Catholic Social Economics: A Response to Certain Problems, Errors, and Abuses of the Modern Age

Catholic social economics is an amalgam of economic science and moral discipline in which economics is perceived as (1) one of several distinct sciences that study man and (2) dependent on moral discipline in order to address the problems, errors, and abuses that beset man in the Modern Age. Each of these distinct sciences has its own unique perspective on man. In economics, the focus is upon man the worker and man the consumer. By focusing on a different aspect of man, each science develops its own special body of knowledge which defines its domain or, as John Henry Newman puts it, the boundaries of its province (Newman, 1947, p. 336). Since these sciences are intertwined around the same subject, each may contribute something instructive to the others. Because man is one and not several, there is a need to reconcile any differences in views held about man not only within a given domain but also across domains, and to work out any implications for theory and applications1 in each of the affected sciences. Strictly speaking, none of the several sciences alone has the wherewithal to develop the knowledge necessary to answer the three questions that are most central to each one. Who is man? What is man? Whose is man? In that most important sense, each one including economic science is dependent on moral discipline.