Point 102. A Humanist Ecology

The science and art of living together as a family, as a group of families, and amongst human beings in general, are – or ought to be – known as community ecology and community economics. The learned men who shaped our civilisation are our guides in this.

The supreme law governing the management of this family heritage is neither biological, nor mathematical, nor metaphysical, nor moral, nor religious. It is specific to, and characterises, the science of ecology. It is prudence – a natural virtue and practical wisdom – applied to the creation, expansion and preservation of the material and spiritual heritage of families, which is, in the temporal order, the primary object of human desire.

1. Our ecology and our economy are defined as the speculative science and the practical art of the ideal conditions and possible realisations of family prosperity, through the virtue of prudence, with a view to attaining the blissful life of fraternal human communities.

Such a definition, which is very modern, is in line with those of Aristotle and Saint Thomas (Sum., IIa-IIæ, q. 50, art. 3; cf. ad 2!). It stands in opposition to individualist or collectivist definitions of social reality and to any materialist conception of the end sought. It even sets its ideal of ‘family prudence’ in contrast to the personalist and spiritualist conception of the economy, which is currently in vogue within contemporary Catholicism.

2. Fundamentally different from Kantian moralism, Catholic doctrine recognises the intrinsic value of the goods of natural life. It is a form of humanism, in the sense that it accepts the fundamental principle of autonomy, also known as ‘subsidiarity’, which states that each person should first administer his own affairs; each family its own life and prosperity.

The Church therefore recognises the natural autonomy of temporal communities, and acknowledges their authority to determine their own ends and means, rights and duties, through a science and an art that fall solely within the realm of prudence.