St. Thomas Aquinas on the Goodness and Right to Work Today

Abstract

By situating the human laborer in his proper context as imago Dei, defining what constitutes properly human labor, and recognizing the proper ends of that labor, St. Thomas Aquinas provides clarity on how contemporary scholars and policymakers can establish a fundamental right to work. By also attending to Thomas’ account of distributive justice and the role of the sovereign to account for that justice, contemporary leaders in the public and private sectors might understand the priority of full employment in national economies. Such revision can lead not only to a more proximate attainment of the temporal human flourishing in the common good, but can also create the social context for a ‘spirituality of work’, highlighted in the conclusion of John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens, as a means whereby the active life and the contemplative life can coincide and direct men and women evermore to their end in the vision of God.