Arthur F. Utz’s Thomism: Domestic peace as social justice

In this text I offer a Thomist account of domestic peace qua requirement of social justice, aka general or legal justice. First of all, the Thomist conception of justice is outlined succinctly with reference to the German-Swiss philosopher, theologian, Dominican friar, and founding member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Arthur Fridolin Utz (1908–2001), and especially to his 1994 book Wirtschaftsethik. Social justice is then contrasted with commutative justice within the liberal economic order, to better explain its meaning and illustrate its legal and political implications. Finally, following Utz, it is argued that domestic peace ought to be rendered to human communities at large, so that each individual member may pursue freely and responsibly her own life-plan. While making its case, this text introduces ipso facto the Anglophone reader to a major 20th-century Thomist, whose chief works have, to date, circulated only in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Latin.