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It is a serious mistake to think that all we need for a just world
is properly-structured organizations. But it is equally wrong to
believe that all we need are virtuous people. Social structures
alter people's decisions through the influence of the restrictions
and opportunities they present. Does buying a shirt at the local
department store create for you some responsibility for the
workplace welfare of the women who sewed it half a planet away?
Many people interested in justice have claimed so, but without
identifying any causal link between consumer and producer, for the
simple reason that no single consumer has any perceptible effect on
any of those producers. Finn uses a critical realist understanding
of social structures to view both the positive and negative effects
of the market as a social structure comprising a long chain of
causal relations from consumer/clerk to factory manager/seamstress.
This causal connection creates a consequent moral responsibility
for consumers and society for the destructive effects that markets
help to create. Clearly written and engaging, this book is a
must-read for scholars involved with these moral issues.
Business Ethics and Catholic Social Thought provides a new and
wide-ranging account of these two ostensibly divergent fields.
Focusing on the agency of the business person and the interests of
firms, this volume outlines fundamental issues confronting moral
leaders and corporations committed to responsible business
practices.
Christian ethics has addressed moral agency and culture from the
start, and Christian social ethics increasingly acknowledges the
power of social structures. However, neither has made sufficient
use of the discipline that specializes in understanding structures
and culture: sociology. In Moral Agency within Social Structures
and Culture, editor and contributor Daniel K. Finn proposes a
field-changing critical realist sociology that puts Christian
ethics into conversation with modern discourses on human agency and
social transformation. Catholic social teaching mischaracterizes
social evil as being little more than the sum of individual
choices, remedied through individual conversion. Liberation
theology points to the power of social structures but without
specifying how structures affect moral agency. Critical realist
sociology provides a solution to both shortcomings. This collection
shows how sociological insights can deepen and extend Catholic
social thought by enabling ethicists to analyze more precisely how
structures and culture impact human decisions. The book
demonstrates how this sociological framework has applications for
the study of the ecological crisis, economic life, and virtue
ethics. Moral Agency within Social Structures and Culture is a
valuable tool for Christian ethicists who seek systemic change in
accord with the Gospel.
Christian ethics has addressed moral agency and culture from the
start, and Christian social ethics increasingly acknowledges the
power of social structures. However, neither has made sufficient
use of the discipline that specializes in understanding structures
and culture: sociology. In Moral Agency within Social Structures
and Culture, editor and contributor Daniel K. Finn proposes a
field-changing critical realist sociology that puts Christian
ethics into conversation with modern discourses on human agency and
social transformation. Catholic social teaching mischaracterizes
social evil as being little more than the sum of individual
choices, remedied through individual conversion. Liberation
theology points to the power of social structures but without
specifying how structures affect moral agency. Critical realist
sociology provides a solution to both shortcomings. This collection
shows how sociological insights can deepen and extend Catholic
social thought by enabling ethicists to analyze more precisely how
structures and culture impact human decisions. The book
demonstrates how this sociological framework has applications for
the study of the ecological crisis, economic life, and virtue
ethics. Moral Agency within Social Structures and Culture is a
valuable tool for Christian ethicists who seek systemic change in
accord with the Gospel.
Business Ethics and Catholic Social Thought provides a new and
wide-ranging account of these two ostensibly divergent fields.
Focusing on the agency of the business person and the interests of
firms, this volume outlines fundamental issues confronting moral
leaders and corporations committed to responsible business
practices.
It is a serious mistake to think that all we need for a just world
is properly-structured organizations. But it is equally wrong to
believe that all we need are virtuous people. Social structures
alter people's decisions through the influence of the restrictions
and opportunities they present. Does buying a shirt at the local
department store create for you some responsibility for the
workplace welfare of the women who sewed it half a planet away?
Many people interested in justice have claimed so, but without
identifying any causal link between consumer and producer, for the
simple reason that no single consumer has any perceptible effect on
any of those producers. Finn uses a critical realist understanding
of social structures to view both the positive and negative effects
of the market as a social structure comprising a long chain of
causal relations from consumer/clerk to factory manager/seamstress.
This causal connection creates a consequent moral responsibility
for consumers and society for the destructive effects that markets
help to create. Clearly written and engaging, this book is a
must-read for scholars involved with these moral issues.
What has social science learned about the common good? Can that
knowledge improve the views of the common good held by philosophers
and theologians? Would humanists ever even alter their definitions
of the common good based on what social scientists say? Most view
the assumptions undergirding social science as inadequate to a full
understanding of human life. In this volume, six social scientists,
with backgrounds in economics, political science, sociology, and
policy analysis, speak about what their disciplines have to
contribute to discussions within Catholic social thought about the
common good. Two theologians then examine the insights of social
science, including such challenging assertions as: that theology
too often ignores the data of everyday life, that it is overly
irenic, that it neither understands nor appreciates the unplanned
order arising from individual interactions, and that it does not
grasp how contention among self-interested nations and persons can
be a more effective path to the common good than simply advocating
cooperation and brotherly love. This volume's interplay of social
scientific and religious views is a unique contribution to
contemporary discussion of what constitutes "the common good."
What does the history of Christian views of economic life mean for
economic life in the twenty-first century? Here Daniel Finn reviews
the insights provided by a large number of texts, from the Bible
and the early church, to the Middle Ages and the Protestant
Reformation, to treatments of the subject in the last century.
Relying on both social science and theology, Finn then turns to the
implications of this history for economic life today. Throughout,
the book invites the reader to engage the sources and to develop an
answer to the volume's basic question.
Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth) is the ''social'' encyclical
of Pope Benedict XVI, one of many papal encyclicals over the last
120 years that address economic life. This volume, based on
discussions at a symposium co-sponsored by the Institute for
Advanced Catholic Studies and the Pontifical Council for Justice
and Peace, analyzes the situation of the Church and the theological
basis for Benedict's thinking about the person, community, and the
globalized economy. The Moral Dynamics of Economic Life engages
Benedict's analysis of ''relation,'' the characteristics of
contemporary social and economic relationships and the implications
of a relational, Trinitarian God for daily human life. Crucial here
is the Pope's notion of ''reciprocity,'' an economic relationship
characterized by help freely given, but which forms an expectation
that the recipient will ''reciprocate,'' either to the donor or,
often, to someone else. This ''logic of gift,'' Benedict argues,
should influence daily economic life, especially within what he
calls ''hybrid'' firms, which make a profit and invest a share of
that profit in service to needs outside the firm. Similarly,
development - whether of an individual or of a nation - must be
integral, neither simply economic nor personal nor psychological
nor spiritual, but a comprehensive development that engages all
dimensions of a flourishing human life. The essays, written by
social scientists, theologians, policy analysts and others, engage,
extend, and critique Benedict's views on these issues, as well as
his call for deeper dialogue and a morally based transformation of
social and economic structures.
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