of Jesus Christ.

But there is one more general consideration which we must examine. St. Thomas speaks of that buying and selling which “is justly blamed because it serves the desire for gain which knows no limit but tends into infinity.” Here is another important point to which little attention is given today. In order to understand it, let us look at a different passage from the Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 2, a. 1 ad 3. There Aquinas writes that “the appetite of natural riches is not infinite, because according to a set measure they satisfy nature; but the appetite of artificial riches is infinite, because it serves inordinate concupiscence….” In other words, if we seek gain in order to fulfill our “appetite of natural riches,” food, clothing, and so forth, whatever serves the necessities or reasonable conveniences of life, then this desire for gain has a natural end, a natural limit. We can eat only so much, we can reasonably keep only so many extra shirts or dresses in our closets. But not so with money, “artificial riches.” Money very easily fits with “the desire for gain which knows no limit but tends into infinity.” We can accumulate as much as we are able. We can receive gigantic salaries, as many CEOs do, money that many people would regard as a sufficient lifetime wage, yet which these receive year in and year out. It is truly incredible that in a country that so often claims to be Christian, such seeking after inordinate riches is tolerated, even defended and justified.

At least part of the reason that conservative Christians are apt to reactively defend such acquisitiveness is that many critics of such behavior are those who in other respects are hostile to Christian morality, e.g., in sexual matters. But Christians would do well to follow the example we saw above of Professor Clor, who was not afraid to admit that the New Left critics had a point. It is silly and ultimately self-defeating to refuse to acknowledge a truth that one’s opponents advance. Rather, if our aim is to seek and defend truth, we should welcome it from whatever quarter it comes, and, if necessary, modify our own positions accordingly.

I have digressed somewhat from my original theme which was Aquinas’ teaching on buying and selling. But I do not think that this digression was entirely useless. If we look at St. Thomas, or at Holy Scripture, or any other Catholic moral or spiritual writer, we shall see an attitude toward wealth and its acquisition which differs radically from that of a society “given to the accumulation and consumption of commodities,” one that does “not seem to mind being called a `consumer society,’” one in which “the pursuit of happiness has come to mean, in large measure, the attainment of economic security and the continual multiplication of the means for personal comfort and enjoyment.” I imagine that some of my critics will accuse me of wanting to reduce our standard of living to that of penury, but I mean no such thing. Rather I think we might look to Pope Leo XIII’s “frugal comfort” as our ideal. There is much more to life than material goods, and one cannot but pity those who do not realize that. In any case, St. Thomas lays down specific moral precepts for our business activity as well as setting forth what should be the goals of society as conceived by Catholic tradition. Anything less is unworthy of a Catholic, and indeed, of anyone else who claims to bear the name of Christ.

An earlier version of this article appeared in The Distributist Review.

[1] Harry M. Clor, “American Democracy and the Challenge of Radical Democracy” in How Democratic is America? (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1969, 1973 printing) p. 105.

I. Introduction[1]

To the extent that usury is thought of or discussed today it is usually understood as the charging of excessive interest on loans, especially perhaps on a consumer loan as opposed to a business loan. Although the charging of high rates of interest is indeed a real social and political evil, this is not the classical understanding of usury. Rather usury, as that has been discussed for centuries in Catholic theology and condemned again and again by the Church, means the taking of any interest on any type of loan, simply by virtue of the loan contract. The most complete papal treatment of usury is found in the 1745 encyclical of Pope Benedict XIV, Vix Pervenit, the relevant portions of which run,

The nature of the sin called usury has its proper place and origin in a loan contract [in contractu mutui]. This financial contract between consenting parties demands, by its very nature, that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owned him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.

One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one’s fortune…or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan….

By these remarks, however, We do not deny that at times together with the loan contract certain other titles – which are not at all intrinsic to the contract – may run parallel with it. From these other titles, entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract.^[2]

For most contemporaries this sounds odd and perhaps even contrary to reason, for does not a lender deprive himself of present money, and since he will receive the principal back only later, is it not simply just that he receive something over and above the principal to compensate him for the temporary loss? The short answer to this is No, for unless the creditor can point to some loss he will incur because he made the loan, or to some lost opportunity for gain, the mere fact of having made a loan does not give him the right to receive interest payments. We will look more closely at this below.

II. Historical background

In order to understand the argumentation of Pope Benedict, let us consider more fully the legal and theological framework which theologians and canonists for centuries employed when considering usury. In Roman law the contract known as mutuum governed the loan of something which was necessarily consumed in its use, and therefore the identical object could not be returned to the lender, only something of the same kind and amount.

The subject-matter of the mutuum must consist of things that can be measured, weighed, or numbered, such as wine, corn, or money; that is, things which being consumed can be restored in genere…. From the nature of this contract the obligation is imposed upon the borrower to restore to the lender, not the identical thing loaned, but its equivalent – that is, another thing of the same kind, quality, and value….

With regard to the responsibility for loss, since from the peculiar character of the contract the right of consumption passes to the borrower, the latter is looked upon as the practical owner of the thing loaned, and he therefore holds it entirely at his own risk….^[3]

The chief characteristic of the mutuum contract that differentiates it from any other type of loan is that the actual good borrowed is not returned but consumed or used up by the borrower. This is in contrast to the loan or rent of something which will be physically returned, such as a house or a car. In the latter type of loans, the same item that is loaned is returned to the lender, and because it is subject to wear and tear on account of its use by the borrower, compensation is justly due to the lender for this beyond the return of the thing borrowed. But in a contract of mutuum there is no wear and tear on the item loaned and hence compensation for that does not enter into the contract. Any just title to interest must come from another source.

The Catholic Church manifested her opposition to usury beginning during the Patristic period, and gradually the reasoning of her theologians took on a more definite shape. The formulation by St. Thomas Aquinas is the classic and best example of these arguments. His most mature discussion of usury is in the Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 78.^[4] I quote from the Respondeo from article 1, which contains his theory in a nutshell.

I answer that to receive usury for money loaned [mutuata] is in itself unjust, because that is sold which does not exist, by which clearly an inequality is constituted which is contrary to justice. For the evidence of which it must be known that there are certain things the use of which is the consumption of those things; as we consume wine by using it for drinking or we consume wheat by using it for food. Whence in such things the use of a thing ought not to be computed separately from the thing itself; but to whomever is granted the use from that fact itself is granted [possession of] the thing; and on account of this in such things through the loan [mutuum] ownership is transferred. If anyone therefore wishes to sell separately the wine, and again wishes to sell the use of the wine, he would sell the same thing twice, or he would sell that which does not exist; whence clearly he would sin by injustice. And by a similar reason he commits injustice who loans [mutuat] wine or wheat seeking to be given two recompenses; one indeed the restitution of an equal amount of the thing, the other, on the other hand, the price of the use which is called usury.

Let us formulate Thomas’ argument in a slightly different way so as to show that it is not unreasonable, and in fact makes perfect sense. Money is certainly the most common example of something loaned at mutuum, but not the only one. As we saw, St. Thomas based his argument on the more general class of consumptible things. And I think that if we look at ordinary consumptibles, such as food or drink, we might be able to look at the question afresh and understand the Church’s doctrine better. Let us consider the following analogy.

Suppose we have a small businessman who owns a catering service, catering food and drink, and let us suppose further that any supplies which accompany the food and drink are disposable, plastic forks, paper napkins, etc., so that there is nothing which he provides to his customers which he must reuse and which are thus subject to wear and tear. Now what may he licitly charge his customers for? For the replacement cost of the food and drink and the other disposable supplies. In addition, he may charge each customer for a share of the overhead of his business, such as rent, utilities, his delivery van, wages for any employees, and for a salary for himself, which may be defined as a “return for his labor of organization and direction, and for the risk that he underwent.”^[5] But as regards the food and other consumptibles which he provides, it is hard to see how he can charge a customer for more than the amount purchased. If he furnishes 100 bottles of wine, the caterer may charge what it will cost him to replace a similar kind and amount of wine. Anything additional which he charges a customer must come from one of the other titles I just mentioned, costs incident to the running of his business and wages for his employees and for himself.

This last is what is generally called profit, a term that is often used loosely and inexactly. As we see here, Msgr. Ryan reduces it to the proprietor’s labor, plus his entrepreneurial abilities and risk. It is not an open-ended invitation to charge as much as the market will bear, but rather there must exist some title of justification such as Ryan enumerates. Looked at in this way the limiting of the reimbursement for the consumptibles sold seems obvious. Of course the caterer cannot charge for 110 bottles of wine if he delivers only 100. His profit, in reality his salary and compensation for risk, etc., is not gained by expecting more in return than what he supplied of the product, but rather is payed for in its own right.

The application of this to loans of mutuum can easily be seen. Supposing someone in the business of making loans, similar expenses could justly be taken from customers. In the Middle Ages there existed institutions called montes pietatis, lending institutions created to provide an alternative to usurers, sponsored by local governments or the Church. The montes were non-profit institutions, but they charged interest to cover their expenses, including salaries of their staff. But according to Msgr. Ryan’s analysis no business is profit-making in the sense that it can justly seek as wide profits as it can obtain. The owner can seek a fair “return for his labor of organization and direction, and for the risk that he underwent.” Although one cannot calculate such returns with mathematical exactness, neither can one maintain that they have no theoretical limit. And even if one did argue that there should be no limit on such a return for labor, skill and risk, still that is not the same as saying that usury for the lending activity itself may be exacted, for we have seen that the entrepreneur can require only the same amount of the consumptible good as he has provided, “the equality of what is given and returned,” as Benedict XIV taught.^[6]

Of course our caterer receives immediate or nearly immediate payment for his expenditure on food and other consumptibles. A loan of money, however, is generally paid back after a period of time, or gradually during such a period. Is not the lender entitled to some compensation on account of this delay? No, for “…the mere time differential by itself does not cause a difference in value. There must be added the possibility of earning a profit in the intervening time period.”^[7] That is the meaning of the words of Pope Benedict XIV, that

We do not deny that at times together with the loan contract certain other titles – which are not at all intrinsic to the contract – may run parallel with it. From these other titles, entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract.

Historically the chief parallel titles were lucrum cessans and damnum emergens. The former is the loss of opportunity for gain – say an opportunity of becoming a partner in a business venture – which someone might forgo by making a loan, and the latter is some actual damage which he might incur by not having the funds available which he had loaned. But it is crucial to recognize that the mere fact of making a loan does not equate to the right to repayment of more than the principal. Unless the lender will suffer financial harm because he has loaned the funds, or for some other special circumstance, there is nothing in the loan transaction itself that entitles him to any interest payment.

III Application of usury theory to contemporary economies

If it is the case that the “law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned,” then several questions suggest themselves which we will consider in this last section. In the first place, we have to ask what effect the intrinsic evil of usury should have on the moral conduct of the Christian. Is there anything that Christians should do or avoid in their financial or economic behavior as a result of the sinfulness of usury? Secondly, what meaning does usury have in an economy hopelessly enmeshed in all kinds of interest-bearing transactions as a matter of course and without a thought as to any justifying title? Since even in the Renaissance lawyers found ways around the prohibition of usury by drawing up contracts that authorized repayment of more than the principal under various complex formulas,^[8] and theologians could be found who sanctioned these contracts, are we committing the Church to a ridiculous anachronism, a relic of the past? Are we hankering after a silly formalism in order to justify something that it is easier and more honest simply to call interest on a loan?

In regard to our first question, the praxis of the Church beginning at least in the first half of the 19th century was to presume that some justifying title to interest probably exists in most cases in the context of a modern finance economy. This point of view was embodied in the (now abrogated) 1917 Code of Canon Law which restated the doctrine of Vix Pervenit while allowing in practice for the taking of interest under other titles.^[9] Thus no one can be condemned for taking the legal or customary rate of interest on a loan, provided that that is not excessive. The Church is assuming that parallel titles which justify interest exist in the vast majority of cases, and that even if in some cases they do not, it is better for the sake of consciences to ignore that fact than to attempt the probably hopelessly complex task of disentangling the various elements of the contract.

This does not mean, however, that in today’s economy the question of usury is dead. We should recall that interest on a loan is justified only when some opportunity for legitimate gain is forgone or some loss sustained. The extrinsic titles were never given official approval except as compensation for lost opportunities for investment earnings, and therefore “they can never be advanced as a justification of a general loan system based on motives of profit.”^[10] But one can hardly justify taking interest on the ground that one is forgoing another lost opportunity for taking interest! The lost opportunity must be of some other sort, such as a partnership or business expansion. Moreover, while it is certainly correct to point out that today there is usually opportunity for productive investment, and that therefore those who put money out at mutuum but would otherwise invest it are entitled to claim lucrum cessans, this reasoning does not always hold. For in cases of depression or recession “the profit expectations of businessmen are likely to be so low that they would not employ men and machines on new investment projects even if you let them borrow temporarily at a zero interest rate.”^[11] In such cases “some savings will follow the sterile path of debt-financed consumption, with eventual repayment at the expense of current consumption.”^[12] In other words, in such situations a lack of consumer demand makes spending on productive investment unprofitable, so it is likely that someone putting money out at mutuum is not truly forgoing investment profit, because no profit is to be had for the time being. Thus when there is excess savings with no outlet for profitable use, it is hardly in accord with justice or the common good to reward those who choose to loan by giving them a rate of interest based on a merely hypothetical opportunity cost.

Likewise it also seems hard to justify lucrum cessans for those who have no real intention of making investments, simply because such opportunities are normally available to all. What of ordinary savers who desire to put their money into insured savings accounts at banks or credit unions and who because of inexperience or fear of loss have no desire to invest in business ventures, even to buy shares of stock or mutual funds? They are not undergoing a real loss of investment income on account of their loan of money to the bank, since otherwise they might have simply hidden the money in a mattress. I do not see how the merely theoretical possibility that they could make gains from investments applies to them, since they are too risk averse to do so. Can they licitly claim interest on bank accounts and under what title? I think there is a reason for thinking such interest just, but it is not one of the extrinsic titles that theologians approved. It is the mere fact of inflation. “He who receives a loan of money…is not held to pay back more than he received by the loan”^[13] – but with our ability to monitor the level of inflation in an economy, we realize that money simply left alone, as in a mattress, will usually diminish in value. Therefore payment for inflation for money deposited in a bank or credit union seems just.

In the 16th century and thereafter the zeal for economic justice in Catholic Europe began to wane, and lawyers and merchants increasingly sought ways around the usury prohibition, such as the contractus trinus. But if instead of that, men’s souls had been animated by love of God and neighbor, or even fear of judgment, what might have been done – or what could be done now? Let us look briefly at a few financial practices and institutions which Christians might promote on behalf of justice.

The whole Christian doctrine of property with its responsibilities of ownership which the modern world has forgotten is wrapped up in this question of money and the taking of interest thereon. If I am in possession of money, I am in possession of something that is vital to the society in which I live. I, as a Christian, therefore, have very definite responsibilities with respect to the ownership of that money. Christian morality knows of no theory of an unqualified and unconditional ownership of property of any description. Property must be used according to its true end and purpose and in the case of money that true end and purpose is as a means of exchange. Therefore, the wrongful withholding of that money from circulation for the purpose of making a profit by waiting is a misuse of property.^[14]

Such a doctrine of money is akin to what Paul VI teaches about property in Populorum progressio.

…private property does not constitute for anyone an absolute and unconditioned right. No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use what he does not need, when others lack necessities…. If certain landed estates impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused or poorly used, or because they bring hardship to peoples or are detrimental to the interests of the country, the common good sometimes demands their expropriation. (nos. 23-24)

Clearly expropriation of funds that are being used merely in idle usury should be a last resort, and normally the law will use financial incentives and penalties to direct such funds toward uses more in accord with the common good. But no Catholic need be afraid to acknowledge that “the public authority, in view of the common good, may specify more accurately what is licit and what is illicit for property owners in the use of their possessions.”^[15] A Christian society, then, by outlawing true usury completely, and by forbidding or discouraging the kinds of contracts that during the Renaissance helped undermine the usury prohibition among both theologians and merchants, would seek to direct money toward its proper use. Some form of credit union, akin to the montes, would be adequate for providing financing for non-productive consumer loans. The demand for commercial credit could be satisfied either by merchants diverting funds from investments, and licitly claiming lucrum cessans, or by some form of commercial credit union run by associations of businesses or by occupational groups (guilds).

Catholics should have as lively a sense of the demands of the moral law relative to the economy as they do relative to sexuality or war.

In the Middle Ages, it was taken for granted God’s law applied to the totality of life. The idea of a double standard of morality, with a strict code for private life and a minimum of moral obligation for business and public life, is an innovation based on philosophical and religious individualism of the eighteenth century.^[16]

However far we are today from a Christian society or a Christian economy, the goal “to impress the divine law on the affairs of the earthly city” (Gaudium et Spes, no. 43) is always imperative. As with most of Catholic social morality today, our first task is one of education and formation, since very few Catholics are aware of the existence of these doctrines or of their binding character. This may seem of little consequence, but as with all our efforts in this life, this is part of making the world a more perfect offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus who will one day renew all things in himself.

Notes

^[1] The following essay is an abridgment and revision of my article “Is Usury Still a Sin?” in: Communio 36.3 (2009) 447-474.

^[2] Denzinger, 2546-50.

^[3] William C. Morey, Outlines of Roman Law. (New York : G. P. Putman’s, 2d ed., 1914), 355-56.

^[4] See also the De Malo, q. 13, a. 4.

^[5] John A. Ryan, Distributive Justice, (New York : Macmillan, 3rd edition, 1942), 176.

^[6] Another way of looking at this example which yields the same conclusion is to regard a mutuum of money as a sale. As in the case of the caterer who provides 100 bottles of wine and receives as part of his total payment the price of the 100 bottles, no more and no less, if we look at money loaned as a sale of money we see that the price of $100 is obviously $100. Any other just charges come from the same titles as the caterer had, overhead expenses, wages, etc. For the product provided one can charge only what it is worth, which in the case of money is its face value.

^[7] Heinrich Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie/Teaching Guide to Economics, translated by Rupert J. Ederer (Lewiston : Edwin Mellen, c. 2003), vol. 5, book, 2, 200.

^[8] For example, the contractus trinus or triple contract, a three-fold contract made between two business partners, the first of whom was the active partner and the second inactive. The first part of the contract stipulated that the first partner manage the enterprise, say a trading voyage, and the second supply some or all of the funding. The second part of a contractus trinus stipulated that the active partner insure the inactive against loss, and by the third part the silent partner paid for this insurance by taking a return which was less than the expected profit of the enterprise, say 4% on his investment, against an expected return of 8%, but which was guaranteed even if the enterprise miscarried.

^[9] Canon 1543 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law ran, “If a fungible thing is given to someone in such a way that it becomes his and later is to be returned only in the same kind, no gain can be received by reason of the contract itself; but in the payment of a fungible thing, it is not in itself illicit to contract for the gain allowed by law, unless it is clear that this is excessive, or even for a greater gain, if a just and adequate title be present.” There is no comparable canon in the 1983 Code.

^[10] John P. Kelly, Aquinas and Modern Practices of Interest Taking, (Brisbane : Aquinas Press, 1945), 33.

^[11] Paul Samuelson, Economics (New York : McGraw-Hill, 9th ed., 1973), 336.

^[12] John F. Cronin, Economics and Society (New York : American Book Co., 1939), 131.

^[13] Summa Theologiae II-II q. 78 a. 2 ad 2.

^[14] Kelly, Aquinas and Modern Practices of Interest Taking, 46-47.

^[15] Pius XI, Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, no. 49.

^[16] John F. Cronin, Catholic Social Principles: the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church Applied to American Economic Life (Milwaukee : Bruce, 1950), 43.