Abstract
The philosophical origins of the principle of subsidiarity must be understood historically. This chapter argues that the critical point for the emergence of the principle lay in Thomas Aquinas’s theological interpretation of Aristotle’s political philosophy and his application of it to the institutional pluralism of medieval Europe. From Aristotle, Aquinas developed the idea that human societies naturally progress from families, through villages to entire city-states, but he recognised that what Aristotle said of city-states could be applied not only to cities but even more emphatically to political communities on the scale of provinces, kingdoms and (perhaps even) empires. Moreover, for Aquinas, the civil order was not the only ‘perfect community’ in Aristotle’s sense: there was also the church in all of its many grades and jurisdictions, alongside the many different religious orders and fraternities of medieval Europe, some of them also organised into their own graded hierarchies. Reflecting on the complexity of the society surrounding him, Aquinas acknowledged the many and various purposes for which various associations and forms of human community exist and are formed, giving rise to a whole host of familial, geographical, professional, mercantile, scholarly and other specialised societies. All of these groups and groupings, from the smallest to the largest, have their place and their proper function, according to Aquinas, and each should to be allowed to make its unique and special contribution as a means to integral human fulfillment, without undue interference from any others, including the state.
The support of Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP 120101590 is gratefully acknowledged.
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Notes
- 1.
John Paul II (1991).
- 2.
Hittinger (2002).
- 3.
Despite the evidence that Catholic social philosophy was one of the prime inspirations of the European doctrine, there is resistance to the invocation of Catholic principles: von Borries and Hauschild (1999, pp. 369–70). For a more sympathetic discussion of Catholic ideas in the context of the European principle of subsidiarity, see Barber (2005).
- 4.
Pius XI (1931).
- 5.
Leo XIII (1891).
- 6.
See also Rerum Novarum, [7]: ‘Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body.’
- 7.
Among them: Luigi Taparelli, Matteo Liberatore, Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler and Oswald von Nell-Breuning.
- 8.
- 9.
Part III of this chapter substantially draws on Aroney (2007).
- 10.
I use the expression ‘city-state’ conscious of the difficulty of finding a precise English equivalent to the term polis.
- 11.
A Greek household is not quite the same thing as a ‘family’ in the sense that we understand it today. A household then consisted of all of the property and persons under the authority of the head of the household, an emphasis very different from the close marital, parental and filial bonds with which we associate the family today. See Herlihy (1983).
- 12.
On the ‘whole’ and its ‘parts’, see Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII.10–11 and the discussion in Newman (1950, Vol. II, pp. 125–127).
- 13.
See, generally, Dobbs (1985, pp. 29–46).
- 14.
See Booth (1981, pp. 203–26).
- 15.
- 16.
See Jaffa (1972, pp. 94–96), and compare Plato, Republic, II, 369a-c. On the composition of the polis in terms of households and villages as well as individuals, see also Newman (1950, Vol. II, pp. 111, 114; Vol. III, pp. 130, 132, 208). There may not altogether be a contradiction as between the individual citizen and the household, since although Aristotle referred to free women as well as free men as citizens, he seems generally to have assumed that the citizen who participates in the rule of the city will typically be an adult, male, head of a household. On this assumption, each citizen represents a household, and thus the city might be viewed quite consistently as both a composition of individual citizens and a composition of households.
- 17.
See also Aristotle’s comments on marriage, reproduction and education in Politics, VII.16–17 and the comments in Pangle (1998, pp. 377–97, 381–2). For a contrary interpretation, which emphasises a kind of ‘constitutional pluralism’ in Aristotle, see Dobbs (1996) and compare Everson (1988, pp. 89–101). See also de Coulanges (1956, p. 219).
- 18.
That is, including its immediate environs and surrounding countryside.
- 19.
See the discussion of Cleisthenes’ reforms below.
- 20.
See also Politics, II.6, 1265a13-18, criticizing Socrates’ ideal city of 5,000 warrior-citizens as being unrealistically large. Aristotle was well aware of ‘political communities’ which are ‘national’ in scale, but they are less than ideal: see, eg, Politics, III.3, 1276a25-34.
- 21.
On the gradual expansion of the Athenian city-state into the whole of Attica, however, see Barker (1959, pp. 274, 298).
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
See Newman (1950, Vol. III, pp. 203–6).
- 26.
Compare de Coulanges (1956, pp. 201–2), referring to the ‘profound gulf which always separated two cities’ and arguing that for this reason ‘the ancients were never able to establish, or even to conceive of, any other social organisation than the city’. See, likewise, Barker (1959, pp. 298–9), who concludes that Aristotle does not discuss ‘federation’ and thus regarded the city as the ‘final form of association’.
- 27.
- 28.
Although, see Politics, III.6, 1278b31-1279a21.
- 29.
See Politics, III.4, 1276b28-30, where Aristotle states that ‘the salvation of the community is the common business of them all [ie, all of the citizens of a particular city-state]’.
- 30.
The constitution (politeia) is, Aristotle notes, the same as the government (politeuma): Politics, III.6, 1278b10-12; III.7, 1279a25-26. On the relationship between Aristotle’s concepts of city-state, community, citizenship, constitution and government, see Politics, III.4, 1276b30 and the discussion in Barker (1959, p. 307); Cartledge (2000, pp. 17, 20); Ehrenberg (1969, pp. 38–9, 43, 88); Newman (1950, Vol. II, pp. 156–7). The Aristotelian politeia, usually translated ‘constitution’, ‘regime’ or ‘form of government’, should not be confused, of course, with the modern idea of the written constitution as a judicially enforceable, ‘higher’ law.
- 31.
See Strauss (1977, p. 45).
- 32.
On the question of authorship, see Rhodes (1981, pp. 58–63).
- 33.
- 34.
Cleisthenes is said, however, to have left the citizens free to belong to their clans (genê) and brotherhoods (phratrias) as they had before: Constitution of Athens, XXI.6.
- 35.
Manville (1990, pp. 187–8).
- 36.
The quotation is from Lord’s translation (Chicago, 1984). See also Politics, III.2, 1275b34-37.
- 37.
- 38.
Whitehead (1986, p. 51).
- 39.
Summa contra Gentiles (1259–1265). Unless indicated otherwise, in-text references to Aquinas’s works are to the book, section and paragraph numbers.
- 40.
Grasso (2008, p. 34).
- 41.
Sententia libri Politicorum (1269–1272).
- 42.
On cities and provinces, see De Regno, I.2.4 [14]; on cities and kingdoms, see De Regno, I.14.5 [100]; on nations, see Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate (1256–1259), 5.3 co; and on the universe as a whole, see ST, I-II, 91.1, 21.4, 100.5; ScG, I.42, 70–71, 78, 85–86, 93, 102, II.39, 42, III.64, 98.
- 43.
In Quaestiones de quodlibet, II, 5.1 res., Aquinas (1256–1259, 1269–1272) likewise described and limited the authority of the head of a household to matters pertaining the management of the home, and that of a king to those matters pertaining to the government of the realm.
- 44.
- 45.
- 46.
Scriptum super Sententiis magistri Petri Lombardi (1256b).
- 47.
De Regno ad regem Cypri (c. 1267).
- 48.
- 49.
For a discussion of the role of associations within Hobbes’s thought, see Robertson (1966).
- 50.
Finnis (1998).
- 51.
For a contrary view, see Murphy (2005, p. 148).
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Aroney, N. (2014). Subsidiarity in the Writings of Aristotle and Aquinas. In: Evans, M., Zimmermann, A. (eds) Global Perspectives on Subsidiarity. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 37. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8810-6_2
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