Diego Laínez and the Moral Theology in the economic world of XVI th century

Abstract

The history of the teaching on usury during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance offers a striking example of the development, clarification and refinement of a moral problem by the scholastic casuistry. With the problem of the just price, the problem of the usury is perhaps the best documented of all the moral problems treated by the casuists. It reveals a complex of moral considerations based on scripture, theology and philosophy, mixed with factual developments in the economic and social life of Western Civilization. Lainez’s Disputatio de usura variisque negotiis mercatorum is a good example. The present paper shows how the successive developments in economic and social life influence this doctrine; and the cases they considered were genuine manifestations of new social, cultural and economic conditions. The moral arguments they worked out to deal with this cases were honest efforts to direct the consciences of rules, prelates and bankers.