Economics and the Common Good

Joseph Milne

A review some of the classical and medieval ideas of social order and justice and an exploration of how they might suggest remedies to the economic and social crisis of our times. Lecture delivered to the Henry George Foundation London 2024

The idea of the ‘common good’ has a long history, going back to ancient Greece and developed in the Middle Ages. Behind it lies a conception of an order to society which in some way is part of the greater order of nature. The idea that there was a natural order of society and that all its functions and institutions worked together in harmony to serve the good of the whole was lost by the fifteenth century. From that time onwards society was regarded as an artificial construct, with government imposed upon citizens to curb violence or anarchy. Thus, from the birth of the modernity, the individual and the state were seen as opposed to one another. It is an idea that endures into our times, and it hovers over practically all political debates.

An opposition has in fact occurred, not between the citizen and the state, but between the economy and the state. The modern industrial economy has become divorced from the social and civic life of society and from the well-being of the whole. With few exceptions, the wage earner has become an anonymous part of the industrial machine, while the industrial machine itself has become an anonymous mechanism dictating international relations. Put simply, the economic realm has separated itself from civic society. As Karl Polanyi put it, the economy is no longer embedded in community. The result is that land, labour and money have all become commodified and no longer serve the social good. They have each lost their real nature.

One of the difficulties we face in economic theory as that classical ‘political economy’ was born when this divorce was already well underway and the traditional understanding of society had all but disappeared. Economic distortions have become so normalised they are now hard to see.

In the face of this situation I think it worthwhile asking how an exploration of pre-modern conceptions of society might throw light on our modern crisis. If we look at Aristotle, for example, the first thing he observes is that human nature is naturally social or political. Nobody can live a proper human life outside society. It is the social nature of mankind that distinguishes it from the other species. For Aristotle, this distinction is marked by the faculty of speech or logos. The Greek word logos means both reason and speech. Through speech discourse on the nature of justice and injustice becomes possible, giving rise politics and philosophy. Man is the being who reflects on the order of things, and this reflection is made possible through dialogue.

According to Aristotle, human society is also part of the larger order of nature. Everything in nature has its natural function and end. This teleological view shows how everything in nature seeks it proper actualisation. This is obvious in the biosphere, where all living things grow towards their completion, and where everything has its part in the biosphere as a whole. Modern ecology is rediscovering something of this order in nature which was once universally understood.

Human society likewise was understood to have a proper end. First, human nature shares in the ends that all substances seek: the preservation of their own being. Second, human nature shares in the ends that animals seek: reproduction and education of offspring. Third, human nature seeks to know truth and goodness through reason.

These are shared ends of the individual and the community. Together they lead to happiness. A correspondence was understood to exists between the individual and society, or as Plato puts it, between the soul and the city, psyche and polis. There is likewise a correspondence between the cosmos and the city (polis). The same rational order is to be discerned in all things. This rational order was part of justice, and so a society can flourish so far as it lives in accord with universal justice.

For the Greeks this was attained through arete, which has two aspects. First, it means excellence, and that any action should aim at the excellence that belongs to it.

Second, arete means virtue. This is its ethical aspect. According to Aristotle, who summarises the Greek view generally, no one can be happy who is not virtuous. So a major part of Greek education was dedicated to the cultivation of the virtues of prudence, courage, justice and temperance. Prudence, or phronesis, means ‘right judgment’ in practical action. Prudence grounds the other virtues.

The purpose of cultivating the virtues was to enable command over oneself. This was essential to the Greek idea of democracy. Only those able to govern themselves are free and can contribute to governing society. Aristotle observes, of course, that the inherent weakness of democracy is that the citizens may not be able to govern themselves well. Without virtuous citizens democracy is unstable. But Aristotle also observes that other forms of government can work well if the citizens are virtuous. It is not the system that matters but the character of the people. Good laws are necessary to the flourishing of society. Good laws have regard to the common good and commend what is virtuous or forbid the opposite. Aristotle draws a distinction between the law-abiding citizen and the truly just citizen. Good laws derive from the nature itself.

The fruit of society considered in this way is justice or equity, which in turn flourishes in friendship. Plato argues that the whole purpose of the art of law-making is to bring about friendship. And a society that lived in true friendship would hardly need codified laws. According to Aristotle, true friendship exists only between virtuous people. To live virtuously is to live in accordance with human nature. Here virtue and freedom belong together. Freedom is the capacity to excel in aret? or excellence, to be in command of oneself and to develop ones full capacities in accordance with the common good.

The defining feature of the Greek city-state is self-sufficiency. It can provide for all its needs. Self-sufficiency imposes a natural limit on economic activity. The acquisition of wealth is not an end in itself. If put first, it leads to degeneration. According to Aristotle, nature does nothing unnecessary. Therefore it provides sufficient and a little above to sustain life. Anyone who takes more than they need takes what is provided for another. The proper end or purpose of wealth is the health of the body. Maintaining bodily health was itself regarded as a virtue. But health of the body is for the sake of the health of the mind or soul. Health of the soul is for the sake of living justly, and living justly is ultimately for the sake of theoria or contemplation of truth. Thus each part of society serves its higher parts and higher aims. The higher aims inform the lower functions. Things go amiss when this natural order of priorities is lost, especially if acquiring wealth becomes the main pursuit of a society, because it will tend to exceed the natural limits of the provision of nature.

The Greek understanding of a natural order to society was developed by the Stoic philosopher Zeno of Citium around 300 BC. With the Stoics came the expression ‘to live in accordance with nature’. Its emphasis was on the cosmic order, conceived as a universal reason. Human reason was seen as participating in the universal reason.

The Stoic view of cosmic order established the tradition of natural law, which influenced the development of Roman law, as in the codes of Justinian and Ulpian. The emphasis of Roman law was to serve the common good of Rome. On this Cicero is clear. Any citizen who acts in their own interest before the good of Rome is not a Roman citizen. He is hardly even a human being. Roman law developed the conception of universal law, a law shared by all mankind and applicable in any state at any time. This universal law, which reason knows intuitively, is adapted in various ways by different peoples or states. It cannot be broken. It is universal justice. It brings its own retribution without the need of human law. In this sense it is like the ancient Greek goddess Díki, at once cosmic justice and retribution.

This conception of universal law, later known simply as Natural Law, is the law in the order of nature which guides all things to their proper ends and fulfilment. It is a teleological law. It is almost indistinguishable from Providence as described by Boethius and the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus. As providence it means that all things are seen and provided for in advance of necessity. Hence ‘pro-vision’. For example, nature provides food, shelter and all that the different creatures need. Providence also remedies injustices by restoring balance. In other words, the universe is understood to be guided by foresight. It is imbued with intelligence. That foresight extends down to the smallest things, such as the right herb to remedy an illness. Everything in nature has its proper ends and contributes to the wellbeing of all creatures. It is the original ‘ecology’.

From this comes the concept of ‘right use’, already present in Aristotle. The gifts of nature are to be used in accordance with their proper purpose. This applies to human works, where skills and talents are given by nature for beneficial ends. The right use of anything always takes into account its benefit to the community at large. For this reason there developed a medieval law laying down that no private property could be destroyed by its owner. Property law does not confer absolute ownership. The right use of private property must always regard the common good.

This understanding of ownership brings us to the medieval Christian conception of society. Here Roman law, natural law, and biblical law are all combined. The Greek cardinal virtues were also adopted, to which were added the Christian virtues of compassion and charity.

In 1088 the University of Bologna was founded by a guild of students for the study of law. It became a major influence in all law-making for centuries to come. It gave birth to the notion of ‘the rule of law’ over and above any prince of king. All are subject to the law, while the law itself was rooted in the order of nature and the eternal law in the mind of God. Human ethics springs from participation in the teleological order of nature.

Here an idea found in ancient times comes to light in law. According to natural law all property is common property, or simply not property at all. There is no natural right to property. In the biblical sense, all belongs to the Creator. This meant that private property can exist only as a legal concept, according to human law but not natural law. It existed only through legal agreement, and this agreement was valid so long as it disadvantaged nobody. All private property must still be used with regard for the common good. The purpose of manmade property law is to assure its just use and regard for the common good. It is more a ‘right of use’ than a right of ownership.

It is in terms of the common good that all men are equal in society under natural law. All share in the mutual benefit of society, which is a benefit greater than which each has individually. It is a participatory equality. This medieval notion of equality is not our modern one. It was rooted in the understanding that all are made in the image of God and human dignity lies in the divine image being imprinted in each soul. From this conception of human dignity comes the concept of human freedom – freedom being the capacity to act according to truth and for the good. With Christianity the dignity of the human person becomes central to the understanding of society.

Medieval Christianity had another most important influence. The virtues of compassion and charity led to providing help for the poor and the founding of hospitals for the sick. It also gradually provided education for many. The idea of the common good extended into the idea of service to society. The Church not only worked to save the souls of citizens, but also to enhance the earthly life. The theologians held the world to be a supreme good, not something to be detached from or resigned to as mere fate, as happened in later Stoicism. On the contrary, the world and the whole of nature was regarded as a manifestation of the infinite goodness and wisdom of the Creator. In short, the world was sacred. In the light of this sacred understanding of the world, medieval sciences began to be developed. Enquiry into nature was ultimately enquiry into divine law and wisdom. This attitude further reinforced the idea that nature should never be abused.

Understanding the created world as ‘good’ and ‘providential’ meant that participating in society was parallel with participating in the sacred order of the created world. This in turn led to a special understanding of education. The purpose of education was to integrate the individual into society. This meant gradual integration into its various spheres, from that of the family member, the local community, the various professions, up to responsibility for society – the skill of rulership. Thus education was inductive, ascending through a hierarchy of orders of knowledge and capacities. Hence the famous Quadrivium and Trivium as seven stages of education.

This led to founding the cathedral cities. All the professions and trades had their roles surrounding the cathedral. The cathedral city was likened to a small cosmos reflecting the greater cosmos. Within the cathedral itself all aspects of the created world were represented, from every kind of plant and animal to every kind of human craft. Thus the sum of all things were gathered into the cathedral, rendering them all sacred. The cathedral, at the centre of the city, radiated its holistic influence into the society gathered about it. This cosmic and communal aspect of architecture has been all but forgotten in our time.

Community with a common end is the key to the medieval city. Every trade and profession served the greater good of the whole. From this aim arose the guilds of the various trades, which ensured equitable trade among them and prevention of monopoly. Insofar as they might compete with one another, it was on the basis of competition in excellence. No trader could cut prices at a loss to take trade from another. Nor could usury be established. The guilds ensured equality and fostered friendship and mutual support. Through learning a trade one progressed through apprenticeship, to journeyman, and finally to becoming a self-employed master. Apprenticeship into a trade or profession was induction into society. Needless to say, every kind of craft and trade was involved in the building of the cathedrals. The cathedral united the economy through a single common aim. The cathedral also united the city of man with the heavenly city, symbolised as Jerusalem, linking human law with eternal law.

One of the criticisms laid at the door of the Greek and medieval holistic visions of society is that they deny the uniqueness and freedom of the individual. Karl Popper is one such critic. What the Greek philosophers and medieval scholars observed, as I noted earlier, was a correspondence between the individual and society. This correspondence lay in the fact that the proper end of the individual was the same as the proper end of society. On this principle Thomas Aquinas says:

…the same judgment is to be formed about the end of society as a whole as about the end of one man.

The question then is, in what sense do the ends of the individual and of society correspond? Aquinas replies:

If such an ultimate end either of an individual man or a multitude were a corporeal one, namely, life and health of body, to govern would then be a physician’s charge. If that ultimate end were an abundance of wealth, then knowledge of economics would have the last word in the community’s government. If the good of the knowledge of truth were of such a kind that the multitude might attain to it, the king would have to be a teacher. It is, however, clear that the end of a multitude gathered together is to live virtuously. For men form a group for the purpose of living well together, a thing which the individual man living alone could not attain, and good life is virtuous life. Therefore, virtuous life is the end for which men gather together.

Aquinas here follows Aristotle. The aim of both the individual and society is not merely to live, but to live well, and to live well requires living together, and living together requires living virtuously. In particular this means that both the individual and society should live justly. Justice is at once an individual virtue and the ordering principle of society. Individual liberty without virtue is not an adequate measure of society.

Virtue is clearly an ethical quality. But there is another meaning to virtue, as when we speak of the medicinal virtues of herbs or the good properties of things. Virtue in this wider sense includes the human gifts and talents. Talents are uniquely individual, yet can be realised only in society. They are clearly grounded in the social nature of man. They fulfil the individual and benefit society at the same time. Hence they are also called gifts. Of these gifts and talents Plato suggests that they are naturally distributed among a community. Cicero likewise remarks that what one lacks another provides. The gifts and talents of individuals are the real basis of an economy which embraces society as a whole. Without society talents are stillborn. Yet without aiming at the common good talents may be abused. The understanding that things have a right use applies to human talents as much as it does to the gifts of the earth. Here the ethical and the natural clearly correspond.

According to Aquinas the common good is the final cause of society. As we saw with Aristotle, everything in nature comes into being for a definite purpose or end, its ultimate cause. Everything in existence seeks its own completion. This is an inherent tendency of things. The good of anything rests in its completeness or full actualisation. The completeness of society lies in its actualisation in the common good. The common good is its wholeness. Only through participation in the common good can the individual citizen enjoy fulfilment of their own nature.

Seen in this way, the common good is not simply the sum of every individual good, but the active contribution of each towards the good of all. It involves justice both from each individual to each, and from each to the whole. Only through acting justly in both senses is the individual truly a member of the community. This does not mean the individual is subsumed into the community, since each is consciously and willingly just. Each becomes most fully themselves in community. To put that another way, “The distinctly human good, can be properly possessed only as given and received in community with others.”

Clearly this has economic implications. It implies that any economic enterprise must act justly within itself as well as towards the whole community. The acts of justice at the economic level are grounded in the primacy of the good of the whole. Justice, according to ancient philosophy, is the universal principle that makes a community. It governs all relations. This is why Aristotle and Plato argue that it comes first in understanding the nature of society. Society arises out of justice, aims towards justice, and is fulfilled in justice.

Needless to say, this holistic vision of society was lost.

We can trace precise historical causes. In the fourteenth century two new ideas about the nature of things arose. The first was nominalism, the doctrine that universals exist in name only. The second was voluntarism, the doctrine that the will precedes reason. According to nominalist theory, each particular existent thing comes into being independently, directly created by God. There is no common nature which they share in, or from which they emerge. Thus universals such as ‘humanity’ or ‘species’, or even ‘being’, exist only as names or classifications, not as realities. Nominalism gradually broke down any conception of integrated order and gave rise to a purely atomist view of nature and society.

Nominalism was reinforced by voluntarism, the doctrine claiming that the divine will precedes the divine intellect, and that it is absolutely free. Each thing is what it is by divine will. And since the divine will is free, it can determine anything and is not bound by any previously determination. God could change the ten commandments if he so wished. The ‘good’ was simply what God willed.

These two ideas caused great confusion in philosophy. For example, Descartes, in adopting both ideas, says that the reason the triangle has three sides is simply because God wills it so. He could have willed differently, and potentially may do so. Hence Descartes famously could find no ground for intellectual certainty. No relation existed between mind, perception and knowledge of things.

The voluntarist conception of the divine will soon became attributed to the human will. It can choose truth or untruth, good or evil, simply as decisions of will without consulting reason. Hence arose the modern conception of ‘free will’, where freedom is simply ‘freedom from restraint’. It is a negative notion of freedom, with no guiding principle outside the free will. The ancient understanding of freedom, as we saw earlier, was freedom for excellence, where the will is informed by reason.

Nominalism and voluntarism were further reinforced by the denial of teleology in nature, that is, any principle of final ends. In an atomistic and voluntarist view of nature an inherent orientation towards ends becomes inconceivable. ‘Purpose’ is relegated to human intentions alone.

These ideas eventually changed the conception of human nature and society. With each individual now possessing arbitrary free will, no ground existed for a consensus of wills. In fact, the idea of free will quickly degenerated into a conception of anarchic passions. If consequent social chaos is to be averted, government must be imposed by those with a more powerful will. This is the thesis of Thomas Hobbes and the basis of his doctrine of nature as ‘war of all against all’. It combines nominalism, voluntarism and elimination of final causality at a stroke. It conceives society is an ‘artificial construct’, imposed upon an imagined pre-social ‘state of nature’. The ancient understanding of human nature as naturally social is refuted and replaced by the voluntarist theory of ‘social contract’. Consent of will replaced the ancient conception of a rational inclination towards justice.

Hobbes was not alone in propounding these ideas. They were shared by the natural law theorists Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf and Francis Bacon. Law was now ‘the will of the ruler’, a totally voluntarist conception of law. From that idea arose the tyrannical notion of the ‘divine right of kings’. The ancient understanding of law as founded in reason and universal justice was cast aside. These philosophers and lawyers were perfectly aware of the ancient theories of society and chose to refute them as impracticable in the present times.

From these theories emerged the concept of the competitive society, a kind of regulated war between citizens where the strong survive and the weak are weeded out. It took full force in the nineteenth century in the social theory of Herbert Spencer, but now cast in the guise of ‘evolution’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ – an expression Darwin adopted from Spencer. The ideology of endless progress, transformed into social evolution, served to justify all ills on the way to Utopia and the final dissolution of the state – a position shared by Marx as well as Spencer. Marx equated Spencer’s doctrine of ‘survival of the fittest’ with his own doctrine of ‘class struggle’. Social evolution, as either understood it, was not a work of nature but of human will. It is an ideology rooted in Hobbesian voluntarism.

Striving for power and wealth became the acknowledged general aim of society. And since nothing in nature had an intrinsic value or purpose, it could be set at human disposal and exploited or abused at will. Nature ceased being ‘nature’ and became ‘resources’. The private possession of land became normalised, along with the commodification of labour and money. Man’s relation to the earth became essentially proprietorial and consequently exploitative.

From this it followed that the economic realm became entirely dissociated from the civic and cultural realms of society as Polanyi traces in his The Great Transformation, mentioned earlier. The general welfare of society is now conceived as a cost to industry rather than its natural purpose. The selling of transitory luxury products takes precedence over health or care for the environment. The things of higher and enduring worth take second place. It is thus an inversion of the ancient understanding of the just order of society and the common good.

The ancient Greek and medieval understanding of society is, in my view, a more natural and empirical view of society. It is not an ideology. It is what would occur if not obstructed. It is founded in a better understanding of human nature, which acknowledges that everyone has a natural inclination towards justice and goodness. As Henry George observed, man is by nature a cooperative species where mutual exchange distinguishes it from the other species. Aristotle observed that the first exchange is through discourse on justice. So the quality of any right exchange is that it should be just. In this view, society is formed from the top down, according to its final purpose, not from the bottom up, as has been assumed since Hobbes and Locke. But a society crippled at the economic level, as is our present industrial society, which has inverted the natural order, can barely attain any higher aims that fulfil natural human aspirations.

Seen from this ancient perspective, George’s proposal of a land value tax takes on a greater significance than it is usually given. The land value is in fact an expression of the common good which spontaneously nurtures society. The common good, as we have seen, exists in those things shared by the community, such as government, defence, law, the arts, education and civil institutions, all which serve the community at large. It is because the land value arising from community naturally belongs to these higher common functions that it cannot be taken as anyone’s private income, or used for any commercial enterprise.

George describes how, after the functions of government, it is most wisely used for communal uses, such as public libraries, parks, sports facilities, meeting places for the arts etc. In short, for the cultural life of man, the aims which the economy is meant to enable.

Henry George comes closest to the ancient philosophers on the questions of property and distribution of wealth. He observes that from Adam Smith onwards all economists have failed to recognise that land cannot be private property according to natural law. In his own words:

…they all have been from the really great Adam Smith to the most recent purveyors of economic nonsense in Anglo German jargon accustomed to regard property in land as the most certain, most permanent, most tangible.

In other words, property in land defines the very idea of property for all these economists.

And on the distribution of wealth George says in The Science of Political Economy:

All consideration of distribution involves the ethical principle; is necessarily a consideration of ought or duty – a consideration in which the idea of right or justice is from the very first involved.

On both these questions George would have found agreement with Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Thomas Aquinas. In The Science of Political Economy there are passages on justice and natural law that clearly paraphrase Cicero, while in The Condition of Labour George quotes from Aquinas’s treatise on law:

Human law is law only in virtue of its accordance with right reason and it is thus manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law. In such case it is not law at all, but rather a species of violence.

George’s thinking has a greater affinity with ancient philosophers than it does with the political economists of his time, which he generally critiques. His ethics, as with Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas, always aim at the common good grounded in acknowledgement of universal law and justice.

Natural Law Quotations

A Collection from the Classical Tradition

The welfare of the people is the ultimate law (Cicero)

Aristotle

Now it appears to be an impossible thing that the state which is governed not by the best citizens but by the worst should be well-governed, and equally impossible that the state which is ill-governed should be governed by the best. But we must remember that good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government. Hence there are two parts of good government; one is the actual obedience of citizens to the laws, the other part is the goodness of the laws which they obey; they may obey bad laws as well as good. And there may be a further subdivision; they may obey either the best laws which are attainable to them, or the best absolutely. (Aristotle Politics 1294a 3-8)

Now he who exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to them (i.e., reason) and that they should reward those who love and honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong most of all to the philosopher is manifest. He, therefore, is the dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy. (Nicomachean Ethics X 8 29)

He that acts by intelligence and cultivates understanding, is likely to be best disposed and dearest to God. For if, as is thought, there is any care of human things on the part of the heavenly powers, we may reasonably expect them to delight in that which is best and most akin to themselves, that is, in intelligence, and to make a return of good to such as supremely love and honour intelligence, as cultivating the thing dearest to Heaven, and so behaving rightly and well. Such. plainly, is the behaviour of the wise. The wise man therefore is the dearest to God. (Aristotle)

Plato

For in everything that grows the initial sprouting, if nobly directed, has a sovereign influence in bringing about the perfection in virtue that befits the thing’s own nature. This holds for the other growing things, and for animals-tame, wild, and human. The human being, we assert, is tame; nevertheless, though when it happens (766a) upon a correct education and lucky nature, it is wont to become the most divine and tamest animal, still, when its upbringing is inadequate or ignoble, it is the most savage of the things that the earth makes grow. This is why the lawgiver must not allow the upbringing of children to become something secondary or incidental, and since the one who is going to supervise them should begin by being chosen in a fine way, the lawgiver should do all he possibly can to insure that he provides them with a supervisor to direct them who is the best person in the city, in every respect. (Laws 765-766)

Cicero

“There exists one true law, one right reason – comfortable to nature, universal, immutable, eternal – whose commands enjoin virtue, and whose prohibitions banish evil. Whatever she orders, whatever she forbids, her words are neither impotent among good men, nor are they potent among the wicked. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law properly so called, nor be violated in any part, nor be abrogated altogether. Neither the senate nor the people can deliver from obedience to this law. She has no need of interpreters, or new instruments. She is not one thing at Rome, another at Athens – she is not one thing today, and another tomorrow; but in all nations, and in all times, this law must reign always self-consistent, immortal, and imperishable. The Sovereign of the Universe, the King of all creatures, God himself, has given birth, sanction, and publicity to this illimitable law, which man cannot transgress without being a fugitive from himself and rebelling against his own nature; and by this alone, without subjecting himself to the severest expiations, can always avoid the usual misfortunes of the present life.” (Cicero, Republic, Book 3)

“Now if nature hath given us law, she has also given us justice – for as she has bestowed reason on all, she has equally bestowed the sense of justice on all. And therefore did Socrates deservedly execrate the man who first drew a distinction between the law of nature and the law of morals, for he justly conceived that this error is the source of most human vices.

Law (lex) is the highest reason implanted in nature, which commands what is to be done and forbids the opposite. When this same reason has been strengthened and brought to completion in the human mind, it is law (lex), and so they suppose that law is intelligence whose force (vis) it is to command right action and forbid wrongdoing … It is a force of nature; it is the mind and reason of the wise man; it is the rule (regula) for justice and injustice. (Cicero Leg. 1.18-19)

[27] The person who is accustomed neither to think nor to name as ”goods” lands and buildings and cattle and huge weights of silver and gold, because the enjoyment of them seems to him slight, the use minimal, and the ownership uncertain, and because the vilest men often have unlimited possessions – how fortunate should we think such a man! He alone can truly claim all things as his own, not under the law of the Roman people but under the law of the philosophers; not by civil ownership but by the common law of nature, which forbids anything to belong to anyone except someone who knows how to employ and use it. (Cicero. On the Commonwealth, Book 1, 27 trans. James E G Zetzel (CUP)

There is nothing so consonant with the justice and structure of nature – and when I say that, I want you to understand that I am speaking of the law – as the power of command, without which no home or state or nation or the whole race of mankind can survive, nor can nature or the world itself. The world obeys god, and land and sea obey the world, and human life follows the commands of the supreme law. And to come to things closer and more familiar to us: all early peoples once obeyed kings. This type of power was first offered to the most just and wise men (and that was true of our own commonwealth, so long as monarchic power was in charge), and then it was handed on in turn to their descendants, a custom which remains true among contemporary monarchies. (Cicero Laws iii. 3-4 trans. James E G Zetzel (CUP)

The better and more noble, therefore, the character with which a man is endowed, the more does he prefer the life of service to the life of pleasure. Whence it follows that man, if he is obedient to nature, cannot do harm to his fellow-man. (On Duties Book III: 25. Gutenberg version)

And further, if nature ordains that one man shall desire to promote the interests of a fellow-man, whoever he may be, just because he is a fellow-man, then it follows, in accordance with that same nature, that there are interests that all men have in common. And if this is true, we are all subject to one and the same law of nature; and if this also is true, we are certainly forbidden by nature’s law to wrong our neighbour. Now the first assumption is true; therefore the conclusion is likewise true. On Duties Book II: 27)

But it seems we must trace back to their ultimate sources the principles of fellowship and society that nature has established among men. The first principle is that which is found in the connection subsisting between all the members of the human race; and [55] that bond of connection is reason and speech, which by the processes of teaching and learning, of communicating, discussing, and reasoning associate men together and unite them in a sort of natural fraternity. In no other particular are we farther removed from the nature of beasts; for we admit that they may have courage (horses and lions, for example); but we do not admit that they have justice, equity, and goodness; for they are not endowed with reason or speech. (On Duties Book 1: 50-51)

Clement of Alexandria

Again, God has created us naturally social and just; whence justice must not be said to take its rise from implantation alone. But the good imparted by creation is to be conceived of as excited by the commandment; the soul being trained to be willing to select what is noblest.

We now therefore understand that we are instructed in piety, and in liberality, and in justice, and in humanity by the law. For does it not command the land to be left fallow in the seventh year, and bids the poor fearlessly use the fruits that grow by divine agency, nature cultivating the ground for behoof of all and sundry? How, then, can it be maintained that the law is not humane, and the teacher of righteousness?

And now the wisdom which we possess announces the four virtues in such a way as to show that the sources of them were communicated by the Hebrews to the Greeks. This may be learned from the following: “And if one loves justice, its toils are virtues. For temperance and prudence teach justice and fortitude; and than these there is nothing more useful in life to men.”

Above all, this ought to be known, that by nature we are adapted for virtue; not so as to be possessed of it from our birth, but so as to be adapted for acquiring it. ( Stromata Quotations)

Origen

Now there are two kinds of law for our consideration. The one is the ultimate law of nature, which is probably derived from God, and the other the written code of cities. Where the written law does not contradict the law of God it is good that the citizens should not be troubled by the introduction of strange laws. But where the law of nature, that is of God, enjoins precepts contradictory to the written laws, consider whether reason does not compel a man to dismiss the written code and the intention of the lawgivers far from his mind, and to devote himself to the divine Lawgiver and to choose to live according to His word, even if in doing this he must endure dangers and countless troubles and deaths and shame. Moreover, if the actions which please God are different from those demanded by some of the laws in cities, and if it is impossible to please both God and those who enforce laws of this kind, it is unreasonable to despise actions by means of which one may find favour with the Creator of the universe, and to choose those as a result of which one would be displeasing to God, though one may find favour with the laws that are not laws, and with those who like them. (Contra Celsum Book V Chapter 37)

Tertullian

These testimonies of the soul are as true as they are straightforward, as straightforward as they are widespread, as widespread as they are universal, as universal as they are natural, and as natural as they are divine. I do not believe anyone would find it frivolous, if he reflects on the majesty of nature (naturae maiestatem), which is regarded as the wellspring of the soul. As much as you attribute to the teacher, so much you will concede to the pupil. The teacher is nature and the pupil is the soul (Magistra natura, anima discipula). Whatever the teacher has conveyed or the pupil has learned has been communicated by God, who is the teacher of nature. Whatever the soul can surmise about its original teacher, this power resides in you that you may reflect upon that which is in you. Be aware of that which has given you awareness. (Quoted in Quincy Howe, Tertullian of Africa: The Rhetoric of a New Age. iUnivere, Bloomington, 2011)

Thomas Aquinas

I answer that: It is proper to justice, as compared with the other virtues, to direct man in his relations with others: because it denotes a kind of equality, as its very name implies; indeed we are wont to say that things are adjusted when they are made equal, for equality is in reference of one thing to some other. On the other hand the other virtues perfect man in those matters only which befit him in relation to himself. Accordingly that which is right in the works of the other virtues, and to which the intention of the virtue tends as to its proper object, depends on its relation to the agent only, whereas the right in a work of justice, besides its relation to the agent, is set up by its relation to others. Because a man’s work is said to be just when it is related to some other by way of some kind of equality, for instance the payment of the wage due for a service rendered. And so a thing is said to be just, as having the rectitude of justice, when it is the term of an act of justice, without taking into account the way in which it is done by the agent: whereas in the other virtues nothing is declared to be right unless it is done in a certain way by the agent. For this reason justice has its own special proper object over and above the other virtues, and this object is called the just, which is the same as “right.” Hence it is evident that right is the object of justice.

Reply to Objection 1. It is usual for words to be distorted from their original signification so as to mean something else: thus the word “medicine” was first employed to signify a remedy used for curing a sick person, and then it was drawn to signify the art by which this is done. On like manner the word “jus” [right] was first of all used to denote the just thing itself, but afterwards it was transferred to designate the art whereby it is known what is just, and further to denote the place where justice is administered, thus a man is said to appear “in jure” [In English we speak of a court of law, a barrister at law, etc.], and yet further, we say even that a man, who has the office of exercising justice, administers the jus even if his sentence be unjust. (ST II-II: 57)

I answer that: As stated above (I-II:90:1 ad 1), law, being a rule and measure, can be in a person in two ways: in one way, as in him that rules and measures; in another way, as in that which is ruled and measured, since a thing is ruled and measured, in so far as it partakes of the rule or measure. Wherefore, since all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law, as was stated above (Article 1); it is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. Hence the Psalmist after saying (Psalm 4:6): “Offer up the sacrifice of justice,” as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: “Many say, Who showeth us good things?” in answer to which question he says: “The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us”: thus implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light. It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature’s participation of the eternal law. (ST II-II. q. 91)

Bacon
The second part of metaphysics, is the inquiry of final causes, which we note not as wanting, but as ill-placed; these causes being usually sought in physics, not in metaphysics, to the great prejudice of philosophy; for the treating of final causes in physics has driven out the inquiry of physical ones, and made men rest in specious and shadowy causes, without ever searching in earnest after such as are real and truly physical. And this was not only done by Plato, who constantly anchors upon this shore; but by Aristotle, Galen, and others, who frequently introduce such causes as these: “The hairs of the eyelids are for a fence to the sight.26 The bones for pillars whereon to build the bodies of animals. The leaves of trees are to defend the fruit from the sun and wind. The clouds are designed for watering the earth,” etc. All which are properly alleged in metaphysics; but in physics are impertinent, and as remoras to the ship, that hinder the sciences from holding on their course of improvement, and introducing a neglect of searching after physical causes. And therefore the natural philosophies of Democritus and others, who allow no God or mind in the frame of things, but attribute the structure of the universe to infinite essays and trials of nature, or what they call fate or fortune, and assigned the causes of particular things to the necessity of matter without [166] any intermixture of final causes, seem, so far as we can judge from the remains of their philosophy, much more solid, and to have gone deeper into nature, with regard to physical causes, than the philosophy of Aristotle or Plato; and this only because they never meddled with final causes, which the others were perpetually inculcating. Though in this respect Aristotle is more culpable than Plato, as banishing God,27 the fountain of final causes, and substituting [167] nature in his stead; and, at the same time, receiving final causes through his affection to logic, not theology. (Bacon Advancement of Learning, Book II, Chapter IV)