Ethics, social doctrine of the church and market economy

Abstract

Human beings have always cared about what is good and what is evil. He is interested in the goodness or wickedness of his actions and those of others; also in these terms questions social institutions and laws. Concern for duty has always existed, but it has not always been the main motive of thinkers. From the early writings of the Greek authors until at least the seventeenth century, the ethical question, the moral question, overshadowed all other kinds of touches. This does not mean that during this period the study of the being of things was given little importance or that no cause-and-effect relationships were discovered free of valuational judgments. But it does mean that these issues were subordinated to the moral question. It is far from my mind to want to criticize this moralistic approach to reality. On the contrary, my goal is to revalue this attitude by trying to "purify" its content.
I will focus my analysis on the relationships that exist between morality and economics. It is easy to provide examples of moralists entering the field of economics without having enough knowledge to enable them to make a balanced judgment. Also, without much effort, we can find economists who, without ethical training, make valuation judgments. These problems arise, in part, because of the existing confusion concerning the limits of both sciences. Unfortunately, such is the discrepancy between thinkers that many adopt a relativistic attitude on both moral and economic issues. The thesis of this essay is that, although morals as science may be, in a sense, superior to others, economics as science is a set of laws that are not subject to ethical-valorative judgments. On the contrary, laws establishing the framework for the functioning of a market economy, and the behaviour of those acting in the market can be judged ethically. The Social Doctrine of the Church (ISD) must be nourished by the truths of economic science and thus enriched, developing its moral judgments.