Dyskontowanie czasu i preferencja czasowa w analizie moralno-ekonomicznej Leonarda Lessiusa SJ
Time discounting and time preference in the moral-economic analysis of Leonard Lessius SJ

Summary/Abstract: The subject of the analysis is the concept of time preference of the Flemish Jesuit and moral theologian Leonard Lessius SJ (†1623), who lived and worked in Europe during the period of great changes caused by the Protestant Revolution. Usury was still prohibited, but canon law no longer applied to everyone. The aim of the study is to demonstrate that referring to natural law helps to understand human behaviour in the economic sphere and does not contradict God’s revelation. The point of reference is the Austrian school of economics because Lessius’s discoveries heralded the understanding of the phenomenon of time preference, which later allowed representatives of this school to explain the nature of interest and usury fi nally. The analysis of the thought of the Flemish Jesuit leads to the conclusion that there is a natural order of things in the world that can be discovered with the natural light of reason infused by God.

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