RECONSTRUCTING SOCIETY AND POLITICS AFTER A WORLDWIDE ECONOMIC CRISIS

The recent global economic crisis has drawn attention to the limits of a capitalist market and economy that have been increasingly separated from ethical concerns. This crisis seemed to have pointed out that, in Western societies, a mere focus on wellbeing and good life, and a fetishization of financial instruments have narrowed the horizon of the moral and social imagination and, in addition, have perpetuated social injustice on a wide scale. This issue was in a sense anticipated by the contemporary classic theory of justice elaborated by John Rawls, and has been directly tackled, during the very economic crisis, by scholars with ethical, humanistic, and theological backgrounds. Among them, two religious leaders who possess also a considerable scholarly experience like Joseph Ratzinger and Rowan Williams have advanced outstanding views about how to reconstruct society and politics after the latest global crisis, both trying to reconcile the demands of economics with theology by way of ethics. In this paper, I firstly attempt to focus on Rawls's view on a fair conception of justice, which could arguably prevent, if it were taken seriously by political actors, social and economic shortcomings like the ones that led to the recent worldwide crisis. Secondly, I turn on Ratzinger's and Williams's rather similar proposal to connect economic activity with a concern for the common good, and to reconsider what makes humanity and social relations human, beyond judgements of failure or success.