Fundación social: rationale for shaping action - Business goals and social commitment - Libros y Revistas - VLEX 787489201

Fundación social: rationale for shaping action

AutorJosé Camilo Dávila - Carlos Dávila - Lina Grisales - David Schnarch
Páginas11-72
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FUNDACIÓN SOCIAL:
RATIONALE FOR SHAPING ACTION
T     the reasoning process honed by Fundación Social
(FS) to guide its activities over a span of  years, by exploring developments
taking place in four distinct time frames: rst, the origins and path of FS thought
and deeds; second, the landmark axiological document, prepared in , inter-
weaving FS reasoning with direct social action and business activity; third, the
FS Legacy, articulated in , formalising FS’ heritage; and fourth, FS strategy
deployed in - to achieve social aims.
Origin of thought and deeds
In , when José María Campoamor, a Spanish Jesuit newly arrived in Colom-
bia founded what in time became FS, he was inspired by the Church’s emerging
social thought. We review this process in ve stages: ) the common good as the
root of Church social thinking; ) the crisis in the Church’s social thought at the
dawn of modernity; ) the origins, growth, and aims of Catholic Action; ) the
 e Society of Jesus was founded in . Chris Lowney, a former Jesuit, explains in Heroic Leader-
ship (), how this leadership approach is based on four key pillars: self-knowledge creativity, love,
and heroism.
·  ·
      
Rerum novarum encyclical (); and ) developments that explain the rise of
workers’ circles and savings funds in Europe.
e Common Good in Catholic Social Doctrine
FS’ thought and action has from its founding been guided by the common good.
St. omas Aquinas, in the th century, spelled out what may be the most signi-
cant contributions to Church social doctrine. In his recent encyclical, Caritas in
veritate, Pope Benedict XVI rearmed the overarching principle of overcoming
society’s ills by means of the common good.
Church thought is rooted in the Holy Scripture, and has been largely shaped
by priests and distinguished medieval thinkers (CELAM, ). e most cel-
ebrated exponents of Catholic thought are St. omas Aquinas, St. Albert Mag-
nus, and St. Bonaventure. Of these, the most widely recognised contributor is
St. omas Aquinas (-), named a Doctor Humanitatis in  by John
Paul ; St. omas conceives humankind as being both rational and free (John
Paul II, : ). e scholar Eudaldo Forment (: ) asserts St. omas
oers “a profoundly human doctrine, where all dimensions of human beings are
respected.” Similarly, Colombian philosopher Luis Enrique Orozco holds that
in St. omas’ view, tending to the common good renders society viable.
Spanish theologian Santiago Ramírez, who summarised St. omas’ thinking
on the common good, notes (: ):
St. omas did not prepare a full exposition of the common good, nor did
he attempt to write an overall philosophy on society, or a body of politi-
cal doctrine. Instead, dispersed throughout his writings, Aquinas makes
frequent references to the notion that the common good, and the normative
demands associated with it, is one of the great guiding principles and ideas
underlying his social and political doctrine (emphasis in the original).
According to Ramírez () the idea of the common good developed by Aqui-
nas can be traced to Aristotle’s notion of good (- B.C. Ed. ), presented
 Eudaldo Forment has authored  books on St. omas Aquinas, and is director general of the St.
omas Aquinas International Society.
 Luis Enrique Orozco obtained a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Louvain University (Belgium), and is cur-
rently chair of the Management area at University of los Andes School of Management.
 Santiago Ramírez was Director of the eology School of the Dominican Fathers of St. Steven, and
professor at the Pontical University of Salamanca.
·  ·
  :     
early in his Ethics, and draws also on the thought of St. Augustine (- A.D.)
Aristotle holds, as respects human goodness generally, that: “all art and scientic
research, as well as all action and choice, appear to tend toward some good; ac-
cordingly, that to which all things aspire is, in all pulchritude, dened as good
(Aristotle, Ed. : ); and in Ramírez’s words: “what everyone seeks” (:
). Aristotle also understands good as a nal cause, or end; and in relation to
the common good, holds: “It is kind to do good to an individual, but doing so
to cities and people is nobler” (Aristotle, Ed. : ).
For St. omas, goodness encompasses the idea of perfection as such, but is
open to others, insofar as all human beings move and tend to search in others that
which they lack for their own perfection. e common good materialises in the
same way, except that it refers to a community of individuals working together
in solidarity (Ramírez, ).
Aquinas’ idea of the common good is intrinsically linked to the idea of soci-
ety: “It is natural indigence and need for perfection [of good] that moves men
to become a society” (Ramírez, : ). is approach is predicated on the
premise that there are several kinds of goods, goals, and outcomes that man cannot
achieve on his own, obliging him to join forces in collective activity. In this vein,
the origins of association among individuals reside in their mutual need to attain
a good. However, for this good to become common in nature, it must be viewed
in proportion to the good of others. St. Augustine was the rst to develop this
approach: “Each citizen is a part of a whole, and the goodness of each part can only
exist in the right proportion or willingness with regard to the organic whole; hence
this individual good will not exist as such if it does not develop, grow, and prosper in
due proportion to the common good” (Ramírez, : ; italics in original).
Basing his position on St. Augustine, Aquinas conceives of the common good
as “the combination of individual goodness, not in cumulative form… but in a
proportional geometric dimension” (Ramírez, : ). If one individual’s good-
ness is found wanting, the common good deteriorates. For example:
If an employer attempts to increase his personal wealth at the workers’
expense, spreading poverty around him, damage is inicted on the com-
mon good, not because he has increased his personal wealth, but because
he has failed to concurrently increase – in a proportional manner – the
wealth of his workers, aecting them negatively. According to the law of
the common good, any increase in private wealth should lead to general
prosperity and wellbeing (Ramírez, : ).

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