According to Pierre Manent, an eminent French Catholic political philosopher and a disciple of Leo Strauss, the concept of the common good has lost all its intelligibility in contemporary French society. It has been replaced by an emphasis on the concept of human rights. Human rights as such are not able, however, to serve as a viable basis for a political society. A similar analysis can be found in other Christian authors: for instance, vis-à-vis the crisis of contemporary liberal democracies, the main representatives of the so-called Radical Orthodoxy movement, John Milbank and Adrian Pabst, plead for the return of the politics of the common good. What is missing, however, in the works of these contemporary scholars is a systematic analysis of the concept of the common good as such. Up until now, the most elaborate analysis of this concept was developed by the Catholic scholars, Charles De Koninck and Yves R. Simon, during the 1940s and 1950s. Following their example, the article attempts to elucidate this key concept of political philosophy and Catholic social doctrine. In its first part, after an overview of the two basic meanings of the concept of the common good in Catholic social doctrine, the article analyzes the different facets of De Koninck´s magisterial treatise on the common good. Due to the many more metaphysical interests of De Koninck, the article argues that his concept of the common good must be supplemented by the much more politically focused analysis of Yves R. Simon. This eminent Thomist emphasized the connection between the concept of the (political) common good with the possibility of common action. The article finally offers a thorough reconstruction of the foundations of this neglected tradition of political thought which paradoxically could be seen as an (at least partial) possible cure for the current crises of liberal democratic political regimes.
The aim of this article is to present and contrast various competing concepts of the common good. In the first part of the article, I critically discuss the minimalistic concept, which can be found in the celebrated book A Theory of Justice written by the American philosopher John Rawls. I subsequently deal with the instrumentalist concept, which brought fame to John Finnis, the most prominent representative of the so-called new natural law theory. According to Finnis, the common good serves as an instrument regarding the basic human goods of marriage and family life. In the third part, the instrumentalist concept is the target of my criticism, which leads me to a defense of a more robust concept of the common good. In three steps, I demonstrate that Finnis misunderstands the order of goods, elevates the common good of family and other private associations without appropriate reasons, and diminishes the common good of the political community. Because of this, the common good is not able to offer appropriate normative reasons for the exercise of such risky professions as soldiers and police officers. In contrast, the robust concept of the common good, as recently advocated most prominently by the Australian philosopher George Duke, enables one to solve these problems. It also provides a better solution to the delicate question of obedience to political authority.
Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the category of common good. This has led many scholars to re-appropriate the paradigmatic conceptualizations of common good in the long history of this concept. This paper deals with a sophisticated analysis of common good proposed by the French theologian Gaston Fessard, whose ideas strongly influenced not only the French debates about this concept, but also Jorge Maria Bergoglio´s thought. These two authors share an emphasis on the dynamic character of common good, which can only be ultimately achieved by relating it to the Infinite. Their vision of (political) reality is dialectical; they emphasize antinomies and tensions omnipresent in human life. In the first part of my article, I focus on Fessard’s thematization of the dramatic character of political life and the dynamics of the emergence of political authority, whose main aim is to mediate the common good. The second part is dedicated to a thorough analysis of Fessard’s distinction between the content and form of the common good. Particularly, I pay attention to his understanding of liberalism and human rights. In the end, I show the uniqueness as well as the relevance of his philosophical analysis to contemporary issues.
This article is a contribution to the recurrent debates on the (in)compatibility between Catholic and liberal tradition. It focuses on the differences between these traditions concerning their conceptual foundations: liberty and, more extensively, social order. In the first part, the article characterizes the most important doctrinal elements of liberal and Catholic political theory. In liberal tradition, the emphasis is upon normative and ontological individualism and the primacy of individual liberty. Catholic social ontology offers a rich understanding of social order where it differentiates between partnerships and communities. This is linked to the specific conceptualization of the common good which is more robustly conceived than in its liberal counterparts. In the second part, the article delineates the different meanings of liberty in contemporary liberal political theory. It demonstrates that the Catholic tradition unambiguously prefers the positive concept of liberty. Next, it dialectically moves to the concept of autonomy. Some versions of autonomy are closer to the Catholic tradition than others, but overall, the Catholic conception is based on a richer metaphysical foundation that links liberty with participation in the common good. The article culminates with D. C. Schindler’s metaphysical criticism of the basic building blocks of liberal thought, which explains the reasons why the liberal conception of the common good cannot accommodate its Catholic counterpart.
According to the pre‑eminent Anglican theologian John Milbank, if Christians do not think about politics in disconnection from their faith, they come up with similar conclusions. The article argues that a specific social ontology and unique anthropology underlies this Christian vision of politics. In its first part, primarily following the work of the American Thomist Russell Hittinger, the article demonstrates how this specific social ontology is inherent to the Catholic social doctrine. It discusses the Catholic understanding of group personality and civil society in contrast to liberal thought. In its second part, in line with the political experience of the richest Italian region Lombardy, the article delineates a specific anthropological vision, which has influenced various policies of the so‑called Lombardy‑model. In contrast to both liberalism, and statism, the theoreticians of Lombardy emphasized the positive anthropology of human beings. Lombardy consequently attempted to respect the plurality of social forms which can be found in society in its (social, health-care, educational) policies. The article demonstrates how one of the fundamental principles of the social doctrine of the Church, the principle of subsidiarity, can become the basis for several political experiments by the Lombardy government.
The aim of the article is to present and criticise the political thought of Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the most renowned contemporary moral philosophers. This eminent representative of the Aristotelian‑Thomistic tradition is a strong opponent of the modern state, which he does not consider to be an appropriate place for his favoured politics of the common good. He proposes the politics of local communities as his alternative. The article criticises his alternative by focusing on the premises of his understanding of the concept of the common good. In several steps, there is an attempt to deminstrate how his conceptualisation is not completely faithful to his own Aristotelian‑Thomistic tradition. Moreover, his politics of local communities remains deeply vulnerable to the liberal politics of the modern state. As a matter of fact, despite his scorching criticism of liberalism, MacIntyrean politics is in its consequences paradoxically liberal.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.