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(Apologies for the absurdly sparse blogging of late – the beginning of the semester has kept me quite busy since returning from New Jersey. The following are my notes on the fifth chapter of Caritas in Veritate, and I’ll plan to have my final set of notes up some time tomorrow. The archive of my [...]
Filed under: Caritas in Veritate, foreign affairs, government/law, reading groups, religion
This chapter begins with a discussion of the reciprocal relationships between rights and duties, arguing that the latter are necessary for the right ordering of the former, and indeed that the recognition of reciprocal duties provides “a more powerful incentive to action than the mere assertion of rights”. This is surely correct, and it seems [...]
Filed under: Caritas in Veritate, environment, morality, reading groups, religion
The central themes of this chapter are the nature of gift and gratuitousness, and what it means to have a market economy – whether domestic or global – built on love and ordered toward integral human development. A helpful way to think about this challenge is in terms of the distinction drawn in sec. 36 [...]
Filed under: Caritas in Veritate, economics, government/law, morality, reading groups, religion
I suppose it’s around this point that George Weigel started going wild with his red pen.
Here’s an example of the kind of claims that have got free market critics rather up in arms about the message of this document:
Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense both [...]
Filed under: Caritas in Veritate, economics, reading groups, religion
(The text of the encyclical is here, and here are my initial thoughts on the introduction, together with the lively discussion that followed. Up for next weekend: chapter two.)
This chapter is meant to provide an introductory overview of Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio, and as other commentators have noted a key goal of Benedict’s (see secs. [...]
Filed under: Caritas in Veritate, reading groups, religion
What does it mean for love to be in truth? And why should it matter whether it is?
By my lights, the central claim of this introductory section is that, just as the loving articulation of truth makes it credible and appealing, so it is the truthful proclamation and practice of the nature of love that [...]
Filed under: Caritas in Veritate, reading groups, religion