Social Charity Research Articles

Reply to Arnold McKee

more adequately from the very beginning. However, because all of us humans are more or less imperfect beings, a second-effort such as this frequently is necessary if we are to make any headway at all against our own ignorance. My remarks will be brief and are confined to the issues of meaning and role. My implicit intention in the article was to unravel the meaning of justice in the narrow sense, and, for that reason, I referred to it generally as justice. In retrospect, it might have been wiser to leave out entirely any references to justice in the wider sense. In any case, what matters finally for social economics and the social economy is a correct and complete understanding of the duties of producers, consumers, and resourceholders (including labor), in the marketplace and the workplace. The labels employed to designate those meanings logically derive from those meanings. Regrettably, a certain careless? ness in the past with regard to the labels that have been employed signals some confusion with regard to meaning. Fortunately, McKee and I are agreed on the three-part classification of economic justice: equivalence (he prefers commutative), distribu? tive, and contributive. And we are agreed on another significant matter: the business of social economists is to apply those principles to economic affairs so that we understand more fully how the social economy actually functions. When we have done that work properly, then and only then will we be able to convince the Biblical simplifiers that social economics and, more importantly, the social economy are best grounded in neo-scholastic thought. They are not likely to accept our foundations without first seeing the structure that we build on them. I have no problem, in general, with McKee's interpretation of charity including social charity. Nor do I take exception to his assertion that social charity is a requirement ? if by that he means a requirement of conscience because as Leo XIII stated and I cited in the article

The New Frontiers of Science

The magnificent gifts that I havejust received from the Gasimi Institute1 and from Contessina Germana Gaslini, and the far too laudatory words of Avvocato Carlo Martinengo, president ofthe institute, threaten to bolster my already redoubtable self-satisfaction, so that I must light bonfires to remind myself of this world's vanities. I can feel in your words and attitudes a warm, optimistic expectation, the certitude of things hoped for, the trust in my missionary zeal—all things that are indispensable to anyone working for the love-borne, love-dedicated Gaslini Institute. I bow before these monuments ofChristian and social charity, which I regard as islands of grace, hope, spiritual enrichment, and salvation, where the noblest spiritual gifts find increase and reach out to the farthest horizons.

The Sociologist and Social Action

WHAT has been the trend in the sociological field in the United States during the past thirty years regarding social problems and social action? Analysis of the content of a few of our sociological journals shows a decreasing proportion of space given to such matters as social service and charity work, race relations, penology, social legislation, labor and the economic order, civil liberties, government, and church activities. The American journal of Sociology, for instance, for the year I937-38, had i i articles out of 46 in these fields, roughly 23 percent. Thirty years ago in I907-08, The American Journal of Sociology had I7 out of 34 articles, or exactly So percent. In the American Sociological Review for 1937, there were only i i out of a total of 62 articles in this field. No article in either The American Journal of Sociology for I937-38 or the American Sociological Review recommended any specific social action. In The American Journal of Sociology thirty years previously, however, several articles urged specific types of action. Based on this and other evidence, sociology has been becoming more theoretical, more scientific, and less preoccupied in the field of social action than formerly. Most sociologists would doubtless agree that they should do research in the field of social phenomena. They would further agree that the field is complex, that predictability is difficult, and that quantitative methods cannot always be used with exactitude. On the other hand, we are coming more and more to the realization that, in spite of the complexity, there are certain patterns, sequences, and order in the behavior of a social group. Within limits, predictions can be made even about group response to certain stimuli and, increasingly, quantitative tabulations are being used. We are not agreed, however, as to the extent to which a sociologist should apply the sociological data which he secures through research to the field of social action. Some may say that such action behavior belongs to the social engineer rather than to the scientific sociologist. It is perhaps not always easy to agree as to where social action begins and teaching ends. For example, William G. Summer of Yale believed from his investigations into social phenomena that a high tariff was injurious to the group and should not be adopted. In doing this, he not only got into difficulty at Yale which almost cost him his position but he had certainly entered the field of social action. Investigation seems to indicate that a scientific sociologist, no matter how much he may desire to confine himself to research and teaching, finds it difficult to isolate the sociologist, as a scientist, from the sociologist who is

Social Insurance vs. Charity

Social Insurance vs. Charity