Fortin details several key reasons why Taparelli's concept does not align with the original philosophy of Thomas Aquinas: The Shift to Individual Rights : St. Thomas Aquinas focused on objective right ( ius ), which is what is objectively owed to the common good or to another person based on duty and virtue. In contrast, Fortin argues that Taparelli succumbed to modern political thought by focusing on subjective, individual natural rights . [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ] An Artificial Hybrid : Fortin views Taparelli's concept as an unstable, idiosyncratic compromise. Taparelli took the language of the Enlightenment (Lockean rights, individual liberties) and tried to baptismally fuse it with Thomistic natural law to counter radical secularism and socialism. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ] Individual vs. Social Ethics : Classical Thomism views justice as an objective ordering of the political community toward the common good. Critics following Fortin's line of thought note that Taparelli’s ...
AI Overview According to scholar Ernest Fortin, the 19th-century Jesuit Luigi Taparelli coined "social justice" in the 1840s as a novel concept not found in classical or medieval philosophy. Fortin notes that no pre-modern thinker—neither Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, nor Thomas Aquinas—ever used or taught social justice, making Taparelli’s formulation a distinct departure rather than a direct continuation of Thomism.Fortin's View on Taparelli's NotionNot a Traditional Virtue: Fortin argues that social justice, unlike legal or distributive justice in Thomistic thought, does not cleanly map onto an individual human soul's moral disposition.Shifting the Subject: Instead of an individual person practicing a virtue, the "subject" becomes an abstract or collective society held responsible for systemic conditions and the plight of the poor.Historical Break: Taparelli introduced the term to address modern socio-economic crises and natural rights debates, blending modern concepts rather than simply repeating St. Thomas.
AI Overview According to scholar Ernest Fortin, the 19th-century Jesuit Luigi Taparelli coined "social justice" in the 1840s as a novel concept not found in classical or medieval philosophy. Fortin notes that no pre-modern thinker—neither Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, nor Thomas Aquinas—ever used or taught social justice, making Taparelli’s formulation a distinct departure rather than a direct continuation of Thomism. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ] Fortin's View on Taparelli's Notion Not a Traditional Virtue: Fortin argues that social justice, unlike legal or distributive justice in Thomistic thought, does not cleanly map onto an individual human soul's moral disposition. [ 1 ] Shifting the Subject: Instead of an individual person practicing a virtue, the "subject" becomes an abstract or collective society held responsible for systemic conditions and the plight of the poor. [ 1 ] Historical Break: Taparelli introduced the term to address modern ...