price was essentially subjective or
objective has recently formed the subject matter of an interesting
and ably conducted discussion, provoked by certain remarks in Dr.
Cunningham's _Western Civilisation_.[1] Dr. Cunningham, although
admiring the ethical spirit which animated the conception of the just
price, thought at the same time that the economic ideas underlying the
conception were so undeveloped and unsound that the theory could not
be applied in practice at the present day. 'Their economic analysis
was very defective, and the theory of price which they put forward was
untenable; but the ethical standpoint which they took is well worth
examination, and the practical measures which they recommended appear
to have been highly beneficial in the circumstances in which they had
to deal. Their actions were not unwise; their common-sense morality
was sound; but the economic theories by which they tried to give an
intellectual justification for their rules and their practice were
quite erroneous.... The attempt to determine an ideal price implies
that there can and ought to be stability in relative values and
stability in the measure of values--which is absurd. The mediaeval
doctrine and its application rested upon another assumption which we
have outlived. Value is not a quality which inheres in an object so
that it can have the same worth for everybody; it arises from the
personal preference and needs of different people, some of whom desire
a thing more and some less, some of whom want to use it in one way and
some in another. Value is not objective--intrinsic in the object--but
subjective, varying with the desire and intentions of the possessors
or would-be possessors; and, because it is thus subjective, there
cannot be a definite ideal value which every article ought to possess,
and still more a just price as the measure of that ideal value.' In
these and similar observations to be found in the _Growth of English
History and Commerce_, Dr. Cunningham showed that he profoundly
misunderstood the doctrine of the just price; the objectivity which
he attributed to it was not the objectivity ascribed to it by the
scholastics. It was to correct this misunderstanding that Father
Slater contributed an article to the _Irish Theological Quarterly_[2]
pointing out that the just price was subjective rather than objective.
This article, which was afterwards reprinted in _Some Aspects of Moral
Theology_, and the conclusions of whic