Since the writings of Aristotle (and probably before), humankind has assumed that human nature was an objective reality, and that certain things were good for us as human beings and other things were not good for us. This assumption extended to human society.

In Plato’s Republic Aristotle argues that society exists for higher purposes than mutual protection. Society exists so that we can help each other reach human fulfillment, and because we find human fulfillment in helping each other. Social life is inherent to human nature.

Furthermore, Aristotle argues that society is objectively made healthy when its members practice interdependence. I will grant that his prudential choice of a government system does not all for human freedom, but this does not affect his general argument that there are objective criteria for a healthy human society, and that interdependence is an important one.

Social and academic “liberals” tend to take the path of Marxism, which cast into doubt all traditional criteria for social health. They join Marx in his suspicion that the criterion discovered by philosophers and theologians throughout the centuries are nothing more than pillars of power for a tyrannical capitalistic society. However, the truth is that these criterion have been embraced by the Catholic Church from the beginning of the Church’s social teachings, and the Church does not specifically endorse any one economic or government system.

Recently I read an article by Robert P. George called “Making Business Moral.”¹ While this article was mostly about the necessity of business to transcend its current “grotesque obsession with maximizing shareholder value over increasingly brief spans,” he grounds his commentary on business in three criteria for a healthy society. Each of these criteria have been under attack, especially in the academic world.

The first “pillar of a healthy society” is respect for individual human beings and their dignity. George points out that a society that does not respect the human person “will generally treat human beings as “cogs in a larger social wheel.” One need not look very hard in United States history to see examples of where American culture got this wrong: black slavery, the (second) industrial revolution, our treatment of the “new immigrants.” Whether a culture uses the weaker natural law position for human dignity or the immeasurably greater definition of human dignity rooted in the Judeo-Christian belief that we are made to love and be loved by God, it must grant human dignity to all human beings. As soon as a culture arbitrarily chooses one group of humans to which to deny dignity of personhood, all claims to human dignity are endangered. The idea of human dignity has very recently been under attack, as I noted in previous blog posts analyzing the article, “The Stupidity of Human Dignity.” Human history defeats such attacks. Respect for the dignity of every human person leads to health in society. Marginalization or wholesale denial of human dignity leads to sickness, suffering and death.

The second pillar of a healthy society George points out in his essay is the institution of the family as the foundational structure of society. Robert P. George calls the family, “the original and best department of health, education, and welfare.” The family is the most efficient and effective structure for the nurturing and education of children. As a society, do we want our children to grow up to learn service, selflessness, honesty, and work ethic? No institution can teach these virtues better than the family. Yet, the family has been under philosophical attack since Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto, which decried the family a tool of the capitalist system to control social structures and to promote commerce. The attack continues today, especially through the modernist homosexuality movement, which attacks the natural purpose of marriage by promoting “gay marriage” and by posing such displays as nativity scene with two marys and two josephs in order to offer “a “wink” at heterosexual assumptions.” Of course, there are many more philosophical attacks on the family (radical feminism, materialism, hedonism, etc.) as well as many practical attacks (no-fault divorce, premarital sex, contraception, “new birth technologies”). When the Church says that the family is the foundational unit of society, it is not just saying that the family is most important. It is saying that society is created by families working together interdependently to provide for their needs. If the “traditional family” is damaged or destroyed, society will suffer or perhaps even disappear altogether. If families (and therefore “traditional” marriages) are strengthened, society becomes stronger. Want proof? Just look at our overflowing prisons – filled mostly young men who get into trouble due to restlessness and a lack of meaning of purpose in life. In fact, the second pillar (family) is a pre-condition of the first pillar (respect for human dignity). Respect for human dignity is taught and learned primarily within the family.

The third pillar of a healthy society that George points out is a “fair and effective system of law and government.” Law and government have always been viewed with suspicion bordering on paranoia in America. Even before the Revolutionary War, the popular “Real Whig” philosophy taught that governments could not be trusted and would always be corrupt. Yet, government and law exists to coordinate “human behavior for the sake of achieving common goals – the common good,” and to guide us toward authentic goods that we would not choose for ourselves due to sin or ignorance. Government and laws are not only responses to sin. They are an integral part of human interdependence. Government and law are under attack from a number of fronts. Whig philosophy still abounds in America, putting all authority in a dark light. Cultural liberals overextend the role of authority and government from fostering interdependence to fostering dependence. Cultural conservatives sometimes limit government so much that interdependence and the common good are sacrificed for the sake of keeping the market forces “free and deregulated.” If government and law could be properly balanced, it would actually become a tool of authentic human freedom rather than a tyrant.

Robert P. George’s article presents an extremely important concept that should be at the forefront of Catholic public discourse. These three pillars are only three of the important elements of a healthy society. You can read more about what makes a healthy society in the Library. His context of this discussion on society is extolling business to support these three pillars of society – for its own good. We would all do well to follow suit.