The European SPES co-organized an international workshop on “Teleology and Reason in Economic and Social Affairs” with the Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford in June 30–July 1, 2014 in Oxford.
The workshop explored Catholic Social Thinking for analyzing pressing economic and financial problems of today. Inspired by the spiritual humanism of the European personalist movement and applying the analytical rigor of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition the workshop aimed to develop new models for business functioning and economic policy serving the spiritual and material flourishing of the human person.
Key issues of the workshop were the following:
The role of “telos” in the formation of economic choices and actions
Critique of the current assumptions of economic rationality
Reason and reasoning in economic and social life
Common good oriented business and policy making
Civil society participation in the economy