Countering the Crisis of American Democracy with the Thomistic Personalism of Aquinas and John Paul II

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-249
Author(s):  
Rose Mary Hayden Lemmons ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Moral Objectivity ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Living Well ◽  
The Common ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The crisis of democracy unfolding in the United States was identified by John Paul II as due to misunderstanding the relationship of truth and freedom. This crisis has grown worse due to a libertinism that sees objective moral truths as impositions on both free choice and fulfilling relationships, that identifies self-fulfillment with a self-creation in which one creates one’s own values, that seeks to build democracies apart from moral objectivity, and that dismisses the relevance of God for living well. I argue that democracy cannot survive these libertine errors and that they cannot be successfully countered by utilitarianism, Rawls’s political liberalism, or democratic proceduralism. Survival requires adopting the Thomistic personalism formulated by Aquinas and developed by Karol Wojtyła as indispensable for understanding those lived experiences through which one encounters the ethical moment of self-determination, achieves moral objectivity, avoids loneliness by loving truly, and seeks—via collaboration with women exercising their feminine genius for discerning the welfare of others—the common good, without which democracies collapse into atheistic tyranny.

Voting Behavior on the United States Courts of Appeals Revisited

1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon Goldman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Stepwise Multiple Regression ◽  
Courts Of Appeals ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Appeals Courts ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

In an earlier study of voting behavior of U.S. appeals courts judges, attitudinal patterns were investigated along with an analysis of the relationship of judges' backgrounds to their decisions. In this revisit, the earlier findings were treated as hypotheses and tested with a new case population covering a subsequent and longer time period. In all, 2,115 cases decided nonunanimously were coded on one or more issues. Most cases could be classified under ten broad issue categories which were then utilized for most of the analyses. Although the research design was similar to that of the earlier study, a wider variety of methods was employed including nonparametric and parametric intercorrelations of voting behavior on the ten issues and stepwise multiple regression and partial correla-tion analyses of seven background variables and their relationships to voting behavior on the issues. The principal findings were similar to those found earlier but it was possible to map voting behavior with some-what more precision and to uncover some unexpected relationships such as those concerning the potency of the age variable particularly for voting on political liberalism issues.

What's Wrong with Cartels?

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Crowe ◽  
Barbora Jedličková
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Economic Welfare ◽  
Coordination Problem ◽  
Criminal Sanctions ◽  
Social Coordination ◽  
The Common ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Cartels have a significantly negative impact on economic welfare. Anti-cartel competition law–such as the provisions of pt IV div 1 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)–tries to tackle this negative impact through civil and criminal remedies. The prohibition of cartels is most commonly justified on economic grounds. However, reference is also often made to broader moral grounds for proscribing cartels–for example, it is commonly stated that cartels are deceptive, unfair or engaged in a form of cheating. This article advances a unified account of the moral status of cartels that integrates both economic and moral factors. It does so by emphasising the relationship of cartel behaviour to the moral duty to promote the common good. Cartels are wrong because they undermine the role of open and competitive markets as a salient response to an important social coordination problem in a way that leads to seriously harmful economic outcomes. This combination of factors supplies a robust justification for both civil and criminal sanctions in appropriate cases, thereby affording a principled foundation for the current framework of cartel regulation in Australia.

The lives of subjects

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabel S. Brett
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the relationship of the state to its subjects as necessarily physically embodied beings. The primary way in which the commonwealth commands its subjects is through the medium of its law. The law is for the common good and obliges the community as a whole, and thus the ontological status of the law—as distinct from any particular command of a superior to an individual—is intimately tied to that of the body politic. The question, then, concerning the relationship of the state to the natural body of the individual can be framed in terms of the extent of the obligation of the civil law.

Republicanism and Public Affairs

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-39
Author(s):  
Iseult Honohan
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
First Century ◽  
Irish Society ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Irish Republicanism ◽  
The Common ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Although Irish republicanism is often elided with separatist nationalism, broader republican ideals of freedom, self-government, and the common good have also been prominent in Irish political discourse. This chapter examines the relationship of Irish republican thinking with the wider historical republican tradition and its contemporary expressions, and it assesses the impact of those ideals in Irish politics. In the state’s first century national freedom coexisted with extensive relationships of domination. Self-government was constrained within narrow institutional forms. The common good was defined in communitarian and authoritarian terms, and was often obscured by sectional interests. Extensive social and political changes that have taken place more recently have been in a mainly liberal direction, with less emphasis on republican ideals. Yet republican ideals have a continuing relevance for the wider concerns faced by contemporary Irish society.

scholarly journals Engaging Youth Through Volunteer Service Travel: In Service of the Common Good

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Bailey ◽  
Keith C. Russell
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Volunteer Tourism ◽  
The Common ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
School Youth

Volunteer Tourism is becoming a popular topic in the travel literature. These experiences combine the adventure of travel with opportunities to serve the communities visited. This burgeoning field of tourism may provide an attractive outlet for generating positive developmental assets and for encouraging future civic engagement. This paper highlights a study which explored the relationship of wisdom and social capital and also discussed the influence of a voluntourism experience on wisdom and social capital domains. The sample consisted of 68 high school youth from the various high schools in Illinois. Results indicate that wisdom and social capital are positively and significantly related. In addition, wisdom and social capital indicators increased significantly over the course of the experience.

From Competition to Cooperation: A History of Canada–US National Park Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Young ◽  
Alan MacEachern ◽  
Lary Dilsaver
Keyword(s):  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Settler Societies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
The Relationship

This essay explores the evolving international relationship of the two national park agencies that in 1968 began to offer joint training classes for protected-area managers from around the world. Within the British settler societies that dominated nineteenth century park-making, the United States’ National Park Service (NPS) and Canada’s National Parks Branch were the most closely linked and most frequently cooperative. Contrary to campfire myths and nationalist narratives, however, the relationship was not a one-way flow of information and motivation from the US to Canada. Indeed, the latter boasted a park bureaucracy before the NPS was established. The relationship of the two nations’ park leaders in the half century leading up to 1968 demonstrates the complexity of defining the influences on park management and its diffusion from one country to another.

Progressive Catholicism in the United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
American Catholicism ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Common ◽  
American Society

American Catholicism has long adapted to US liberal institutions. Progressive Catholicism has taken the liberal values of democratic participation and human rights and made them central to its interpretation of Catholic social teaching. This chapter explores in detail the thought of David Hollenbach, S.J., a leading representative of progressive Catholicism. Hollenbach has proposed an ethical framework for an economy aimed at the common good, ensuring that the basic needs of all are met and that all are able to participate in economic life. The chapter also looks at the US Catholic bishops’ 1986 pastoral letter Economic Justice for All, which emphasizes similar themes while also promoting collaboration between the different sectors of American society for the sake of the common good.

Pensare Dio. Spunti di riflessione in dialogo con Anca Vasiliu

Elenchos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-194
Author(s):  
Angela Longo
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Common Thread ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Relevant Topic ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractThe following work features elements to ponder and an in-depth explanation taken on the Anca Vasiliu’s study about the possibilities and ways of thinking of God by a rational entity, such as the human being. This is an ever relevant topic that, however, takes place in relation to Platonic authors and texts, especially in Late Antiquity. The common thread is that the human being is a God’s creature who resembles him and who is image of. Nevertheless, this also applies within the Christian Trinity according to which, not without problems, the Son is the image of the Father. Lastly, also the relationship of the Spirit with the Father and the Son, always within the Trinity, can be considered as a relationship of similarity, but again not without critical issues between the similarity of attributes, on the one hand, and the identity of nature, on the other.

scholarly journals Evangelical and Catholic Timespace in Work: An Argument against a Homeless Eschatology

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 199
Author(s):  
Maria Ledstam
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Business As Mission ◽  
Achievable Goal ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

This article engages with how religion and economy relate to each other in faith-based businesses. It also elaborates on a recurrent idea in theological literature that reflections on different visions of time can advance theological analyses of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism. More specifically, this article brings results from an ethnographic study of two faith-based businesses into conversation with the ethicist Luke Bretherton’s presentation of different understandings of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism. Using Theodore Schatzki’s theory of timespace, the article examines how time and space are constituted in two small faith-based businesses that are part of the two networks Business as Mission (evangelical) and Economy of Communion (catholic) and how the different timespaces affect the religious-economic configurations in the two cases and with what moral implications. The overall findings suggest that the timespace in the Catholic business was characterized by struggling caused by a tension between certain ideals on how religion and economy should relate to each other on the one hand and how the practice evolved on the other hand. Furthermore, the timespace in the evangelical business was characterized by confidence, caused by the business having a rather distinct and achievable goal when it came to how they wanted to be different and how religion should relate to economy. There are, however, nuances and important resemblances between the cases that cannot be explained by the businesses’ confessional and theological affiliations. Rather, there seems to be something about the phenomenon of tension-filled and confident faith-based businesses that causes a drive in the practices towards the common good. After mapping the results of the empirical study, I discuss some contributions that I argue this study brings to Bretherton’s presentation of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism.

Gender and Marital Satisfaction: Data from the National Survey of Families and Households

1998 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 319-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter R. Schumm ◽  
Farrell J. Webb ◽  
Stephan R. Bollman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Marital Satisfaction ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Satisfaction Relationship ◽  
Representative Samples ◽  
Small Support

In 1972, Bernard argued that marriage was good for men and bad for women. Subsequent research noted that wives, on average, reported lower marital satisfaction than husbands. Furthermore, when differences within couples existed on marital satisfaction, the wife was usually the less satisfied spouse; however, most previous studies of the gender/marital satisfaction relationship had not been based on nationally representative samples. A nationally representative sample from the 1988 Survey of Families and Households was used to assess the relationship of gender with marital satisfaction. Within-couple analyses indicated that wives were less satisfied with their marriages than husbands and that, when substantial within-couple differences occurred with respect to marital satisfaction, the wife was usually the less satisfied spouse. Results provide at least small support for feminist assertions about the relatively adverse nature of marriage for women in the United States.

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