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13 - Poverty and Natural Law
- By Stephen J. Pope
Edited by William A. Galston, Brookings Institution, Washington DC, Peter H. Hoffenberg, University of Hawaii, Manoa
Book:

Poverty and Morality

Published online:

05 June 2012

Print publication:

20 September 2010, pp 265-284
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Summary

As the nature of poverty changed significantly from the medieval to the modern and contemporary periods, so also has natural law reflection on poverty. This chapter begins with an exposition of the basic lines of Thomas Aquinas's natural law ethic, particularly as it was applied to poverty, and provides a brief explication of one of this tradition's most important early modern advocates, Bartolomé de Las Casas, O.P. It also examines the work of John Finnis, one of the founders of the "new natural law theory", and the use of his theory by a development economist, Sabina Alkire. Natural law approaches responsibility for domestic poverty in terms of three principles: the principle of solidarity, the principle of subsidiarity, and the principle of the common good regarding the state as ultimately responsible for promoting the public good when other agencies fail to do so.