By Gabriel Martinez, August 19, 2009 in Pedagogy and Teaching
Policy arguments are rarely purely technical economic arguments. Policies need to be consistent with an overall view of man if they are to improve human welfare. Hence social philosophy (in what pertains to economic life) needs to be taught at some point—but it is rarely taught in most economics programs. In this course, students should learn what are the basic principles and the basic logical steps that underlie a “libertarian” (or “left-liberal” or “communitarian”) argument, as applied to economic policymaking. This can be done in many ways: through collaboration with the Politics department, through specialized courses, or embedded within courses, particularly a Christian social ethics course.
Christian social ethics is also a “logic” course, often taught in universities of explicit Christian inspiration. This course requires knowledge of basic concepts and a disposition of loyalty towards the church (without blindness). The theological and philosophical presuppositions and language (the “grammar” stage) should have been covered earlier in a general education requirement and in their previous catechetical formation. That said, there is a grammatical component to Christian social ethics itself, addressed by reading the documents, such as papal encyclicals (for example, Catholic social teaching is not just an analytical field: it has credibility because its primary texts are papal encyclicals and its primary exponents are Roman pontiffs). And yet students do not just read a disorganized array of critical reflections, praises, and exhortations: students should learn to isolate and identify the fundamental principles that underlie Christian social ethics. The main focus of the course is for students to understand the doctrinal reasons for supporting one position and rejecting another, as Christians. By the end of the course, students not only know that the Pope uttered such-and-such statement, but they should be able to express why such-and-such a position is (or isn’t) compatible with Christian social ethics.
