Catholicism Chapter 3: Human Personality and Justice

The Dignity of the Human Personality

• Pope Pius XI's theory of justice is based on the dignity of the human personality, which is an Image of God and mirrors forth Divine Perfections.
• Charity regulates our actions towards the human personality, while justice regulates the "props" or supports of human dignity, including property, relatives, friends, freedom, and responsibility.

The Human Personality

• The human personality needs certain supports for the realization of its dignity.
• To attack a human person in their personality itself is a failure against charity, while to attack them by undermining their dignity is a failure against justice.

Social Order

• The human community, as a whole, shows forth the perfections of God in ways that are not open to individuals.
• Society affords opportunities for the development of individual and social gifts bestowed on human nature, which have a value surpassing immediate interests.
• Society itself reveals the perfection of God in His creatures, making it worthy of love, including social charity.

Social Justice

• Social Justice is the virtue that directly regards the supports of human dignity in the social order.
• It requires that society be organized to be a vehicle for human perfection, directing towards the Common Good.
• Social Justice is a more profound view of justice than the traditional one, which was built around technical conceptions of "equality, otherness, and debt."

Comparative Views of Justice

• The traditional view of justice, built around "equality, otherness, and debt," is superficial compared to the view that links justice to the human personality.
• Commutative justice, which deals with the possession of things or property, is the lowest form of justice and the strictest, not the most perfect form.
• Social Justice, which regards the Common Good, is the highest form of justice.

Obligations of Social Justice

• The obligations of Social Justice are just as rigid and weighty as those of individual justice.
• These obligations are often harder to understand, but the duty to meet them is both rigid and serious when understood and recognized.
• Much work remains to be done to make the obligations of Social Justice as clear as those of individual justice.

This quiz explores the theory of justice based on the dignity of the human personality, as explained by Pope Pius XI. It covers the relationship between charity and human personality, and its connection to the Divine Perfections.