CATHOLIC SOCIAL DOCTRINE (HIPH9513)
2 or 3 credits. Seminar.

As lawyers and as humans, we are all faced with two great questions: What does it mean to be human? And what makes for a just society in which humans can develop their full potential? Over the past century the Popes have published a large number of documents (mostly encyclicals) that attempt to answer those questions in the light of Christ's teachings and of natural law philosophy. They have explored a wide range of issues from the broadest questions of what rights derive from being human and what constitutes human flourishing to much more specific questions about the right to private property, the principles that should govern economic life, the role of work in human life and society, just wages, and international relations. The current Pope, John Paul II, has expanded and developed the thought of his predecessors adding to it many elements drawn from his own "personalist" philosophy. The ideas set forth in catholic social teaching have their ultimate roots in Christ's teaching and in the Christian tradition as it has developed over the past two thousand years. They are not, however, strictly speaking religious ideas. Rather, they constitute a largely philosophical answer to the most basic questions which underlie the law. As such, their interest and appeal is not limited to Catholics or even to Christians. In this seminar, we will read some of the major documents and discuss their implications for the legal order.