Abstract
The social sciences, and particularly economics, play an important role in business. This article reviews the account of the interdisciplinary conversation between Catholic Social Teaching and the social sciences (especially economics) over the last century, and describes Benedict XVI’s development of this account in Caritas in Veritate. Over time the popes recognized that the technical approach of economics was a barrier to fruitful collaboration between economics and Catholic Social Teaching, both because the economic approach is reductionist, and because modern social science is skeptical of comprehensive accounts of human nature. Through an appeal to charity in truth, one can deduce from Caritas in Veritate that economists, along with business and management theorists, need to take seriously the project of reflecting on and promoting true human goods in society. To love the person one must reflect on what is truly good for the person; to discover the true good of the person, one must love the person.
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Notes
See the abbreviation list at the beginning of this article. When an abbreviation corresponding to encyclical letters and other documents of the Roman Catholic Church are accompanied by paragraph numbers follow the official numbering from the Vatican website (http://www.vatican.va).
See Frodeman and Mitcham (2010) for a thorough exploration of the theoretical and practical challenges of interdisciplinary work.
See Stump (2003, Chap. 9) for a fuller discussion of the exercise of practical wisdom.
See Almodovar and Teixeira (2008) for an account of the rise and decline of Catholic economics.
The tendency of economics to employ its simplified anthropology in practical inquiry has been observed since its formal beginning as a university discipline. See Newman (1976).
Although the English translation of the encyclical uses the word ‘truth’ for verum; it uses the term ‘knowledge’ for several different Latin words: cognitio, conscientia, and scientia. It is the distinction between truth and ‘scientia’ which is important in this paper.
Human reason can also reach the truth to some extent, since human intelligence is not confined to observable data alone, but can with genuine certitude attain to reality itself as knowable, though that certitude is partly obscured (GS 15).
The use of the term ‘knowledge’ in this quotation is confusing; it implies that scientia is a source of ‘knowledge’, as Benedict XVI uses the term. The confusion stems from translation choices. The Latin phrase undecumque manantem is translated here as “from whichever branch of knowledge it comes.” A more literal translation is “flowing from any source whatever.” In the original Latin, Benedict XVI does not refer in this passage to any words translated as ‘knowledge’ elsewhere in the document: scientia, cognitio, or conscientia.
Abbreviations
- CST:
-
Catholic Social Teaching
- CA:
-
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus 1991
- CV:
-
Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate 2009
- GS:
-
Second Vatican Council, Pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes 1965
- FR:
-
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et ratio 1998
- LE:
-
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens 1981
- MM:
-
John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Mater et Magistra 1961
- OA:
-
Paul VI, Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens 1971
- QA:
-
Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno 1931
- RN:
-
Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum 1891
- SRS:
-
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Solicitudo Rei Socialis 1987
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Yuengert, A. Economics and Interdisciplinary Exchange in Catholic Social Teaching and “Caritas in Veritate”. J Bus Ethics 100 (Suppl 1), 41–54 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1186-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1186-1