RT Article
T1 Against Satanic Economics: Aquinas’ Theology of Virtue and Political Economy
JF New blackfriars
VO 98
IS 1075
SP 245
OP 263
A1 Lentz, Ralph Eugene
LA English
PB Wiley-Blackwell
YR 2017
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1780357192
AB The purpose of this essay is to challenge the Modern assertion that economics is a theologically neutral science founded in the pure rationality of number, yet also connected to morality, particularly in regards to the ancient virtue of justice—“to render to each one their due”. Such an understanding has come at great philosophical, moral, and economic cost, as the Great World Recession of 2008–2013 is demonstrating. Instead, I argue that today's current economic crises are due precisely to a loss of orthodox Christian theological understanding of economics and virtue. I make this argument by examining St. Thomas Aquinas’ theological understanding of the virtues and his consequent understanding of political economy in the Summa Theologica. To evaluate the viability of applying Aquinas’ thought in addressing today's severe economic and ethical crises, I also consider Alasdair MacIntyre's call for a revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics along with his advocacy of Thomisic rationalism to combat the West's ethical decline. However, with John Milbank, I maintain that the integral deprivation of Western moral philosophy and political economy requires a distinctly theological solution that supersedes MacIntyre's neo-Aristotelianism and neo-Thomism. This is to be found in a (radical) orthodox reading of Aquinas’ Summa.
K1 Summa Theologica
K1 Political Economy
K1 Virtue-Ethics
K1 Alasdair MacIntyre
K1 Aquinas
DO 10.1111/nbfr.12045