Freedom, solidarity, subsidiarity

Pope Benedict XVI's new encyclical continues 120 years of Catholic social doctrine based on the dignity of the human person and his participation in society.

To understand Pope Benedict XVI’s recent encyclical, Caritas in veritatem (Charity in truth), you need to know something about the history of ideas. This is not a document which the Pope tossed off after a couple of months of reflection. It is the latest instalment of at least 120 years of major documents from popes commenting on social trends especially in the field of economics. Broadly speaking, this is called the “social doctrine” of the Catholic Church. It is a collection of principles governing social development while still respecting the integrity of the human person.

Although it is not tied to a particular political programme or political organisation, recent Catholic social doctrine can be interpreted as a commentary on the Western idea of freedom. The origin of this freedom is often placed in the dismantling of the medieval world and its alliance of Church and throne. From this perspective the transformation (or destruction) of the power of the throne and the separation of Church and State was a necessary precursor to the rise of democracy. Democracy gave the peoples of western Europe (and its colonial offshoots, for example, the United States and Australia and New Zealand) some sort of power over their own destiny, which was a key goal in the fight for democracy. Democracy and freedom, at least in the Western world became intricately linked.

Many, not all, of the rivulets of thinking that went to make up democracy were concerned, in this new democratic and liberated era, to re-formulate the relationship of the society and the individual within it. This relationship was more settled for pre-Enlightenment Europe. This is not to say that it was not explored by intellectuals in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and even outlined in practice in various early representative Councils and governments which existed even when monarchical government was the norm. Simply, new forms of political organization of society called forth new attempts to understand the relationship between the individual and society.

Most of these responses revolved around “the social contract”. If society existed to coordinate and control for the benefit of all, and yet one of the foundational reasons for a democracy was to maximise freedom, how could these be made compatible?

Up until the age of democracy, the Aristotelian idea prevailed that the human person was societal by nature. This meant human persons were not only individuals but also integral participants in a society. Their link to society was essential not just for convenience, but for their own happiness and fulfilment. It was this idea that underpinned the notion in the Middle Ages that society was organic. This notion frustrated certain aspirations for freedom at times. Nevertheless, it also meant that the people in these societies were not atomised. They belonged to a community.

After the Reformation and the bitter wars on the Continent and in England, the Aristotelian idea changed. The political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) contended that the individual has no necessary connection to society. Individuals and their freedom are prior to society. He thought that the Aristotelian view stifled autonomy. Society came about when individuals agreed to surrender some of their autonomy in exchange for the protection of the state. The relationship between man and the state was not natural, but a “contract”. This approach gave rise both to notions of democratic equality and the modern idea of freedom – the absolute autonomy of the individual with respect to other members of society. Freedom came to mean, above all, freedom from external coercion.

While social contract theory helps to legitimize democracy, which is undoubtedly a wonderful legacy, not all of its effects have been good. The loss of the person’s natural relationship to society has resulted in the atomised, hyper-individualised society that has dominated Western culture for the past 100 years, at least. This culture tends to be united by only one value, the supremacy of the autonomous individual.

If this is the only value that Western peoples and their preferred form of government, democracy, can agree on, then what is left of society as such? Can democratic societies continue to exist and thrive solely on the common sharing of the value of freedom? How much expansion or stretching of the individualism and atomisation of the democratic ideal of freedom can Western societies endure before democratic society ceases to exist?

Society must be based on something more than freedom. Without freedom, society is stultified, but without a vibrant society which values interconnections between its members, the freedom of the individual cannot be sustained. That’s where the Catholic Church brings to bear its deep insights into the nature of man. Rethinking society involves the recovery of or, where they never existed, the introduction of certain principles of social life. The five which are almost always mentioned are: respect for the dignity of the person, participation, solidarity, subsidiarity, and the common good.

The following is an explanation of these five points with the view to showing how much light they shed on many contemporary social and ethical problems.

Respect for the Person

The dignity of the human person has to be the foundation of social life. This is the bedrock position of the Catholic Church. In the first place this means respect for life. Unless the right to life is upheld in all cases and unconditionally, society cannot stand. As Benedict says in Caritas in veritatem, “Openness to life is at the centre of true development. When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man's true good.”

Utilitarianism, the current philosophy most corrosive of the special status of the human person, leads to a devaluing of human life. Roger Scruton in his very useful Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey has noted that by its internal logic utilitarianism, if necessary, would “authorise the destruction of the innocent for the sake of some greater good”. If society is to mean anything, this special status of the human person must be respected. Despite the inroads of utilitarianism, this special status is still recognized by most of those countries which have come under the sway of Western influence and by the only international body which, at present, could possibly lay claim (despite its faults) to speak for the world -- the United Nations.

The intrinsic dignity of the human person must be the foundation of society so that the rights of the members of it, particularly the innocent and vulnerable, are not extinguished in the name of some supposed good of the rest of the society. Society is there to serve the persons within it, not the other way around. The contrary position which made the individual subservient to the State was the error of both the National Socialist and Communist states.

It is easy to think that the dangers posed to humanity and freedom by these 20th century totalitarianisms have now receded with the triumph of the “free” world and its emphasis on the individual. Many people now see only one threat to the free west -- religious fundamentalism, be it Islamic, Christian, Hindu or any other denomination.

Certainly Benedict points to religious fundamentalism as a threat to development, but the novel contribution of Caritas in veritate to the upholding of the dignity of the person is the warning bell the pontiff sounds about “the technocratic ideology”. Paul VI and John Paul II warned of the dangers of a mindset that sees development purely in terms of technology, but Benedict has highlighted “technologism” (to coin a term) as one of the most potentially dangerous threats to the integral development of the peoples of the world.

This technologism would amount to entrusting the dignity of the human person to technocrats whose job it is to improve the human race. The ideology is the bastard child of the perfectly laudable Enlightenment idea that science would improve the condition of humanity and each individual person in the world. It is now an ideology which, carried away by its own hubris, respects no boundaries to the manipulation of the person, in the name of making “people” better. We are no longer on the slippery slope to this technology driven brave new world; we are on the level ground at the bottom of the slope, at least in the realm of ideas. It is significant that the Pope points to the surreptitious “systematic eugenic programming of births” as an example of the beginning of the triumph of this ideology in practice. Instead of enhancing the dignity of the person, abortion, eugenic programming to weed out defects in children by means of IVF and pre-implantation diagnosis and then euthanasia at the other end of life, by lowering the value of some lives, lowers the value of them all.

Part of the dignity owed to the human person is respect for their freedom. People are only to be coerced to safeguard the freedom of others and the good of the society in issues which are central to that society (like the right to life that we have just explored). But this dignity does not only include the freedom not to be coerced, it includes the freedom needed for a good individualism whose essence is responsibility, firstly for one’s own life and the fulfilment of one’s potentials and talents and secondly, for one’s family. This type of freedom will more likely be used if individuals see themselves as inextricably bound up with others in the society.

It is precisely the combination of personal dignity which includes freedom and the safeguarding of the dignity of every human person that has made of the social question fundamentally “an anthropological question”. This means that the fundamental question that has to be asked in order to solve social problems is, “What is man and how can he or she best flourish? (I apologise for any perceived sexism, but the abstract “man” is not gendered. It is not the same as “man and woman” and is not the same as “humanity” or even “humankind”. The term “man” here and in papal documents generally, points to the essence of human nature, which is shared equally by males and females.)

Participation

One pillar in the renewal of our understanding of society must be the idea of participation. Everyone has a contribution to make to society and has a duty to make it. Societies do not exist simply as a base from which I can exercise my individualism for my own self interest. The assumption underlying the English-speaking Enlightenment view of society as outlined above, seems to have been just this. Indeed, as Scruton points out, Adam Smith’s idea that the invisible hand would regulate economics in such a way that self interest worked for the benefit of all, seems to have been applied to societies as a whole.

This attitude is the equivalent of saying, “I can look after my own interests exclusively, and by this very fact, society will flourish.” To a certain extent this appears to be true. If entrepreneurs do not do what they do best and exploit economic opportunities, it is not only economies which stagnate; entire nations do as well. Nevertheless, it is a mistake to think that this comes about only because I work for my own interests. Those who contribute positively to the growth and modernisation of societies and nations can be blind to the need they have of society itself. If the entrepreneurs do not have a skilled workforce they can depend on, they too are hindered.

But the best entrepreneurs do not see their work in isolation. They see that they have to obey laws and somehow contribute to the society on which they depend for their success. This social aspect of individual drive and the entrepreneurial spirit is often forgotten. But it is sometimes brought into sharp focus by, to use one example, the tacit understanding that the care for the environment is a social requirement. Many entrepreneurs who are already very wealthy, do not keep working to accumulate money. They keep going because they are good at what they do and love it.

Nevertheless, the worst aspects of the individual spirit expressed by the “I have worked hard for my wealth and so I deserve it” mentality [CV: 34, 43], can exacerbate the atomization of society and contribute to an egoism which is blind to the unethical flouting of the very mechanisms so lauded as the most efficient in creating wealth for all. Recent corporate history provides plentiful examples of this. When this attitude overflows from the economic sphere into the sphere of personal and family life, the fabric of society begins to feel the pain. The evaluation of marriage on the same utilitarian scale as business partnerships has led directly to the high rates of break down of these marriages in most of the developed world, with the subsequent devastating affects on children – affects that are one of the worst blind-spots of our society.

Recent criticisms of the individual-centred, minimalist social contract have pointed to what is known as the ‘free rider’ phenomenon. The ‘free rider’ is an individual who decides to take a free ride on what others have created. In an ideal social contract, everyone is asked to forgo some freedoms for their own benefit. The free rider decides to take all the benefits without giving up any freedoms. The free rider’s freedom and autonomy is expressed in not contributing. Obviously here, self interest works to the detriment of the social contract. Those who argue for an Aristotelian view of society see this not as an aberration which only affects the other parties to the social contract, but also as detrimental to the free rider himself. Classic social contract theory can only accuse the free rider of being irrational.

Participation is not only a duty with respect to society. It enhances society. One of the most advantageous aspects of democracy with respect to other forms of government is the provision of a greater say by those who belong to society in how that society is organized and conducted. A corollary of this is that no undue discrimination ought to be exercised against citizens of the society having access to the decision making processes and that citizens have some redress against actions of the government when they judge it to have acted unjustly. The type of participation described in this paragraph is simply responsible individualism which tries as much as possible to shape its own future.

Caritas in veritatem reiterates the importance of participation. The citizens of countries in most dire need of development must be the ones who hold primary responsibility for this development. But they cannot do this in isolation [47]. Exhortations of this type are not new in the social doctrine of the Church, but two things in the newest encyclical stand out:

* pleas on behalf of the new economies to be allowed to enter the globalized market and the criticism of the idea that this globalization is driven by impersonal forces that will inevitably have some human cost, and

* the emphasis placed on the idea of “vocation” as not only a calling to development but also as a way of seeing personal participation in economic life -- in other words, as a call to the responsible freedom of the individual. This is the pathway, says Benedict, to being able to recognize where our autonomy meets its social obligations [16-17].

This vocation to participation, to responsible autonomy, underpins the third characteristic of the social doctrine of the Church, solidarity.

Solidarity

As naturally social beings, we are related to each other. In more recent times this interdependence of equals in society has received the name solidarity. While the idea behind the term solidarity has its roots in pre-Christian western philosophy the term seems to have gained currency in more recent times because of the frequency of its use in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. The concept has been readily adopted by European political discourse.

The “natural” nature of solidarity is most evident when we help each other in times of disaster. National and even international cooperation during emergencies is simply assumed to follow the dictates of justice and fairness.

Solidarity can also be seen as a new way of expressing fraternite, one of the three major battle cries of the French Revolution. It is particularly emphasised by the Catholic Church because it is the substrate of the second most important commandment of Jesus Christ, that of love of neighbour. In solidarity the modern world project coincides with the New Testament.

Societies cannot exist without solidarity. And in answer to the cynics who claim that aid projects are often simply self interest disguised as compassion, there stands the witness of those who contribute and those who give even what they need themselves to help their fellow human beings. Societies do not exist just so that we do not kill each other in what Thomas Hobbes described as a war of each against each in a life which is “solitary, brutish, nasty and short”. Martin Luther King was not just describing the battle to overcome racial prejudice when he said in a speech in St Louis in 1964, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools”.

But solidarity is not a plea for a welfare state. It is a principle which demands that human persons not be caught in a cycle of poverty which would make them destitute, or make them dependant on the rest of society. Dependence, when not caused by illness or incapacity, is incompatible with the responsible individualism proper to the human person as we have described it above.

Indeed, solidarity, understood correctly, provides a check to all-embracing State power. It guarantees for example, the right to association. It should be difficult for westerners who lived through the decade of the 1980s to forget that the initial seeds of the collapse of the Berlin Wall were sown by a Polish movement whose name in English was “solidarity”.

Interestingly, in this encyclical, Benedict XVI says that a failure of solidarity was partly to blame for the global financial crisis: “Without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust, the market cannot completely fulfil its proper economic function. And today it is this trust which has ceased to exist, and the loss of trust is a grave loss” [35]

Subsidiarity

In the European model, the State always seemed to play a larger part in the construction and direction of the social contract. It is fair to say therefore that in most European countries the State was more paternalistic. This led perhaps to a greater understanding of solidarity, but also to more State power and a centralizing tendency in many countries of continental Europe. For example, according to Hegel the State is the purest expression of the will of the people. This cut away, at times, at the responsible individualism and therefore of the dignity of the person as the State tended to want to swallow its citizens to make them march lock-step.

One principle of the social dimension of personhood therefore which must be adhered to if the balance between solidarity, participation, responsible individualism and personhood is to be achieved is subsidiarity.

This principle states that higher, more all embracing associations within a nation should not abrogate to themselves the functions of lower associations when these associations can fulfil their functions themselves. The principle has much to do with people organizing themselves in cooperation with each other for specific ends. It is understood by many people in the English speaking world, for example, when the rights of states are upheld against the rights of the Federation.

The principle has been very much alive and constantly invoked in the setting up of the European Union, in order to make sure that the Union does not crush the identities of the individual countries that make up that Union.

In England and the United States especially, this principle is alive and well, and is often expressed in a healthy suspicion of big government. It seems to have brought about a greater sense of the individual, either alone or in association with others, forging their futures for themselves and this is very much in keeping with the dignity of the person. If subsidiarity seems like it has links with the principle of participation, this is not surprising because it does. And as the Pope points out in his encyclical, “By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it is to be a human being, subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state.”

The common good

The Catholic Church has always emphasises that governments must look to the good of all their citizens and not just some of them. “Development,” says Benedict XVI, “ is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the requirements of the common good.”

The common good is “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily”. The common good however is not what many think it to be. In contemporary society, common good is normally interpreted in a utilitarian way. The common good is deemed to be the greatest good for the greatest number; and “good” here is understood as pleasure as opposed to pain.

But this can lead to a democratic totalitarianism. A majority can vote away the rights of minorities. In the Catholic view, the common good therefore must imply the preservation of the basic rights of individuals

The common good has been attacked at times because it is seen as a threat to the supremacy of the individual. As we have seen however, the supremacy of the individual is, in reality, illusory. The individual does not live in a vacuum. Indeed, as Roger Scruton has argued, the modern individualist idea expressed by Rawls that we have to strip ourselves of schemes of values, history, customs, circumstances and favouritisms in order to create a utopia of freedom and equality, is impossible because people are not like that. They are born and socialised into specific communities and it is these communities that ultimately give meaning to their lives.

Conclusion

Over the past 200 years, the success of West has been attributed largely to the energising theory of the social contract and the notion of extreme, autonomous freedom which accompanied it. But the atomisation of society and the global financial crisis are raising questions about whether the West is still the best. What Benedict XVI offers in Caritas in vertitate is a vision of development which purifies the finest achievements of Western civilisation, freedom and equality.

He is helping us to recover the idea that we are social by nature. This recovery is necessary if society is to have humanity and not simply profit and technological advancement at its centre. For a Christian, that social relationship exists above all because we are equally children of God.

“Will it ever be possible to obtain this brotherhood by human effort alone? As society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbours but does not make us brothers. Reason, by itself, is capable of grasping the equality between men and of giving stability to their civic coexistence, but it cannot establish fraternity. This originates in a transcendent vocation from God the Father, who loved us first, teaching us through the Son what fraternal charity is.”

Martin Fitzgerald teaches at Redfield College, in Sydney

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