Mary L. Hirschfeld
Abridged and edited for readability
The Role of Economic Goods in a Life Well Lived: Happiness as Perfection
For Aquinas, economic life is ordered toward the pursuit of happiness. The framework distinguishes economic activity that is of genuine value from activity that is disordered. Aquinas sets out the proper relationships between happiness, natural wealth, and artificial wealth (i.e., money or other financial instruments) early in the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologica. He takes up the question of whether wealth could constitute the final end of human life, or “happiness.” Turning first to natural wealth—“that which serves… as a remedy for [man’s] natural wants: such as food, drink, clothing, cars, dwellings, and such like”—Aquinas argues that wealth cannot be the highest end because this sort of wealth is “sought for the sake of something else, [namely,] as a support of human nature.” In that article, Aquinas goes on to argue that artificial wealth, which is the “means” by which a man “procures for himself the necessary life,” is an even less apt candidate for being that in which happiness consists. In other words, economic goods and services are instrumental goods that should be desired insofar as they serve our higher ends; and money is, in turn, instrumental to these goods and services. This clear ordering is the basis for a moral assessment of various features of economic life. If a given practice is ordered properly to happiness, it is good; if it is not so ordered, it is not.
So what is the proper role of material goods? The crucial point is that our desire for natural wealth should be bounded or satiable. However, we are capable of mistaking this fact and of thus falling into a “disordered concupiscence,” whereby we desire an indefinite amount of economic goods. On this view, modern economic life, which presumes that more wealth is always better and that indefinite economic growth is desirable, is founded on a misunderstanding of the proper role of economic goods.
One might think that Aquinas is arguing that we should live abstemiously, thereby freeing ourselves to pursue higher goods through the exercise of virtue. That is not the case. First, he believes it is appropriate for us to maintain ourselves not merely at the level of biological sufficiency but further in a socially becoming way. Second, one might desire material goods that make it possible to exercise virtue. Insofar as at least two of these virtues—liberality and magnificence—require command over material goods beyond those necessary to sustain oneself in proper fashion, he has room for a virtuous desire for goods such as one might most commonly see in the well to do. Finally, he implicitly allows for the pursuit of human excellence in the form of arts, crafts, and other such activities. Thus, his account of the role of material goods in a life of virtue allows for many elements associated with prosperity.
However, Aquinas’s view diverges from modern sensibilities in that he thinks of all these desires as properly bounded, as seen in his treatment of the virtue of liberality. Liberality entails not merely giving gifts to others but also a proper spending on oneself. It thus represents right relationship to material goods, and is treated as an aspect of the virtue of justice. Broadly speaking, justice is the virtue of giving others their due, and liberality is a component of justice: having a right relationship with material goods is part of handling material goods justly.
The related vices of prodigality and covetousness combine to illuminate what it means to spend “properly.” According to Aquinas, with respect to affections, a covetous person loves riches more than she ought, while a prodigal person in her carelessness of material wealth loves riches less than she ought. With respect to actions, the covetous person gives away too little, but the prodigal gives away too much. The core defect in both cases is failing to regard material goods with due measure.
In the case of the prodigal, the disproportion occurs in two ways. First, he does not dispose of his or her riches in a reasonable way. For example, a person gives without regard to the fittingness of the gift. Correlatively, the prodigal does not have a proper regard for the value of material goods. It is instructive to note Aquinas’s sense that the undervaluation of a good is as much a vice as its overvaluation. The overarching virtue is treating goods with due measure, valuing them neither more nor less than they deserve. The two defects come together to suggest that it is by virtue of not spending according to reason that the prodigal fails to fully appreciate the value of material goods. To arrive at a proper appreciation for material goods, one must see how they can be ordered to higher goods in a way that is commensurate with the end they serve.
Although Western culture is still apt to see prodigality as a failing, modern sensibilities are less likely to be offended by the vice of covetousness. As Aquinas uses the term, covetousness is an excessive regard for material goods or an “immoderate love of possessing.” Although this might be seen as a failing when it comes to things like Imelda Marcos’s shoe closet or Senator John McCain’s seven or so residences, Aquinas’s account of covetousness is not primarily about the quantity of goods desired. It is about the way in which these goods are desired.
The key distinction between liberality and covetousness is that the liberal person allows his desire for material goods to be measured by the ends those goods are meant to serve, whereas the covetous person does not. Instrumental goods must be “commensurate” with the end they serve, as can be seen in the example of medicine, which is valuable insofar as it is “commensurate with health.” It is easy to see that a given substance can only serve as medicine up to the point where it restores health. Beyond that point, it is at best wasteful and at worst can become harmful. If it takes two pills a day to keep one’s blood pressure in check, one wants two pills a day, not five or six. This logic extends to all material goods. If it takes a house of a given size to live becomingly, then one wants a house of that given size, not one twice as big. For Aquinas, our considered ideas about the end come first, and serve as a measure of what material goods we actually need. As long as we are finite, our need for material goods to support that end should also be finite.
On this account, the virtuous consumer thinks about the projects that she intends to undertake and the standard of living that is appropriate, and allows those ends to determine the level of material support that she requires. This approach requires thinking about the concrete goods in themselves and the ends they serve. Aquinas’s approach emphasizes thinking holistically about how the various elements of one’s standard of living can be harmoniously arranged. The accent is on fittingness. On this view, for example, the best couch is not the most expensive couch; it is the one that serves its purpose in a manner that fits the nature of one’s home. The covetous consumer is apt to think in more piecemeal fashion. As income expands, he or she buys the more expensive couch. But that destabilizes the feel of the living room, and so a person “needs” more money so he or she can buy the coffee table and carpets that would go with such a couch.
The modern embrace of the vice of covetousness is the root of the ills that many associate with capitalism. As Aquinas observes, covetousness hardens hearts to the plight of those in need. It can lead to excessive anxiety; and in the worst cases, it can tempt people to engage in deceit or even violence in pursuit of goods they excessively desire. More subtly, covetousness lies behind the sense that more income is always desirable. And that, in turn, is what generates the sense that scarcity is an inescapable feature of the world. Goods must be scarce if desire for them is infinite but the capacity to produce them is finite. And if scarcity is endemic, then it is natural to believe that economic growth is always desirable, and to order policies around the aim of promoting economic growth, even to the point of thinking it worthwhile to sacrifice other goods, like economic justice or environmental stability, in pursuit of it. Although growth is an undeniable good up to a point, in that it can help lift the poor out of poverty, the notion that more economic growth is always desirable is ultimately destabilizing.
Although covetousness is hardly peculiar to capitalist society, it does seem to be the defining vice of market societies. There is something about money that tempts people into an improper relationship with material goods. Aquinas’s discussion of artificial wealth can illuminate this connection.
Artificial Wealth and Concupiscent Desire: Happiness as Maximization
Aquinas thinks money can serve a good function in human life. Money was “invented by the art of man, for the convenience of exchange and as a measure of things salable.” It is (properly) sought only for the sake of natural wealth. Artificial wealth, then, is an instrumental good to an instrumental good.
As modern economists put it, money serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. Its function as a medium of exchange is primary, and it helps to overcome the multiple difficulties involved in bartering. Because we typically want to spend at different times than we want to sell, money needs to hold its value across time. These two functions reflect money’s role in making exchange convenient. The third function, money’s role as a unit of account, is what Aquinas refers to as serving as a “measure of things salable.” It allows us to know the value of goods in terms of one item, typically the medium of exchange, rather than having to know its exchange value with all possible goods. As is discussed below, money’s role as a unit of account is necessary, but it is also a primary source of the problems money causes.