What is the Common Good? History and Principles.

Patrick Riordan SJ explores the history and principles of the 'common good'  (the theme for this weekend's Greenbelt festival) in the opening chapter to Reclaiming The Common Good, reproduced below ...

How can we talk meaningfully about common goods in a world which provides so much evidence of the absence of goods in common and of commitment to shared projects? Is it unrealistic to reflect on the common good where the reality of our lives is diversity, plurality, disagreement and conflict? My task in this chapter is to address this question, and to do so by recovering the principles and criteria of the common good as these have been discovered and articulated in human history. It will only be possible to pick out some significant moments from over two thousand years of human experience and political, philosophical and theological reflection on the common good. I focus on four: Aristotle, the first thinker to link politics and the common good; medieval Christianity, which used Aristotle’s language to say something he could not have understood; modernity, which rejected the Aristotelian and Christian agreement that there is an ultimate good in common; and finally twentieth-century Catholic Social Thought.

Aristotle

The notion of common good is originally philosophical, introduced by Aristotle in his Politics. As Aristotle sees it, human action is always for some good, or something that is perceived to be good. The maker of flutes sees something worthwhile in the product, in enabling good and beautiful music, and allowing the excellence of the performer to appear. Flute maker and flute player cooperate: they act together for a good in common. Among the goods at stake in their activity is their own perfection and excellence, even if they don’t think about this. Aristotle is aware that there are many instances of cooperation, and many organisations and institutions facilitating collaboration, whether business, sporting, cultural or religious, each of which has its distinctive activities oriented to their various purposes, constituting their common goods. For him, then, common good is not only or primarily designated in the singular as the common good. There are as many common goods as there are forms of cooperation. For him also there remains always a valid question whether the good pursued in collaboration by some people is a genuine good, and whether it is truly for their good, i.e. that its achievement would accomplish their excellence or perfection. For instance, the pirates of Somalia cooperate for their good in common, but is enrichment achieved through theft really good, and does it make them better or excellent people?

Aristotle introduces the singular, with definite article when discussing the good for the sake of which the political community cooperates. Against the background of the Greek city state such as Athens he considers that the highest possible good of cooperation which best perfects the collaborators is the good achieved in politics. As the city is taken to represent the highest possible form of cooperation, so its good is taken to be the highest possible good. Aristotle labels the common good as ‘the good life’. This is beyond survival, life itself, for which much cooperation is needed. In trying to say what exactly constitutes the good life, Aristotle relies on a contrast with alternative views of politics. The political association is more than a set of non-aggression pacts, it is more than a mutual guarantee of rights, and it is more than a set of contracts for the exchange of goods and services, all possible forms of association recognised in his day. But what that ‘more’ is, Aristotle does not explain in detail. However, he does provide some pointers which allow us to understand in outline what he means. He points out that communities based on non-aggression or mutual benefit in trade are not interested in fostering the character and virtue of the citizens of partner cities. But in the mature political community which he advocates, the legislators in pursuing the common good would be primarily concerned about the moral development of citizens, and would make laws with the purpose of training the citizens in virtue. By ‘virtue’ Aristotle means the capacity for noble actions, for excellence in the performance of distinctive human actions, among which he lists the activities of friendship and the doing of justice as a member of the citizen body. The context whereby only native-born male property owners could be included among this group reminds us that the virtues in question are very different from those of medieval Christianity.

Aristotle had surveyed the constitutions known in his world, and he was quite aware that few of them if any lived up to the high standards he had formulated for the common good. In every case, however, a constitution of a city encapsulated some conception of the good, and of the good life. The basis for political community, he believes, is the sharing of a view of what is good and worthwhile, what is noble and just, and what is lawful. Without agreement on such fundamentals, an association of people would not constitute a political community. Just as we could hardly imagine a tennis club without a commitment by its members to the sport of tennis, so also he thought, we could not conceive of a polis without agreement among its citizens about the shared vision of the good life. Harmony and agreement are at the heart of his account of the common good. Still Aristotle conceded that there are many possible conceptions of the good life, each with its own characteristic form of constitution, and a corresponding criterion of justice. So for instance, in oligarchy, the unifying vision regards the good life as a life devoted to the pursuit and enjoyment of wealth. In a city like Sparta, renowned for its military prowess, the characteristic virtues to be fostered in the citizenry are military virtues.

Aristotle enquires whether rule is exercised for the common good, the good of all, or only for the good of the rulers. This allows him to distinguish between good and bad extremes. Rule by one for the common good is termed monarchy; rule by one in the interest of the ruler only is tyranny. Aristotle’s objection to democracy as he understands the term is that it is rule by the many in their own interests, and not in the interests of all.

It is possible to formulate two criteria for the common good, based on Aristotle’s own distinctions. If the telos, the purpose of the political community, is to be a common good, then it could only be such if it does not systematically exclude any individual or any group of persons from a fair share in the good for the sake of which they cooperate. This is the first criterion, modelled on Aristotle’s concern that rule be for the good of all, and not merely for the good of the rulers, whether one, few, or many. And if the telos is to be a common good, then it could only be such if it does not systematically exclude or denigrate any genuine dimension of the human good. This second criterion is modelled on Aristotle’s evaluation of different constitutions in terms of their conceptions of human good, whether expansive or constricted.

He relied on the phrase translated as ‘always more than’ to identify the conception of the human good which would be satisfactory and comprehensive without being able to say exactly what it is. It is something striven for in political life; it would be more than a mutual guarantee of rights, or a set of non-aggression pacts, or treaties to exchange goods and services. The common good, the good life in Aristotle’s sense, names something which is already known, but only vaguely. It names something yet to be fully discovered, but the two criteria help in the process of discovery, since the common good will have to satisfy these conditions.

Many aspects of Aristotle’s view seem to be incompatible with politics today. The expectation of harmony and agreement about the good is at odds with our experience of politics as predicated on conflict. His expectation that the law-makers in his city should be concerned about the moral training of citizens would be rejected in our context in which individual autonomy is highly valued, and the attempt to legislate morals is dismissed as paternalism. Similarly, the notion that human fulfilment is achieved by participating in politics and that such fulfilment is the ultimate human good would likewise be rejected in our time as jeopardising individual freedom. However, Aristotle’s discussion is sufficiently programmatic that elements of it can survive to guide our discussion of other conceptions of the common good. The key ideas are the heuristic nature of the concept, pointing to what is only partly known and still in the process of being discovered, and the two criteria of non-exclusion of persons and the non-exclusion of dimensions of the human good. Incidentally, it is the application of these two criteria to Aristotle’s own thought which allows for the correction of his prejudices.

Medieval Christianity

The reception of Aristotle’s philosophy within Christian theology provoked many new questions for believers. What is the common good of Christians? Is it the same as the common good of all humanity? Is the Church’s common good the same as the common good of the political community, and if not, how are they related? This was not the first time that the Christian faith was confronted with Greek philosophy. In his letters St Paul draws on the common stock of Stoic philosophy especially with relation to political matters in characterising the new community he was instrumental in founding and organising. In the Letter to the Philippians Paul borrows Stoic ideas to explain what is involved in the Christian life. It is a life which has a goal, and that goal is to be a participant in an ideal community, and Jesus is the model for all who strive for this goal. Paul writes: ‘our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself’ (Philippeans 3:20–21). The Greek word which is translated in the Revised Standard Version as ‘commonwealth’ is to politeuma, which has at its root the idea of polis, or city, political society. Sometimes it is translated as ‘citizenship’, giving ‘our citizenship is in heaven’. Paul borrows the Stoic idea of an ideal community transcending the actual and inadequate and failing communities in history to explain what the community of the faithful is, a society by analogy with an ideal city. He borrows other popular teachings, retaining their form and giving them new content. He reworks the traditional political concepts of oikos (household), polis (polity) and basileia (kingdom).

These terms are the conventional ones used for speaking about political reality, even after the forms in which they originated had ceased to exist. Still, with the memory of how the Greek city state functioned with its assembly of citizens, the language was available for Paul to give new meaning to ekklesia, the assembly, now referring not to the gathering of citizens of Rome, or of Athens, but to the citizens of a new polis, gathered in the houses of the Roman believers (Romans 16:5). This Greek word, originally purely political in meaning, has through its adoption by Paul and its usage through the centuries become the Latin term for Church, ekklesia, and survives in the English word ecclesiastic, and related terms.

The Letter to the Ephesians is Pauline in tone and content even if it may not have been written by Paul. But it relies on the familiar Greek political terms to explain to the Gentile converts their membership as believers in the community of the Church. ‘So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God’ (Ephesians 2:19). The theme of unity in the Body of Christ is important in this letter and the implied equality of all within the community, in which Gentiles or latecomers are on equal terms with Jewish converts, a theme of equality resonating elsewhere in Paul’s writings (Galatians 3:28).

Many of the terms used by Paul such as household, city, kingdom, polity and assembly had been used by Aristotle in his Politics. And when his writings were rediscovered in the thirteenth century Christian theologians realised that they had to distinguish clearly between the Greek conception and the Christian vision of the common good. The clarity of Aristotle’s thought made it very useful for saying how the Christian understanding of the common good differed from Aristotle’s even if Aristotle’s own language was the best suited for doing so.

Aristotle maintained that the highest good of cooperation was that achieved in the polis, the political community. Christians following the example of St Paul writing to the Philippians would have to deny this, and offer their view that as God is the highest good, so for humankind the attainment of heaven is the highest good. This is already the reality of Christian existence in history, that believers seeing themselves as citizens of that heavenly city are on their way as pilgrims to a destiny offered to them as gift, as grace. A political system which claimed to be the highest good of human cooperation would have to appear as idolatrous for Christians, claiming for itself something which only the Kingdom of God could be.

The moral purpose of politics and legislation according to Aristotle was of course attractive to Christian believers, but following Augustine they had to deny that human instruments on their own could make people good. The unsuitability of the state as moral educator was first remarked by Augustine in his The City of God. This fifth-century document can be taken as representing the abandonment of the classical expectation of moral consensus as found in Aristotle. Unlike the Greek philosophers who hoped for harmony and unity, Augustine expects the political arena to be conflictual. He explains this in terms of the radical tension throughout all of human affairs between the ‘City of God’ and the ‘earthly city’.1 The radical disorder brought about by the rebellious assertion of human will means that human action and human structures are largely motivated by the libido dominandi, the desire to dominate others, and by the pride whereby one seeks to make a name for oneself and achieve a place in posterity by successful participation in the affairs of one’s city. As a result, the status of the political community was relativised. It was no longer to be seen as the forum in which the common good or the supreme good would be pursued and achieved; only in the context of the City of God, in Augustine’s sense, could the highest good for humans be realised. The most that political institutions could hope to achieve is an inferior good, which Augustine refers to as ‘temporal peace and justice’. But while this good of security and civil peace might be seen as an inferior good it was nonetheless truly good and a common good for all those who would participate in maintaining and indeed benefiting from political community.

That only God by his grace could make people good required a rejection of some of Aristotle’s key ideas. In the place of Aristotle’s magnanimous great-souled man, the Christian saw the figure of the broken and suffering Christ as the model of virtue. The Greeks could never conceive of humility as a virtue, but for Christian believers it was central to their discipleship, in lives modelled on Christ.

Thomas Aquinas attempted to integrate his Christian heritage in which Augustine was the outstanding teacher with Aristotelian reflection on political reality. The success of his achievement is illustrated in the discussion of the purpose of civil law, and whether it is to make people good, as Aristotle says, or to control and limit the destructiveness of sin, as Augustine suggests. Aquinas manages to combine the insights of his two authorities, accepting both that the law’s purpose is to make people good, and that the law is an instrument of control for the purposes of social peace. This he does by qualifying the goodness which is the proper object of humanas distinct from God’s law. Agreeing with Augustine he recognises that the goodness of citizens which can be achieved by means of human law is not their ultimate good, but is nonetheless truly good. This distinction is evident in his discussion of the effects of law. He admits that law makes its subjects good: ‘the proper effect of law is to make those to whom it is given good, either simply or in some particular respect’.2 In response to an objection he clarifies what might be the particular respects in which citizens are to be good. Outward compliance might be sufficient to qualify as good in terms of the civil law, but it could not suffice to qualify as morally virtuous. ‘The common good of the political community cannot flourish unless the citizens be virtuous, at least those whose business it is to govern. But it is enough for the good of the community that the other citizens be so far virtuous that they obey the commands of their rulers.’3 It is quite acceptable to Aquinas that this be achieved by means of the coercive force of the civil law, even if there are many citizens who can be law-abiding without the threat of punishment. For them the directive force of the law is what guides their actions.

Since some are found to be depraved and prone to vice and not easily amenable to words, it was necessary for such to be restrained from evil by force and fear in order that they might at least desist from evil-doing and leave others in peace, and that they themselves, by being habituated in this way, might be brought to do willingly what hitherto they did from fear and thus become virtuous. Now this kind of training which compels through fear of punishment is the discipline of laws.4

With this and similar distinctions between the goodness which is the aim of divine law (the commandments, the law of love) Aquinas can speak of different common goods. The common good of any political community, including its peace, stability and well-being, is to be served by its civil laws, but inevitably it is limited as a common good for two reasons: the deficiencies of the authorities, and the inadequacy of the means. Human rulers lack the knowledge and the competence needed to guide people towards their divine destiny, something only possible by God-given grace. And the instruments of human law- making and judgement cannot look into the hearts of people but can only observe and so condition external behaviour. But it is the turning of the heart, the love with which the good is done, which signifies for the Kingdom of God the ultimate common good.

The ideas borrowed from Aristotle served well to present the Christian vision in terms of common goods. In contrast to Aristotle, who saw the ultimate common good as realisable in a political community in history, Aquinas, following Augustine, saw the ultimate common good as the Kingdom of God, already present through history, but realised fully only beyond history. At the same time, the notion of common good which Aristotle could see as applicable to all forms of cooperation – action together is for some good in common – allowed Aquinas and his contemporaries to acknowledge the distinctive common good of the political community, without having to endorse it as the highest possible good in common.

Common good in modernity

Armed conflict between proponents of different ultimate goods provides the background to the usual story of the emergence of liberal political thought in the modern period. The political turmoil of the period led to the assertion of the sovereignty of the state, and ultimately the national state. Sovereignty meant the denial of any higher authority, whether in Church or Empire, so that political rulers were not to acknowledge any higher common good than that which was achievable in their politics. Even religious and moral law should be subject to their authority.

This was a central argument of Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher who formulated the purpose of the state (he called it commonwealth) in his writings, especially Leviathan. He explicitly denied that there could be any agreement on what was good in itself, or a common good as truly worthwhile. In fact, he is responsible for establishing the idea, which has survived him in much of modern and postmodern thought, that to say something is good is not to say anything about the thing in question, but about the speaker or agent who strives for that thing. If I say that Shakespeare is a good dramatist, then, according to Hobbes, that means that I like and value Shakespeare, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the Bard. In the absence of agreement on what is good, society could only exist and be stable if sovereign authority would establish and enforce public order. For Hobbes anyone would have an interest in having such a system of law and order since it would provide them with the security to get on with their lives and pursue whatever it was that they thought worthwhile. Such a system would be vulnerable to disruption by enthusiastic religious preachers and so Hobbes insisted that the civil authorities would have to vet such teachers and only license those to preach and function whose doctrine would not disturb the public peace.

The logical structure of Hobbes’s system draws the focus away from ultimate ends or common goods and directs it towards the necessary means. People want different things from life, but everyone wants to have the means which will enable him or her to pursue their goals without interference from others. Those means will include liberties and security from murder and theft, and for these appropriate structures of civil authority and law enforcement can be supported. In a sense, one could say that the common good in this way of thinking is not an end but a means, or condition for the pursuit of the end. But Hobbes would warn us against thinking that the means as good is in some sense truly good, or valuable in itself, or that it could not be replaced by alternative means which could also be effective.

John Locke was another important political thinker who, like Hobbes, shaped modernity, in England and America, as well as in Europe. Although usually positively compared to Hobbes for his more optimistic view of human nature and for his advocacy of limited government, the structure of his argument is similar to that of Hobbes. Like him, Locke focuses on the political and legal instruments which are required to enable individuals with their families to pursue their own interests. The major difference is that Locke has a more expansive account of those interests. Where Hobbes emphasises security, Locke articulates the natural rights to life, liberty and possessions, which, as moral claims, also limit the legitimate authority of political rulers. The similarity of their thought is that the basis for agreement in society (recall Aristotle’s idea that it is agreement on what is good which makes a political community) is commitment to secure the means or conditions allowing individuals to pursue their own good as they conceive of it.

John Stuart Mill’s renowned defence of liberty, at the heart of our inherited respect for the freedom of speech, denies the entitlement of public authorities to regulate behaviour for the good of people, or in that sense for the common good. Unlike his predecessors Mill was aware of the importance of fostering a public debate about the human good, what he called utility in the broadest sense, as the interests of humans as progressive beings capable of development. However, this aspect of his thought has been neglected and he continues to be read as a defender of individuals’ freedoms in the face of possible constraints, both social and political, imposed in the name of a common good.

The key structure in modern thinking of seeking agreement on means rather than ends and so avoiding discussion of an ultimate common good is found in the writings of the most influential twentieth-century political philosopher, John Rawls. In his various publications, on justice within a state (A Theory of Justice, 1971), on politics in a pluralist society (Political Liberalism, 1986) and justice in international relations (The Law of Peoples, 1999), Rawls argues for the relevant structures by appealing to what people would choose to have as means and conditions, whatever their ultimate goods might happen to be. But while the focus is on means, and avoids considering the good as such, much less the common good, it is noticeable that there is a trajectory in the thought of modern thinkers summarised here in the series Hobbes, Locke, Mill and Rawls. There is an increasing appreciation of what is involved in providing the means and conditions for people to pursue their good alongside an acceptance that it is not within the competence of a state either to decide what the ultimate good for people consists in, or to act to achieve such an ultimate good.

Catholic Social Thought

The modern denial of an ultimate common good as a basis for politics was anticipated in the Christian and medieval rejection of Aristotle’s idea that the political community could attain the highest good. The recognition that the civil community had its own common good, more restricted than that of the Kingdom of God, left open how exactly the basis of agreement for the political community could be formulated. For Christians, however, for whom both kinds of common good continued to be important, the question remained as to how the two could be combined. This challenge was taken up in a major way by the Second Vatican Council in the Catholic Church in the 1960s.

The disciples of Jesus believe that following him through death to resurrection they are invited to enjoy the vision of God in the company of all the saints. What exactly this will be like we cannot know, beyond the assurance that it will exceed our wildest dreams (1 Corinthians 2:9). Christian writers have tended to concentrate on the shadow side, the problems that will be solved, the injustices that will be resolved, the poverty and deprivation that will be overcome in abundance. The images from the Hebrew Scriptures also stress the dynamic of deliverance from slavery and subjection in Egypt and of return from exile in Babylon. More positively, images of banquets and abundance, and of vindication and justice are also mined from these Scriptures to communicate the hope of Christians.

In announcing a common good, Christian writers have named this as the shared goal of all of God’s children, to see the Lord face to face in heaven, to receive and enjoy salvation. St Paul reminded his friend Timothy and the readers of his letters that it is God’s will that all people be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). That is the destiny offered to all men, women and children, and which they are invited to accept in freedom. The Second Vatican Council in its ‘Dogmatic Constitution on the Church’, Lumen gentium, repeated this promise and situated the mission of the Church in this context: to communicate the universal call of all to holiness, and to assist in providing the resources that Jesus makes available to his pilgrim people on their way to this destiny.

This reformulation of Paul’s message contains the same elements: it is offered to all, everyone without exception, and it is based on a promise which requires confidence and trust in the one promising rather than detailed comprehension of what is promised.

In Christian tradition the supreme common good was identified as God, and the vision of God, the ultimate goal of Christian striving and the fullness of life prepared by the Creator for his creatures. It is noticeable, however, that in the twentieth century, beginning with Pope John XXIII’s encyclical letter Mater et magistra, ‘Mother and Teacher’ (1961), the common good came to be used in speaking not primarily of the ultimate goal of human striving, but of the conditions and resources that would facilitate the achievement of that purpose. The point of the shift of emphasis became clearer in the context of the general realignment of Catholic thought in the mid-twentieth century. The Church saw the need to shift from a defensive and fearful stance to a more positive engagement with the world. As the opening words of Gaudium et spes, the ‘Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World of Today’ put it, the Church identifies herself with and shares in ‘the joy and hope, fear and anxiety of the men and women of today’. The Council wanted to address all men and women, and not just believers in Christ, or in God, but all, including atheists. Hence the recognition that while all of these addressees will not share the same ultimate vision, they might nonetheless be able to agree on what conditions and resources would help people achieve their vision of the good life, whatever it might be. ‘The common good embraces the sum total of all those conditions of social life which enable individuals, families, and organisations to achieve complete and effective fulfilment’ (Gaudium et spes §74).

Published in 1965, the Pastoral Constitution draws on the earlier language of Pope John’s encyclical to focus on the set of conditions for human fulfilment. Undeniably the theme of fulfilment both for individuals and for communities is at the heart of the statement, but the focus is on conditions. Here we see the opening to the world of the Council: the desire to have a basis for cooperation with people of good will, who might not share in the Church’s ultimate convictions but still can be partners in working for human development.

The full set of conditions which would enable persons and groups to achieve their fulfilment is what the Council sees as the common project of humankind. This extends across the full range of human activities and human aspirations. No list, however long, would be exhaustive, and that is not just because it is hard to think of everything. It is also because human ingenuity is constantly creating new possibilities and so new conditions, coming up with new fields of endeavour, new areas of scientific exploration and new possibilities of medical and surgical intervention and care. Accordingly, the complete set of conditions for human flourishing, including economic, social, cultural, legal, political, international and global, reveal how complex the challenge is. And in each of these areas we can expect lively debate about what needs to be done.

One such debate concerns workers. Since the engagement of Pope Leo XIII with the phenomenon of modern capitalist economic systems in Rerum novarum (1891) the popes have repeated the insistence that human work not be treated just as a factor of production which has a cost, a cost which employers are constantly motivated to minimise. Workers are persons who by their willing cooperation contribute to the communal projects of meeting human need and providing the cultivated, manufactured and built environment in which human life can flourish. Culminating in the letter of Pope John Paul II explicitly devoted to the topic of work, Laborem exercens, ‘On Human Work’ (1981), the popes have maintained a constant insistence that work and the status of the worker is at the heart of the social question. Unemployment, the lack of opportunity to work, is fundamentally undermining of the sense of dignity and self-worth of human beings, who rely on their work to provide for their families and who without the earnings that come from honest work are unable to meet their obligations. Now in the twenty-first century a new term, ‘the precariat’, has been coined to identify the phenomenon that increasing numbers of people in employment are unable to earn sufficient to meet their needs, and that in the context of widening inequality between the extremes of wealth and poverty. This is clear evidence of the absence of a common good in the economy, in which enormous wealth for some is produced alongside poverty for many others.

Such a scandalous situation calls for solidarity. Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical letter Sollicitudo rei socialis, ‘On Social Concern’ (1987), that solidarity ‘is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all’ (Sollicitudo res socialis §38). Pope John Paul is clear about the need on the part of the Church and all Christians for a firm commitment to changing the circumstances which deprive people of their humanity and deny them the prospect of a decent life. In the Catholic tradition of upholding the common good the focus can be directly on those groups which are vulnerable to exploitation or discrimination. Hence the adoption of the language of preferential option for the poor. The Church wants to place itself at the side of those who are victims, who suffer, who bear a disproportionate burden either as a result of natural catastrophe or human irresponsibility.

Solidarity is paired with another important principle related to the common good, namely, subsidiarity. The principle of subsidiarity insists that assistance motivated by solidarity should not replace the efforts of recipients themselves to address their problems and find solutions. It entails a willingness to help, with an expectation that those being helped take responsibility to find and implement their own solutions to their problems. In a hierarchically structured governance system the principle of subsidiarity requires that the higher level authorities assist but do not replace those operating on the ground. This is opposed to all centralising tendencies which are inclined to draw all power to the centre of institutions or organisations, depriving the so-called grass roots of opportunities to manage their own affairs. Of course, it should apply to the Church itself also.

In his 2009 encyclical letter, Caritas in veritate, ‘Love in Truth’, Pope Benedict writes: ‘The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need’. By ‘social privatism’ Benedict means the attitude that everyone should be left alone to mind their own business, and by its opposite, ‘paternalistic social assistance’, he means the paternalistic attitude of acting on the assumption that one knows what is best for others. This statement is made originally in the context of reflection on international development aid. There are two important values which are to be respected, and disregard of one in favour of the other can lead to distorting or objectionable outcomes.

Conclusion

This brief survey of the notion of common good reveals the diversity of meanings for the term. Some use it to speak of an ultimate good in common, but among those Aristotle locates that good within the political while Augustine and Aquinas and recent popes locate it in the Kingdom of God, the fulfilment of which is beyond history. However, in both cases there is something heuristic about the term, since the advocates of both the immanent and transcendent visions of common good are unable to say exactly what the ultimate common good consists of. On the other hand, there are modern voices which deny an ultimate good in common whether immanent or transcendent. Their focus for agreement in political life is on the necessary conditions for a secure and stable system. Only means or conditions can suffice as common good in the political context. The distinction between the common good as end and common good as means does not require a separation or polarisation. Both the medieval Christians and recent Catholic Social Teaching combine the two. It is assumed that every individual and every group espouses some view of their well-being, either implicitly or explicitly. While in our pluralist situation there is unlikely to be agreement between people and cultures as to what exactly constitutes human fulfilment, we may perhaps be able to work towards agreement on the whole range of means and conditions we need to put in place to enable persons and their communities to thrive. We can formulate criteria in relation to those conditions for fulfilment. Pope Paul VI in his 1967 letter Populorum progressio, ‘On the Development of Peoples’, succinctly summarised the common good as ‘the integral development of every person, and of the whole person’. The fulfilment of every person: that’s the first criterion that no one be excluded; integral fulfilment of the whole person: that’s the second criterion, that no dimension of human well-being be systematically excluded from our shared concerns in social collaboration. These criteria can also be identified in the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. Solidarity, that we commit to the cause of those excluded, and subsidiarity, that in the name of caring for them we don’t deprive people or groups of their autonomy.

This is an extract from Reclaiming the Common Good: How Christians Can Help Re-build Our Broken World edited by Virginia Moffatt – chapter 1, ‘The History and Principles of the Common Good’ by Fr Patrick O’Riordan SJ. Reclaiming the Common Good is out now and is one of the key note books at Greenbelt this weekend.

Notes

1.

St Augustine, The City of God, ed. David Knowles (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972). Cf. also: R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).

2.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, part II–II question 92, article 1.

3.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, part II–II question 92, article 1, response to 3rd objection.

4.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, part II–II question 95, article 1. http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate.html §58, emphasis in original.