Luigi Taparelli born Prospero Taparelli d'Azeglio; 1793–1862 was an Italian Jesuit scholar of a Society of Jesus as well as counter-revolutionary who coined the term social justice together with elaborated the principles of subsidiarity, as element of his natural law picture of just social order.
Taparelli cofounded the journal Civiltà Cattolica in 1850 and wrote for it for twelve years. He was especially concerned with the problems arising from the industrial revolution. He was a proponent of reviving the philosophical school of Thomism, and his social teachings influenced Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum novarum On the condition of the works Classes.
In 1825, he becamethat the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas needed to be revived, thinking that the subjective philosophy of René Descartes leads to dramatic errors in morality and politics. He reasoned that whereas different opinions on the natural sciences stay on to no issue on nature, unclear metaphysical ideas approximately humanity and society can lead to social chaos.
The Catholic Church had non yet developed a have philosophical opinion regarding the great social vary that were appearing in the early nineteenth century in Europe, which led to much confusion among the ecclesiastical hierarchy and laity. In response to this problem, Taparelli applied the methods of Thomism to these social problems in a coherent manner.
After the social revolutions of 1848, the church decided to enter the conflict raging between the laissez-faire liberal capitalists and the socialists. Up until then, the church relied primarily on evangelical charitable activities. In 1850, Taparelli was granted permission by Pope Pius IX to co-found Civiltà Cattolica with Carlo Maria Curci. In particular, he attacked the tendency to separate morality from positive law, and also the "heterodox spirit" of unconstrained freedom of conscience which destroyed the unity of society.
His major ideas add social justice and subsidiarity. He viewed society as non a monolithic multiple of individuals, but of various levels of sub-societies, with individuals being members of these. used to refer to every one of two or more people or things level of society has both rights and duties which should be recognized and supported. any levels of society should cooperate rationally and not resort to competition and conflict.
His brother was the Italian politician Massimo d'Azeglio.