The Vision of Catholic Social Thought: The Virtue of Solidarity and the Praxis of Human Rights

2. Anthropological Foundations for Human Rights and Solidarity

2 Anthropological Foundations for Human Rights and Solidarity “We must reappropriate the true meaning of freedom, which is not an intoxication with total autonomy, but a response to the call of being, beginning with our own personal being.” Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate 70 “We are one human family. By simply being born into this world, we are of one inheritance and one stock with every other human being. This oneness expresses itself in all the richness and diversity of the human family: in different races, cultures, languages and histories. And we are called to recognize the basic solidarity of the human family as the fundamental condition of our life together on this earth.” Pope John Paul II, World Day of Peace Message (1987) When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted and approved, Jacques Maritain and others noted that there was remarkable consensus concerning the content of the document, provided that no one asked why. In 1948, the document was approved and the age of human rights began in international affairs. Catholic social encyclicals are often similarly critiqued for not providing extensive arguments for their statements. Encyclicals do not provide the philosophical and theological foundations or arguments, mainly because of the limits of the genre. It is not what encyclicals do—they are not theological or philosophical treatises. However, in the twenty-first century one thing is now clear: a full appreciation of either the Universal Declaration or Catholic social doctrine requires grappling with those foundations and being able to argue why. As we contend with a deeply divided world with violence, poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation, the future of human rights 43 and Catholic social doctrine requires greater attention to the foundational question: Why? For Christian theology, this is an anthropological question. The why of human rights and solidarity becomes a question of who: Who is the human person? Who are we? Implementing human rights and developing an ethics of solidarity involve investigating the role of the individual and the community, the human person and humanity as a whole. In order to ground the necessary and intimate connection between human rights and solidarity, I offer a philosophical and theological anthropology of a community of equal human persons. Through our understanding of human freedom and the human person as created imago dei, human rights and solidarity both flow necessarily from what it means to be human. Philosophically, freedom and rights must be understood as socially embedded in communities. In order to examine that foundation, I turn to Charles Taylor’s argument for situated freedom, a modern social imaginary and as members, our obligation to belong. Theologically, the starting point for both human rights and solidarity is the human person as created imago dei. For Christians, to be in the image and likeness of God must be understood as imago trinitatis. How is it we are created in the image and likeness of the Trinity? Through contemporary feminist Trinitarian theology, specifically that of Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, and Catherine LaCugna, the principles of equality, mutuality, and reciprocity emerge as practical criteria to be applied to the human person and community. Within the theological and philosophical anthropology presented, an intimate and unbreakable link between your dignity and my own emerges and, with it, a profound ethical obligation for both human rights and solidarity. The Social Nature of the Human Agent and the Obligation to Belong The starting point for both human rights and solidarity is the human person. Human beings are social animals, and interdependence is an observable reality. However, when Populorum Progressio categorizes interdependence as a normative and ethical category, Pope Paul VI is making a much stronger claim about the sociality of human beings than can be found in mainstream liberal philosophy. What then is the philosophy of the human person linking human rights and solidarity? Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor develops a philosophical anthropology that takes seriously the human person as both a bearer of rights and a member of community. Through his attention to the modern moral order, the self, and the obligation to belong, a rich and 44 | The Vision of Catholic Social Thought multifaceted philosophical anthropology emerges that grounds both human rights and solidarity in the human person. GROUNDING THE SELF IN THE MODERN SOCIAL IMAGINARY “I am arguing that the free individual of the West is only what he is by virtue of the whole society and civilization which brought him to...