Abstract

Paul J. Weithman argues that I misrepresented central elements of Thomas Aquinas's justification of private property. While Weithman offers important corrective details to my own discussion, his effort to find in Thomas some quasi-absolute claim to private property as a precondition to the exercise of individual virtue is unconvincing. Weithman's reading of Thomas has far more in common with Leo XIII's emphasis on an individual right to private property than it does with Thomas's fundamentally communal understanding. Moreover, there is nothing in Thomas to suggest any zero-sum version of tradeoffs to be made between the individual's exercise of virtue and the government's duty, when required, to redistribute resources in pursuit of the common good.