Jan 1, 1997 — ON THE PRIMACY OF THE COMMON GOOD [CONTENTS] Foreword On the Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists. The Common Good and against its Primacy Objections and Replies Personalism and Totalitarianism The Principle of the New Order Negation of the Primacy of the Speculative In the Beginning, the Word of Man Et facta est nox Appendices I. Personal Fulfilment II. Every Person Desires His Good III. Nebuchadnezzar, my Servant IV. Feuerbach Interprets St. Thomas V. The Revolution of the Natural Philosophers IO II I4 I4 38 65 71 73 78 94 103 106 108 109 120 Charles De Koninck FOREWORD Human society is made for man. Any political doctrine which ignores the rational nature of man, and which consequently denies the freedom and dignity of man, is vitiated at its very roots and subjects man to inhuman conditions. It is therefore with good reason that totalitarian doctrines are rejected in the name of human dignity. Does this mean that we must agree with all of those who invoke the dignity of man? It must not be forgotten that the philosophers responsible for modern totalitarianism did not deny the dignity of the human person; on the contrary, they exalted this dignity more than ever before. Hence it is evi- dently necessary to determine what the dignity of man con- sists of. The Marxists push the dignity of man even to the point of denying God. "Philosophy makes no secret of it," Marx says. "The profession of Prometheus: ‘in a word, I hate all gods. . .,' is the profession of philosophy itself, the discourse which it holds and which it will always hold against every god of heaven and earth which does not recognize human consciousness as the highest divinity. This divinity suffers no rival." "⁹1 Let us not forget that the sin of him who sins since the be- ginning consisted in the exaltation of his personal dignity and of the proper good of his nature; he preferred his proper good to the common good, to a beatitude which was participated and common to many; he refused this latter because it was participated and common. Even though he possessed his nat- ural happiness and the excellence of his person by no special favor, but rather by a right founded on his creation itself- to God he owed his creation, but all else belonged properly to him-, by this invitation to participate he felt injured in his proper dignity. "Taking hold of their proper dignity (the ¹ Karl Marx, Morceaux choisis, ed. N.R.F., p. 37. II ON THE PRIMACY OF THE COMMON GOOD fallen angels) desired their 'singularity,' which is most proper to those who are proud."² The dignity of the created person is not without ties, and the purpose of our liberty is not to overcome these ties, but to free us by strengthening them. These ties are the principal cause of our dignity. Liberty itself is not a guarantee of dignity 266 . quia videntes dignitatem suam, appetierunt singularitatem, quae maxime est propria superborum . . (recusat diabolus beatitudinem su- pernaturalem) habere sine singularitate propria, sed communem cum hominibus; ex quo consecutum est quod voluerit specialem super eos habere praelationem potius quam communicationem, ut etiam Divus Thomas fatetur in hac quaestione I, XIII, n. 3, in calce. Accedit ad hoc auctoritas S. Gregorii papae, 'Angelos perdidisse participatam celsi- tudinem, quia privatam desideraverunt', id est, recusarunt caelestem beat- itudinem, quia participata et communis erat multis et solum voluerunt privatam, scilicet quatenus privatam, et propriam, quia prout sic habebat duas conditiones maxime opportunas superbiae, scilicet singularitatem, seu nihil commune habere cum inferioribus, quod ipsis vulgare vide- batur, etiamsi esset gloria supernaturalis, et non habere illam ex speciali beneficio, et gratia et quasi precario: hoc enim maxime recusant superbi, et maxime recusavit Angelus. Et ad hoc pertinet parabola illa Lucae XIV, de homine qui fecit coenam magnam, et vocavit multos, et cum vocasset invitatos coeperunt se excusare: ideo enim fortassis recusaverunt ad illam coenam venire, quia magna erat, et pro multis, dedignantes consortium habere cum tanto numero, potiusque eligerunt suas privatas commodi- tates, licet longe inferiores, utpote naturalis ordinis, iste quia villam emit, ille quia juga boum, alius quia uxorem duxerat, unusquisque propriam excusationem praetendens, et privatum bonum, quia proprium, recusans vero coenam, quia magnam, et multis communem. Iste est propriissime spiritus superbiae." John of St. Thomas, Curs. Theol. ed. Vives, V. IV, d. 23, n. 3, nn. 34-5 pp. 950-1. quia suam naturam, et propriam excellentiam judicabat non haberi ex speciali gratia, et beneficio Dei, sed jure creationis, nec ut multis communem, sed sibi singularem. . .” ibid., n. 40, p. 955.—“Angelus in primo suo peccato inordinate diligens bonum spirituale nempe suum proprium esse, suamque propriam per- fectionem, sive beatitudinem naturalem . . . ita voluit, ut simul ex parte modi volendi, quamvis non ex parte rei volitae, per se voluerit aver- sionem a Deo, et non subjici ejus regulae in prosecutione suae celsitu- dinis. . ." Salmanticenses, Curs. Theol., ed. Palme, V. IV, d. 10, dub. 1, P. 559b. 66 12 Charles De Koninck and of practical truth. "Even aversion towards God has the character of an end insofar as it is desired under the notion of liberty, as according to the words of Jeremiah (II, 20): For a long time you have broken the yoke, you have broken bonds, and you have said, 'I will not serve." 93 One can affirm personal dignity and at the same time be in very bad company. Does it suffice then to affirm the pri- macy of the common good? That will not suffice either. To- talitarian regimes recognize the common good as a pretext for subjugating persons in the most ignoble way. Compared with the slavery with which they menace us, the slavery of brute animals is liberty. Shall we be so lax as to allow totalitarianism this perversion of the common good and of its primacy? Might there not be, between the exaltation of the entirely personal good above any good that is truly common on the one hand, and the negation of the dignity of persons on the other, a very logical connection which could be seen working in the course of history? The sin of the angels was practically a personalist error: they preferred the dignity of their own per- son to the dignity which they would receive through their subordination to a good which was superior but common in its very superiority. The Pelagian heresy, according to John of St. Thomas, can be considered as somewhat like the sin of the angels. It is only somewhat like it, because whereas the angels committed a purely practical sin, the error of the Pelagians was at the same time speculative.4 We believe that modern personalism is but a reflection of the Pelagian heresy, speculatively still more feeble. It raises to the level of a spec- ulative doctrine an error which was at the beginning only practical. The enslavement of the person in the name of the common good is like a diabolical vengeance, both remarkable and cruel, a cunning attack against the community of good to which the devil refused to submit. The denial of the higher 3 S. Thomas, IIIa Pars, q. 8, n. 7, c. 4 John of S. Thomas, loc. cit., n. 39, p. 954. 13 ON THE PRIMACY OF THE COMMON GOOD dignity which man receives through the subordination of his purely personal good to the common good would ensure the denial of all human dignity. We do not mean to claim that the error of those who today call themselves personalists is anything more than speculative. Let there be no ambiguity about this. Undoubtedly our in- sistence could injure those personalists who have identified themselves with what they hold. That is their own very per- sonal responsibility. But we have our responsibility as well- and we judge this doctrine to be pernicious in the extreme. Although the (fallen) Angel was really abased by this abandonment of superior goods, although he was, as St. Au- gustine says, fallen to the level of his proper good, nonethe- less he elevated himself in his own eyes, and he forced him- self, by mighty arguments (magna negotiatione) to prove completely to others that he aimed in this only at a greater resemblance with God, because thus he proceeded with less dependence on His grace and His favors, and in a more per- sonal manner (magis singulariter), and also by not commu- nicating with inferiors. John of St. Thomas, On the Evil of the Angels I will never exchange, be sure, my miserable lot to serve you. I would rather be bound to this rock than be the faith- ful valet, the messenger of Father Zeus. Prometheus, cited by Karl Marx I ON THE PRIMACY OF THE COMMON GOOD AGAINST THE PERSONALISTS THE COMMON GOOD AND AGAINST ITS PRIMACY The good is what all things desire insofar as they desire their perfection. Therefore the good has the notion of a final cause. Hence it is the first of causes, and consequently diffusive of it- 14 Charles De Koninck self. But "the higher a cause is, the more numerous the beings to which it extends its causality. For a more elevated cause has a more elevated proper effect, which is more common and present in many things."5 "Whence it follows that the good, which has the notion of a final cause, is so much the more efficacious as it communicates itself to more numerous beings. And therefore, if the same thing is a good for each individual of a city and for the city itself, it is clear that it is much greater and more perfect to have at heart-that is, to secure and defend that which is the good of the entire city than that which is the good of a single man. Certainly the love that should exist between men has for its end to conserve the good even of the individual. But it is much better and more divine to show this love towards the entire nation and towards cities. Or, if it is certainly desirable sometimes to show this love to a single city, it is much more divine to show it for the entire nation, which contains several cities. We say that it is more 'divine' because it is more like God, who is the ultimate cause of all goods.' "96 quanto aliqua causa est altior, tanto ejus causalitas ad plura se extendit. Habet enim causa altior proprium causatum altius quod est communius et in pluribus inventum." S. Thomas, In VI Metaph., Lect. 56 3, n. 1205. 6 "Manifestum est enim, quod unaquaeque causa tanto prior est et po- tior quanto ad plura se extendit. Unde et bonum, quod habet rationem causae finalis, tanto potius est quanto ad plura se extendit. Et ideo, si idem bonum est uni homini et toti civitati: multo videtur majus et per- fectius suscipere, idest procurare et salvare illud quod est bonum totius civitatis, quam id quod est bonum unius hominis. Pertinet quidem ad amorem, qui debet esse inter homines, quod homo conservet bonum etiam uni soli homini. Sed multo melius et divinius est, quod hoc ex- hibeatur toti genti et civitatibus. Vel aliquando amabile quidem est quod exhibeatur uni soli civitati, sed multo divinius est, quod hoc exhibeatur toti genti, in qua multae civitates continentur. Dicitur hoc autem esse di- vinius, eo quod magis pertinet ad Dei similitudinem, qui est ultima causa omnium bonorum. Hoc autem bonum, scilicet quod est commune uni vel pluribus civitatibus, intendit methodus, idest quaedam ars, quae vo- catur civilis. Unde ad ipsam maxime pertinet considerare finem ultimum IS ON THE PRIMACY OF THE COMMON GOOD The common good differs from the singular good by this very universality. It has the character of superabundance and it is eminently diffusive of itself insofar as it is more commu- nicable: it reaches the singular more than the singular good: it is the greater good of the singular. The common good is greater not because it includes the singular good of all the singulars; in that case it would not have the unity of the common good which comes from a certain kind of universality in the latter, but would merely be a collection, and only materially better than the singular good. The common good is better for each of the particulars which participate in it, insofar as it is communicable to the other particulars; communicability is the very reason for its perfection. The particular attains to the common good con- sidered precisely as common good only insofar as it attains to it as to something communicable to others. The good of the family is better than the singular good not because all the members of the family find therein their singular good; it is better because, for each of the individual members, it is also the good of the others. That does not mean that the others are the reason for the love which the common good itself humanae vitae: tamquam ad principalissimam." In I Ethic., Lect. 2, n. 30. -Compare this text to the following passage from Lorenzo Valla's De Voluptate, in which he replies to the question An moriendum sit pro aliis (L. II, c. 2): "I have no obligation whatever to die for a citizen, nor for two, nor for three, and so on to infinity. How could I be obliged to die for the fatherland, which is the sum of all of the latter? Will the fact of adding one more change the quality of my obligation?" Apud P. Monnier, Le Quattrocento, 8th ed., Paris, 1924, Vol. I, p. 46. "Humanists," Cino Rin- uccini "understand nothing about domestic economy. They live says, foolishly without concern for paternal honor or the good of children. They do not know what government is the best, that of one or of many, or that of many or of few. They flee from fatigue, affirm that what serves the common serves no one, do not defend the Republic as a guarnaca, and do not defend it with arms. And lastly they forget that the more a good is common, the more it is divine. (Ne si ricordano che quanto il bene e piu comune, tanto a piu del divino.)" Ibid., p. 332. 16 Charles De Koninck merits; on the contrary, in this formal relationship it is the others which are lovable insofar as they are able to participate in this common good. Thus the common good is not a good other than the good of the particulars, a good which is merely the good of the collectivity looked upon as a kind of singular. In that case, it would be common only accidentally; properly speaking it would be singular, or if you wish, it would differ from the singular by being nullius. But when we distinguish the com- mon good from the particular good, we do not mean thereby that it is not the good of the particulars; if it were not, then it would not be truly common. The good is what all things desire insofar as they desire their perfection. This perfection is for each thing its good- bonum suum and in this sense, its good is a proper good. But thus the proper good is not opposed to the common good. For the proper good to which a being tends, the 'bonum suum', can in fact be understood in different ways, according to the diverse good in which it finds its perfection. It can be un- derstood first of the proper good of a particular considered as an individual. It is this good which animals pursue when they desire nourishment for conserving their being. Secondly, it can be understood as the good of a particular on account of 7 III Contra Gentiles, c. 24: Bonum suum cujuslibet rei potest accipi multipliciter: Uno quidem modo, secundum quod est eius proprium ratione indi- vidui. Et sic appetit animal suum bonum cum appetit cibum, quo in esse conservatur. Alio modo, secundum quod est eius ratione speciei. Et sic appetit proprium bonum animal inquantum appetit generationem prolis et eius nutritionem, vel quicquid aliud operatur ad conservationem vel defen- sionem individuorum suae speciei. Tertio vero modo, ratione generis. Et sic appetit proprium bonum in causando agens aequivocum: sicut caelum. Quarto autem modo, ratione similitudinis analogiae principiatorum ad suum principium. Et sic Deus, qui est extra genus, propter suum bonum omnibus rebus dat esse. 17 ON THE PRIMACY OF THE COMMON GOOD the species of the particular. This is the good which an ani- mal desires in the generation, the nutrition, and the defense of the individuals of its species. The singular animal 'naturally' -i.e., in virtue of the inclination which is in it by nature (ratio indita rebus ab arte divina) prefers the good of its species to its singular good. "Every singular naturally loves the good of its species more than its singular good." For the good of the species is a greater good for the singular than its singular good. This is not therefore a species prescinded from individ- uals, which desires its good against the natural desire of the individual; it is the singular itself, which, by nature, desires more the good of the species than its particular good. This de- sire for the common good is in the singular itself. Hence the common good does not have the character of an alien good -bonum alienum- -as in the case of the good of another con- sidered as such. Is it not this which, in the social order, dis- tinguishes our position profoundly from collectivism, which latter errs by abstraction, by demanding an alienation from the proper good as such and consequently from the common good since the latter is the greatest of proper goods? Those who defend the primacy of the singular good of the singular person are themselves supposing this false notion of the com- mon good. In the third place, the good of a particular can be understood of that good which belongs to it according to its "(Quodlibet singulare naturaliter diligit plus bonum suae speciei quam bonum suum singulare." Ia, q. 60, n. 6, ad 1. ⁹ "Nec obstat fundamentum P. Suarez, quia videlicet nutritio ordinatur ad propriam conservationem in se, generatio autem in alieno individuo; magis autem inclinatur unumquodque in bonum proprium quam in alienum, quia amicabilia ad alterum oriuntur ex amicabilibus ad se. Re- spondetur enim, inclinatur aliquid magis in bonum proprium, ut distin- guitur contra alienum, non contra bonum commune. Ad hoc enim ma- jor est ponderatio quam ad proprium, quia etiam proprium continetur sub communi et ab eo dependet, et sic amicabilia ad alterum oriuntur ex amicabilibus ad se, quando est alterum omnino alienum, non quando est alterum quasi bonum commune et superius, respectu cujus haec maxima non currit." John of St. Thomas, Curs. Phil., V. III, (Reiser), p. 87a. 18 Charles De Koninck genus. This is the good of equivocal agents and of intellectual substances, whose action can by itself attain not only to the good of the species, but also to a greater good, one which is communicable to many species. In the fourth place, the good of a particular can be understood of that good which belongs to it on account of the similitude of analogy which "princi- pled things" (i.e., things which proceed from a principle) bear to their principle. Thus God, a purely and simply universal good, is the proper good which all things naturally desire as their highest and greatest good, the good which which gives all things their entire being. In short, “nature turns back to itself not only in that which is singular, but much more in that which is common: for every being tends to conserve not only its individual, but also its species. And much more is ev- ery being borne naturally towards that which is the absolute universal good." "10 Thence one sees to what a profound degree nature is a par- ticipation in intellect. It is thanks to this participation in in- tellect that every nature tends principally towards a universal good. In that desire which follows knowledge, we find a similar order. Beings are more perfect to the degree that their de- sire extends to a good more distant from their mere singular good. The knowledge of irrational animals is bound to the sensible singular, and hence their desire cannot extend beyond the singular and private good; explicit action for a common good presupposes a knowledge which is universal. Intellectual substance being "comprehensiva totius entis”¹¹, being in other words a part of the universe in which the perfection of the natura reflectitur in seipsam non solum quantum ad id quod est ei singulare, sed multo magis quantum ad commune: inclinatur enim unumquodque ad conservandum non solum suum individuum, sed etiam suam speciem. Et multo magis habet naturalem inclinationem unumquodque in id quod est bonum universale simpliciter." Ia, q. 60, a. 5, ad 3. 11 III Contra Gentiles, c. 112. 10 " 19

Jan 1, 1998 — Home Document Archive Document Timeline Search this site: Public Good: The Specifically Political Common Good in Aquinas PrintPDF “Public Good: The Specifically Political Common Good in Aquinas”  by John Finnis   1998 [Finnis, John. Robert George, ed. “Public Good: The Specifically Political Common Good in Aquinas.” In Natural Law and Moral Inquiry: Ethics, Metaphysics, and Politics in the Thought of Germain Grisez. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 1998. 174–209. Posted with permission of Georgetown University Press.]  As Grisez has recently argued, in his philosophical theology of politics:  Even though a political society cannot flourish without virtuous citizens, it plainly cannot be government’s proper end directly to promote virtue in general, since not all justice and neighborliness are included in political society’s common good. Moreover, both the limits of political society’s common good and its instrumentality in relation to the good of citizens as individuals and as members of nonpolitical communities set analogous limits on the extent to which government can rightly concern itself with other aspects of morality, especially insofar as they concern the interior acts and affections of hearts rather than the outward behavior which directly affects other people. In a footnote to this text, following a reference to Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (II-II. q.104 a.5) and De Regno (15), Grisez adds, however, that both Aristotle and Thomas  . . . hold that the general promotion of virtue and suppression of vice should be the main component of the common good of political society; in this, they overlook limits on the competence of the state which have been clari­fied by recent Church teaching regarding the instrumental character of political society’s common good, the principle of subsidiarity ... and reli­gious liberty.[1] But Aquinas, as I will argue, not only gives substantial support to the positions asserted in Grisez’s text, but rejects the position attributed in the text’s footnote to Aristotle’s Ethics (10.9.1179a–1180b28) and Aquinas’s own De Regno (15 or 2.4).[2]    I  Grisez’s powerful treatment of patriotism, politics, and citizenship dis­tinguishes nation from state or political society/community, state from government (the political community’s apparatus for making and imple­menting decisions),[3] and government from regime (the particular set of people holding governmental office).[4] Aquinas, though aware of these distinctions, is not generally concerned to differentiate between nation and state, or between the state’s structure of governing offices and the particular rulers or regime of office-holders.[5] Still, Grisez’s terminology corresponds with Aquinas’s in its central usage: civitas and synonymously communitas politica[6] or communitas civilis,[7] in Aquinas, can usually be trans­lated by “a state,” “states,” or “the state,” though never in Maritain’s sense (“the State” as government, organs of government, or subject of public law), but as signifying the whole large society which is organized politically by the sorts of institutions, arrangements, and practices com­monly and reasonably called “government” and “law.”[8]  Aquinas’s treatise on law (S.T. I-II, qq. 90–108) is the context for his most important treatment of political matters. It is shaped by a method­ological decision and a theoretical thesis. The thesis is that law exists, locally or centrally, only in complete communities, perfectae communitates. The methodological decision is to set aside all questions about which sorts of multifamily community are “complete,” and to consider a type, usually named civitas, whose completeness is simply posited.  The decision has important consequences. Aquinas is well aware that in his own world, though there are some city-states (civitates), there are also many cities which do not pretend to be complete communities but exist (perhaps established rather like castles to adorn a kingdom) as parts of a realm;[9] and civitates, kingdoms, and realms may be politically organized in sets,[10] perhaps as “provinces” (of which he often speaks) or empires (about which he discretely remains almost wholly silent). He is well aware of the idea, and the reality, of peoples (gentes; populi) and nations (nationes)[11] and regions (regiones). His methodological decision allows him to abstract from all this.’[12] It also allows him to abstract from a number of deep and puzzling questions: how—and indeed by what right—any particular civitas comes into being (and passes away); how far the civitas should coincide with unities of origin or culture; and whether and what intermediate constitutional forms there are, such as federations or international organizations. Liberated from such questions, Aquinas will consider the civitas rather as if it were, and were to be, the only political community in the world and its people the only people.[13] All issues of extension—of origins, membership, and boundaries, or amalgam­ations and dissolutions—are thereby set aside.[14] The issues will all be, so to speak, intensional: the proper functions and modes and limits of government, authorititative direction, and obligatory compliance in a community whose “completeness” is presupposed.  Can a state’s common good, being the good of a complete commu­nity, be anything less than the complete good, the fulfillment—beatitudo imperfecta if not perfecta[15]—of its citizens? That is the question with which this essay is concerned; it will be answered with a distinction: yes, and no. At the outset, however, it is sufficient to note that the question seems equivalent to another: What type of direction can properly be given by governments and law? The questions seem to be equivalent, in Aquinas, because he has stipulated that a state is a complete community,[16] and has given complete community a purely formal description:[17] a community so organized that its government and law give all the direction that properly can be given by human government and coercive law to promote and protect the common good, that is, the good of the community and thus[18] of all its members and other proper elements.     II  It is easy to read Aquinas as holding that the state’s common good is the fulfillment (and thus the complete virtue) of each of its citizens, and that government and law should therefore promote that fulfillment. Of course, Aquinas teaches the unwisdom of legislating against every act of vice,[19] and the need to proceed gradually in inculcating virtue by law,[20] not attempting the impossible.[21] But it is easy to read him as holding that such legislation, though unwise, is not ultra vires—does not reach beyond the state’s common good or the purpose, functions, and jurisdiction of state government and law.  This reading could begin with Aristotle’s critique of the Sophists social-contract or mutual-insurance theory of the state. The law “should be such as will make the citizens good and just,”[22] since “a polis is a community (partnership, communicatio, koinonia) of (clans and) neighbor­hoods in living well, with the object of a complete and self-sufficient (autarkous) life ..., it must therefore be for the sake of truly good (kalon actions, not of merely living together.”[23] Surely, one may ask, Aquinas didn’t dissent from Aristotle here? Doesn’t the Summa Theologiae reaffirm Aristotle’s teaching that our need for state law is primarily to ensure effective promotion of virtue, by way of laws enforced with penal sanctions, where parental capacity runs out?[24] For surely parents rightly to educate their children into complete, all-round virtue and fulfillment? Doubtless, parents will exceed their authority if they try to reinforce their education with coercive measures of the kind the state can use.[25] But in all other respects, surely state law holds the same place in the state as parental precepts hold in the family,[26] precisely because it has the same purpose and jurisdiction of promoting fulfillment and therefore inculcating virtue, without restrictions of goal?  Plausible as it is, as a first reading of many passages, this interpretation of Aquinas must be rejected. No passage requires to be read in way, and it is inconsistent with a number of clear passages in mature texts.  Clearest, perhaps, are the passages in which Aquinas argues “the purpose (finis) of human law and the purpose of divine law are different.”[27]  For human law’s purpose is the temporal tranquility of the state (temporalis tranquillitas civitatis), a purpose which the law attains by coercively prohibiting external acts (cohibendo exteriores actus) to the extent that those are evils which can disturb the state’s peaceful condition (quantum ad illa mala quae possunt perturbare pacificum statum civitatis).[28]  In other words, divine and civil government, in Aquinas’s view, differ in method—the latter’s prohibitions, unlike the former’s, being restricted to external acts—because they differ in purpose. This double difference is insisted upon repeatedly:  The form of community (modus communitatis) to which human law is directed (ordinatur) is different from the form of community to which divine law is directed. For human law is directed to civil community, which is a matter of people relating to one another (quae est hominum ad invicem).[29] But people are related to one another (ordinantur ad invicem) by the external acts in which people communicate and deal (communicant) with each other. But this sort of communicating/dealing (communicatio) is a matter of justice (pertinet ad rationem iustitiae), which is properly directive in and of human community (directiva communitatis humanae). So human law does not put forward precepts about anything other than acts of justice [and injustice] (non proponit praecepta nisi de actibus iustitiae);[30] if it prescribes acts of other virtues, this is only because and insofar as they take on the character of justice (assumunt rationem iustitiae).[31]  Aquinas’s point in the last sentence is: derelictions of duty by soldiers, police, and emergency service personnel can readily be caused by want of courage; the injustices of adultery, child abuse, or other sexual assaults typically arise from lack of sexual self-control; and so forth; so the law can rightly require choices characteristic of other virtues besides justice. But the law of the state cannot rightly regulate the full range of choices required by practical reasonableness.[32]  Types of virtue are distinguished by their objects, and each virtue’s object can be related either to someone’s private good or to the common good of the group. Take courage, for example: one can act out of courage either to save the state or to preserve the rights (ius) of one’s friend. But law is for the common good. So, although there is no [type of] virtue the acts of which cannot be prescribed by law, human law does not make prescriptions about all the acts of all the virtues, but only about those acts which are relatable (ordinabiles) to the common good, whether immediately (as when things are done directly for the common good) or mediately (as when things are regulated [ordinantur] by the legislator as being relevant to the good education [pertinentia ad bonam disciplinam] by which citizens are brought up to preserve the common good of justice and peace).[33]  In this passage Aquinas clearly affirms that within a state there are “private goods” (of individuals and small groups, e.g., of friends) whose good (e.g., whose right) is not part of the common good specific to the state— is not, I shall say, part of the specifically political common good.  That is only one of the ways in which Aquinas makes plain his view that, notwithstanding the “completeness” of political communities, their specific common good is limited. Another important limitation can be indicated without taking up the question of religious liberty. The specifi­cally political common good does not include the common good of another community in which the state’s members will do well to participate, the community—also perfecta[34]—of the Church. Moreover, the common good of the political community does not, as such, include certain important human goods which essentially pertain to individuals in themselves, such as the good of religious faith and worship; the fact that such individual goods are goods for many people, or for everyone, does not convert them into the good of community:  In human affairs there is a certain [type of] common good, the good of the civitas or people (gentis). ... There is also a [type of] human good which— [though it] benefits not merely one person alone but many people does not consist in community but pertains to one [as an individual] in oneself (humanum bonum quod non in communitate consistit sed ad unum aliquem pertinet secundum seipsum), e.g., the things which everyone ought to believe and practice, such as matters of faith and divine worship, and other things of that sort.[35]  Aquinas’s clearest name for this limited common good, specific to the political community, is public good (bonum publicum). It is distinct from the private good of individuals and the private common good of families and households, even though the political community (in Aquinas’s most usual account) is comprised precisely of individuals and families. As the public good, the elements of the specifically political common good are not all-round virtue but goods (and virtues) which are intrinsically inter­personal, other-directed (ad alterum),[36] person to person (hominum ad adinvicem):[37] justice and peace.[38]  “Peace,” of course, should not be understood thinly. In its fullest sense, peace (pax), involves not only concord (absence of dissension, especially on fundamentals) and willing agreement between one person or group and another, but also harmony (unio) among each individual’s own desires.[39] And Aquinas will make related observations: “the principal intention of human law is to secure friendship between people (ut faciat amicitiam hominum ad invicem),”[40] and efforts to maintain peace by laying down precepts of justice will be insufficient without foundations in mutual friendship or love (dilectio).[41] But in the context of the passages about public good, it is clear that “peace” refers directly only to (1) absence of words and deeds immorally opposed to peace, such as disorderly contentiousness,[42] quarrelsome fighting,[43] sedition,[44] or war;[45] (2) concord, that is, the “tranquillity of order”[46] between persons and groups which is made possible by love of neighbor as oneself,[47] along with the avoidance of collisions (e.g., in road traffic) and dissensions such as can occur without personal fault; and perhaps also (3) a sufficiency of at least the necessities of life.[48] In short, it is the peaceful condition needed to get the benefit(s) (utilitas) of social life and avoid the burdens of contention.[49] It is a peace that falls short of the complete justice which true virtue requires of each of us; so legislatures can reasonably, in the interests of peace, provide that adverse possession for a length of time gives a good title even to squatters who took possession in bad faith—but a squatter who acted in bad faith never becomes morally entitled, in good conscience, to rely on this title.[50]  Even when all that is taken into account, Aquinas’s position remains firmly outlined: vices of disposition and conduct that have no real relationship, direct or indirect, to justice and peace are not the concern of state government or law.[51] The position is not readily distinguishable from the “grand simple principle” (itself open to interpretation and diverse applications) of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty.    III  But can this reading of Aquinas be reconciled with his treatment of the question in De Regno,[52] or with his frequent assertion that inculcating virtue is a primary and proper rationale of law and state, with the “com­pleteness” of the political community, and with the primacy of politica among the parts of moralis philosophia?  The De Regno, an openly theological little treatise written in a style unlike Aquinas’s academic works in philosophy and theology,[53] but very probably authentic,[54] includes some main elements of Aristotle’s position that states are appropriately organized, and legally regulated, with a view to making their citizens truly good. Early in the De Regno’s exposition of the common good, or ultimate end, for which a king is responsible, we hear unmistakable echoes of Politics III.5 on the object of the polis, echoes inflected by the Christian understanding of history’s point. Civil society (congregatio civilis) is gathered together not simply to live but to live well (ad bene vivendum) and in virtue (vivere secundum virtutem); its ultimate end and good—beatitudo perfecta, as Aquinas elsewhere calls it[55]— is beyond the reach of human virtue but attainable by divine power (virtus). Since reaching this most ultimate end is the subject matter of a set of governing arrangements (regimen) not human but divine,[56] kings must regard themselves as subjects to that divine regimen—a regimen administered by priests[57] concerned with spiritual (spiritualia) not earthly or temporal matters (terrena; temporalia bona).[58] That being said, “it be­longs to the authority and responsibility (officium) of a king to promote (procurare) the good life of the group in such a way that it is in line with the pursuit of heavenly fulfillment (congruit ad celestem beatitudinem consequendam); so the king may prescribe (praecipiat) whatever things lead to such fulfillment and forbid, as far as possible, the contraries of those things.”[59] And Aquinas’s advice on this question concludes:  Therefore a threefold responsibility (cura) lies on the king, [i] First, in relation to the replacement of those who hold various offices: just as divine rule preserves the integrity of the universe by arranging that corruptible, tran­sient things are replaced by new ones generated to take their place, so the king should be concerned to preserve the good of the group subject to him (subiectae multitudinis) by conscientiously arranging how new officials are to succeed those who fail or drop out. [ii] Second, by his laws and decrees punishments and rewards, the king is to restrain his subjects from immorality and lead them to virtuous action (ab iniquitate coerceat, et ad opera virtuosa inducat), thereby following the example of God, who gave us law and who requites with reward those who follow and with punishments those who violate it. [iii] Third, the king is responsible for keeping the group subject to him safe against enemies; there would be no point in avoiding internal dangers, if the group were defenseless against external dangers.[60]     Don’t the statements here italicized clearly propose an ambitious purpose for state rule, and acknowledge no limit on the inherent scope of that purpose?  No. The immediate context of each of the passages quoted shows that Aquinas has several restrictions in mind. Take first the passage about the king’s triple responsibilities, (i) supervising succession of offices, (ii) restraining immorality and leading subjects to virtue, and (iii) defense. As its opening “therefore” signals, it is the conclusion of a wider argument. That argument develops a careful parallel between what is needed for an individual’s good life and what is needed for a community’s. What an individual’s good life (bona unius hominis vita) requires, above all, is virtue-in-action (operatio secundum virtutem); secondary and quasi-instrumental requirements are the bodily goods necessary for action. So too, a group’s good life requires that the group act well. But there is precondition for acting well: the unity of the acting being’s parts. In individual human beings, this precondition is secured by nature. But in communities the needed unity of life, the unity called “peace” (pax), has be procured by government (per regentis industriam). So the community counterparts to individual virtue-in-action as primary element in an individual’s good life are (i) the constituting of the community in the unity of peace, and (ii) the directing of the peacefully united group toward well-doing (ad bene agendum). The king’s next (consequens) problem is to maintain and preserve these two primary elements of the group’s good life.  At precisely this point, Aquinas shifts from group “good life” (bona vita in multitudine constituta) to “public good” (bonum publicum), treating them as synonymous. The De Regno’s treatment of our questions will be misunderstood unless one notices the effortlessness of this shift, and the synonymity and equivalence thus signalled.  There are, Aquinas is saying, three things incompatible with lasting public good, with that group good life whose primary elements are peace and acting well (tria quibus bonum publicum permanere non sinitur). And the triple responsibility (cura) whose second element—”restraining subjects from immorality and leading them to virtuous action”—is our present concern, is simply the appropriate response to these three “things incompatible with lasting public good.” The first thing is unsuitable public officials; the third is the incursions of enemies. The second, which, like the first, is “an internal impediment to preserving the public good, is perversity of people’s wills—their laziness in doing what the public weal requires (ad ea peragenda quae requirit res publica), or again their harmfulness to the group’s peace, their disturbance of others’ peace by their violations of jus­tice.”[61] So the second concern or responsibility (cura) of rulers, a responsi­bility proposed by Aquinas precisely as the appropriate response to these just-mentioned “things incompatible with lasting public good,” is not: to lead people to the fullness of virtue by coercively restraining them from every immorality. It is no more than: to lead people to those virtuous actions which are required if the public weal is not to be neglected, and to uphold peace against unjust violations.  What about the passage stating that rulers have the duty to promote heavenly fulfillment? This, too, should be taken to assert much less than appears on a first, noncontextual glance. For it too rests on the distinction between individual and group “good life.” Promoting the group’s good life is the king’s concern. But Aquinas never supposes that such groups can attain perfect, that is, heavenly fulfillment. What he says here is this: the group’s—the political community’s—good life is to be in line with (congruit) the “pursuing of heavenly fulfillment (coelestem beatitudinem)”; by promoting group good life in that way, rulers are like sword-smiths or house builders, whose role is to make an instrument suitable for others to put to their own good purposes. Thus the good life for which rulers are responsible is a public good, the justice and peace (rooted in citizens’ characters rather than merely in fear of royal troops and judges) that in turn facilitate the domestically and ecclesially fostered individual virtue which is the human contribution to perfect beatitudo. The statement that rulers are to “prescribe those things that lead to [perfect] fulfillment (and “to forbid their contraries so far as is possible”) must be read as asserting a responsibility and authority no wider than the responsibility and authority for which Aquinas argues in the complex and carefully thought-out paragraphs by which the statement is flanked. And those paragraphs, as is now clear, deny rather than assert that a ruler should impose on individuals a legal duty to pursue their ultimate happiness or to abstain from choices which block that ultimate happiness without violating peace and justice. That denial will, as we have seen, be made much firmer and more explicit by the Summa Theologiae’s repeated differentiation of scope between divine governance and human governments’ limited responsibility for their subjects’ virtue.    IV  Still, how should one understand those many texts throughout Aquinas’s work[62] which flatly say that law and state have among their essential purposes and characteristics the inculcation of virtue by coercively requiring (within the limits of practicability) abstention from acts of vice?  The answer seems to be this. Human law must inculcate virtues because it will only work well as a guarantor of justice and peace if its subjects internalize its norms and requirements and—more important— adopt its purpose of promoting and preserving justice. The public good cannot be well preserved if people are untrustworthy, vengeful, willing to evade their taxes and other civic duties, biased in jury service, and so forth. So the preservation of public good needs people to have the virtue, the inner dispositions, of justice. This objective of inculcating virtue for the sake of peace and just conduct is coherent with Aquinas’s constant teaching[63] that government or law, while rightly demanding of subjects that they do what is just and abstain from doing what is unjust, cannot rightly demand of them that they do so with a just mind and will, cannot require that they be just in the central, character-related sense of “be a just person.” For just acts and forbearances are distinctly less likely to be chosen in the absence of a just character (habitus). So it is a legitimate hope and important aim (finis) of government and law that citizens will come to have the virtue of justice and act out of that particular excellence of character.[64] And if that is a legitimate purpose, then it must be at least a legitimate interest of government that citizens have other virtues too. For there is no doubt that practical reasonableness is essentially all of a piece;[65] those who violate or neglect its directiveness in “private” choices are thereby weakened in their rational motives for following its directiveness in “pub­lic,” other-affecting choices. Moreover, it seems clear that government and law—though Aquinas scarcely affirms this directly and clearly[66]— can rightly, for reasons ultimately of justice and peace, require and enforce a public morality going wider than issues of justice and peace. For parents have a primary educative responsibility to their children, and this respon­sibility—which, unlike public authority, includes a responsibility not only for peace and justice[67] but also for seeing to the all-round character of the children[68]—may well be frustrated unless it is given some assistance and support by state government if only so that the educative responsibility of families to their children will not be frustrated. Those who corrupt children (e.g., drugs, sex, lying, greed, or sloth) do them a great injustice. So does anyone who neglects the child’s nutrition, nurture, and education; making provision for such matters therefore falls within the responsibility of government (ad eum qui regit rempublicam).[69] But even in seeking to promote justice-related virtues by requiring patterns of conduct which should habituate its subjects to the acts of these virtues,[70] the law cannot rightly require that people acquire, or be motivated by, these virtuous states of character or disposition. As Aquinas reiterates, the law’s require­ments (though not its legitimate objectives) are exhausted by “external” compliance.[71]  Aquinas’s thesis that state law is in these ways restricted in legitimate jurisdiction helps explain the disconcertingly formal character of his treat­ment of two questions to which he gives some prominence: whether law seeks to make its subjects good,[72] and whether a good citizen must be a good person.[73] One expects something richer than Aquinas’s answers, which are (i) even wicked laws and rulers seek to make their subjects good (so that they be not merely obedient but readily obedient [bene obedientes] and thus good as subjects[74] and relative to the purposes of that regime);[75] and (ii) in bad states a good citizen need not be a good person (though in all states a ruler, to be a good ruler, should be a good person). These answers make reasonable sense if Aquinas is taking the usual question about law and virtue to be one about the conditions for securing justice and peace by sufficient coordination of social life through law. The nonformal, substantive question, whether the point of such coordination is to make people really good persons all-round, is simply not the issue in these passages.   V One may still wonder how far all this can be reconciled with the Aristotelean critique of social-contract and mutual-insurance conceptions of the state, a critique which the De Regno puts thus: The ultimate purpose (ultimus finis) of a community (multitudo) gathered together (congregatae) is to live in accordance with virtue; for people gather together (congregantur) to live well, which someone living alone cannot attain; but good life is life in accordance with virtue, and so virtuous life is the purpose of human gathering-together (congregationis). ... The only people who counted as a community are those who, under the same laws and same governing arrangements (regimen), are directed toward living well (diriguntur ad bene vivendum).[76] Are such statements about the purpose of political community (statements often parallelled in Aquinas’s other works)[77] really consistent with idea that governments’ or law-makers’ responsibility to promote virtue does not authorize them to require more than the actions and forbearances necessary, directly or indirectly, for maintaining public and interpersonal good? I shall argue that they are, and that Aquinas’s differentiation of three diverse kinds of practical reasonableness (prudentia), individual, domestic, and political, helps make clear his whole, complex thought about the state’s virtue-promoting responsibility and authority. If one is a reasonable individual, one wants to “gather together” into political community, and is willing to direct oneself by laws, for the sake of the help this community, this congregatio can give one in one’s  own unrestricted purposes: beatitudo at least imperfecta, involving “general justice” and love of God and neighbor as oneself. If one is a reasonable parent, one wants one’s family to participate in the political community so that the family may flourish in every practicable way and its members cooperate with a view to that same beatitudo. If one is a reasonable citizen voter or other participant in state government, one wants the law and the government to fulfill—that is, to act in a way that advances and do not fall short of—these purposes of individuals and families. Thus there is an important sense in which the common good of the political community is all-inclusive, nothing short of the beatitudo of its members and the fulfillment of their families. This all-inclusive common good of the state includes the all-round virtue of every member of the state. But it simply does not follow that lawmakers and other participants in state government are responsible for directing and commanding all the choices that need to be made if this all-inclusive good is to be attained. It may well be that their responsibility is more limited, leaving families and individuals with a range of responsibilities that they must carry out within the requirements of justice and peace, but without the direction of government and law. If so, the goods that define the range of lawmakers’ and other rulers’ responsibility—say, the goods of peace and justice--can be called the common good of, specific to, the political community or state. This is the common good of, or specific to, a type of community which includes individuals and families, but whose successful organiza­tion, while assisting individuals and families to attain fulfillment, does not supersede their responsibility to make good choices and actions on the basis of their own deliberation and judgments. These choices and actions are “private”; the political community does not make, perform, or even stipulate them; they can be constitutive of beatitudo imperfecta more directly and immediately than any action by or on behalf of the political community can be (precisely as public, political action). There is, then, a specifically political common good whose content is understood in knowing what exactly the political community, organization, govern­ment, and law can properly contribute toward the beatitudo of the state’s members. Accordingly, the reasonable pursuit of the “all-inclusive” common good is stratified into three distinct specializations of responsibility. Indi­vidual practical reasonableness (prudentia, without trace of selfishness), domestic practical reasonableness, and political practical reasonableness are three irreducibly distinct (diversi) species of prudentia,[78] three distinct “parts” of moral practical reasonableness.[79] Each of these species of pru­dentia, unlike military prudence,[80] is concerned not with some special project which can be finished off but with “the whole of life (tota vita).”[81] The specifically political prudentia which is paradigmatically and princi­pally, though not exclusively, the viewpoint of legislators[82] neither absorbs the other two nor includes, directly, the whole of their content. Although rulers are in many respects in charge of their subjects, their direct concern as rulers is only, as we have seen, the promotion of public good. Public good is a part or aspect of the all-inclusive common good, the part that provides an indispensable context and support for, and thus supplements, subserves, and supervises, those parts or aspects of the common good which are private (especially individual and familial good). And here we may add Aquinas’s partial anticipation of the principle of subsidiarity: “it is contrary to the proper character of the state’s government (contra rationem gubernationis [civitatis]) to impede people from acting according to their responsibilities (officia)—except in emergencies.”[83] Still, the justice and peace which rulers must maintain are for the sake of individual and familial well-being and cannot be identified and pursued without a sound conception of individual and domestic responsi­bilities.[84] The politica which is the highest (principalior, principalissia) practical knowledge[85] must be politica in the sense that it includes, along with the specifically political, the considerations called by Aquinas oecnomica and monostica—the last being the Ethics which precedes the Politics.[86] Because the prudentia of rulers must comprehend, though without replacing, the prudentia of individuals and families, it is the most complete (perfectissima),[87] and though people who are not good persons can be good citizens (qua subjects), they cannot be good rulers.[88] The immediate and direct measure of individual and parental responsibility remains the practical reasonableness of individuals and parents, respectively. In sum: The common good attainable in political community is thus a complex good attainable only if the state’s rulers, its families, and its individual citizens all perform their proper, specialized and stratific roles and responsibilities. This common good, which is in a sense the common good of the political community, is unlimited (the common good of the whole of human life). But there is also a common good which is “political” in the more specific sense that it is (i) the good of using government and law to assist individuals and families do well what they should be doing, together with (ii) the good(s) that sound action by and on behalf of the political community can add to the good attainable by individual and families as such (including the good of repelling and overcoming harms and deficiencies that individuals, families and other “private groupings cannot adequately handle). This, and only this, specifically political common good is what the state’s rulers are responsible for securing and should, by legislation and lawful judicial and administrative actions, require their subjects to respect and support. This specifically political common good is limited and in a sense instrumental.[89] It is what Aquinas, as we have seen, calls public good.   VI Aquinas’s treatment can thus be understood as coherent. But there remains the challenge of principle. Are there good grounds for judging the the state’s specific common good is this limited, public good of justice and peace? If a government or legislature should, as Aquinas certainly thinks, ascertain and adhere to the truth about human fulfillment and morality, why shouldn’t it use its public powers, and law’s coercive pedagogy, to require of all citizens the acts and forbearances which will advance their fulfillment and complete virtue? Aren’t rulers obliged to do so by moralis philosophia’s master principle, general justice or love of neighbor as oneself? Of course, if bad side-effects are too serious—if blowing one’s nose too hard draws blood[90]—the effort should doubtless be made more gradual and perhaps indirect. But why judge the effort wrong in principle, an abuse of public power, ultra vires because it is directed to an end which state government and law do not truly have? Aquinas’s answers to such demands for justification are not as clear as we may wish. (When Kant and Mill announced positions similar to Aquinas’s, their attempted justifications were at bottom, at least as sketchy.) Responding to the question whether there are limits (of subject matter) to what can be required of subjects by their rulers, Aquinas denies that human law and government can have some obligation-imposing authority over “matters which concern the inner life of the will (in his quae pertinent ad interiorem motum voluntatis).”[91] In such matters we are subject only to God.[92] Ground for this denial perhaps emerges in the next sentences, where Aquinas further denies that one can be morally obliged to obey human rulers in relation to certain matters of actual bodily behavior, namely those which pertain to the nature of one’s body (ea quae pertinent ad naturam corporis).[93] In such matters, too, we are subject only to God—and this time a reason is assigned, the fundamental equality of human persons: “for we are all, by [or: in our] nature, on a par (quia omnes homines natura sunt pares).”[94] The matters thus outside state power include those (e.g., whether and whom to marry) which elsewhere he says are beyond the power of even the highest authority in a perfecta communita[95] because in them “one is so much a free and independent person (ita liber sui).”[96] And Aquinas mentions other such matters.[97]  Sometimes Aquinas

Apr 28, 2020 — Alasdair MacIntyre What are the types of political and social society that can embody those relationships of giving and receiving through which our individual and common goods can be achieved? They…

Mar 3, 2022 — 00:00 Introduction 03:38 Lecture 43:27 Q&A Public lecture by Ross Douthat (NY Times) at the Morningside Institute. As our society continues to fracture, writers across the political spectrum have repeatedly invoked the classical concept of the common good. Thinkers such as Jacques Maritain and Yves Simon offered robust accounts of the common good in a pluralistic, democratic society. Yet frequently, today’s invocations of the common good dodge questions about pluralism and pass over these accounts or reject them outright. Were these earlier thinkers naïve? Do their accounts still offer us valuable insights, or were they better suited to a time that has now passed? How can we genuinely promote the common good in a society with so much disagreement about what it is? The Morningside Institute brings scholars and students together to examine human life beyond the classroom and consider its deepest questions through the life of New York City. For more information about upcoming events, please visit https://www.morningsideinstitute.org.

Jan 1, 2022 — Ryan T. Anderson on the importance of liberty and rights in the name of the common good.

Oct 5, 2021 — The Common Good: What does is mean for society?’. A webinar held on 29 September 2021, featuring: • Julia Unwin - Consultant, speaker, writer. Former CEO, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and chair of the Civil Society Futures Inquiry in England which reported in 2018. • David Goodhart - Author, Head of Demography, Immigration & Integration at Policy Exchange, Commissioner at Equality & Human Rights Commission. • Trevor Phillips - Writer, broadcaster, Chairman at Green Park Group, cofounder of data analytics firm Webber Phillips and chairman of Index on Censorship. • Chair: Richard Harries - Associate Director at Institute for Community Studies, Advisory council member at NCVO, Our Common Good, Volunteering Matters and Bayes Centre for Charity Effectiveness. This event is the third in a series of four events hosted jointly by Together for the Common Good, the Centre for Social Justice, Caritas Social Action Network, the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St Mary’s University. Exploring the meaning of the common good, and the responsibility it places on families, society and the state, the series is supported by CCLA, one of the UK’s largest ethical fund managers, home of the Catholic Investment Fund. Full details of the whole series here: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/news/new-event-series

Sep 28, 2021 — On September 23, 2021, the James Madison Program and the Ethics and Public Policy Center hosted "The Baby and the Bathwater: Toward a Recovery of the American Idea" at The Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. The event featured Robert P. George (Director of the James Madison Program) and Ryan T. Anderson (President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center) in conversation with EPPC Visiting Fellow Alexandra DeSanctis and Antonin Scalia of the James Madison Program. The James Madison Program: jmp.princeton.edu

Sep 14, 2021 — A Times Literary Supplement’s Book of the Year 2020A New Statesman's Best Book of 2020A Bloomberg's Best Book of 2020A Guardian Best Book About Ideas of 2020The world-renowned philosopher and author of the bestselling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good?These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the American credo that "you can make it if you try". The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization, and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens--leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time.World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success--more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.

Aug 6, 2021 — ⭐️ Donate $5 to help keep these videos FREE for everyone! Pay it forward for the next viewer: https://go.thomisticinstitute.org/donate-youtube-a101 To praise Job even more the discipline of his house is described next, which was free from those vices which wealth usually produces. For very often great wealth in fact produces discord and so Genesis says that Abraham and Lot could not live together to avoid the quarrelling which arises from an abundance of possessions (cf. Gen.l3). Also, men who have a lot of possessions, while they love what they possess in an inordinate way, frequently use them more sparingly. As Ecclesiastes says, “There is another evil which I see under the sun, and which happens frequently among men: a man to whom God gave wealth, possessions and honor so that his soul lacks nothing he desires. Yet God does not give him power to consume it.” (6:1-2) The house of blessed Job was free from these evils, for concord, laughter and just frugality were there, which the text expresses saying, “His sons used to go and hold banquets in each other’s houses, each one on his appointed day.” This charity and concord existed not only among the brothers, but extended even to the sisters who often are despised by their brothers because of the pride which wealth generally produces, so the text adds, “And they would send and invite their sisters to eat and drink with them.” At the same time, the text also shows in this the confidence which Job had about the chastity of his daughters, for otherwise they would not have been allowed to go about in public, but would have been kept at home as Sirach wisely says, “Do not forget to keep a firm watch on your daughter lest she abuse herself when she found the opportunity.” (26:13) —St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the book of Job, c. 1, l. 1 (as quoted by Prof. John Cuddeback) This lecture was given to the Dominican House of Studies on February 26, 2021 as part of the second installment of the annual Thomistic Circles series: What is the Common Good? ABOUT THOMISTIC CIRCLES: Our Thomistic Circles Conferences at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. bring together prominent professors (principally in theology and philosophy), graduate students, seminarians, and Dominican brothers to provide a forum for examining contemporary questions from the perspective of classical Catholic theology, and to encourage the renewal of theology and philosophy in the Thomistic tradition. These conferences are distinctive not only because of their academic quality, but also because they take place in the context of a vibrant Dominican studium and religious community. As befits the Dominican tradition, the serious study of theology and philosophy is integrated with the contemplation of the mysteries of the faith. Thomistic Circles have been held under the auspices of the faculty at the Dominican House of Studies (founded in Washington, D.C. in 1905) for most of its history. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: John A. Cuddeback, PhD, is professor of Philosophy at Christendom College, where he has taught for twenty-five years. He lectures widely on topics including virtue, fatherhood, friendship, and household, and his professional writings appear in various academic journals and books. His book True Friendship is being republished by Ignatius Press. His blogging at BaconFromAcorns and LifeCraft is renowned for applying an ancient wisdom to life today. ————————— Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheThomisticInstitute Stay connected on social media: Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/ThomisticInstitute Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/thomisticinstitute/ Twitter — https://twitter.com/ThomisticInst Visit us at: https://thomisticinstitute.org/

Jul 30, 2021 — The church’s official positions do not line up neatly with progressive or conservative opinion. A social historian looking for a defense of the Black Power movement in popular magazines and newspapers of the 1960s would have to do a great deal of digging. Such an inquirer would have an easier time quarrying the pages of Triumph, a little-remembered Catholic periodical started by L. Brent Bozell, a brother-in-law of William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of National Review.