7. Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of "all of us", made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society[4]. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it. To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity. To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or "city". The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them.
What is marked in red seems to be in accord with the traditional understanding of the common good--one which is found in the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, for example. But what follows right after seems to be a more personalistic understanding of the common good, in which the common good is subordinate to the good of each individual. I don't think the Latin translation is available yet, but I do not think it will say anything really different from what is being expressed here in English. This understanding of the common good can be found in John XXIII, the documents of Vatican II, and subsequent documents concerning Catholic social teaching. But is that enough of a pedigree to grant it validity? The two notions of the common good can be reconciled, if it is admitted that the supposed good of the individual, to which the "common good" is subordinate, is itself a common good, and not a private good.
Did Pope Pius XII write much on the common good?
I am surprised that more Catholic philosophers and theologians have not picked up on this. But if my understanding of this current notion of the common good is wrong, please explain to me how so.
2 comments:
Hi Papabear. The common good is covered in CCC #1905 & following
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6K.HTM
To see that the green text is clearly true CCC # 1929 may be just enough.
"the person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him"
But I'll have a shot at providing additional support for the case. Start with CCC #1910
"Each human community possesses a common good which permits it to be recognized as such; it is in the political community that its most complete realization is found."
OTOH, it is well known that all political comunities will just vanish on Last Judgment Day. I.e., after the end of time, in the "new heavens and new earth", each and every person that lived on Earth will be there (or in the pond of fire), but no traces whatsoever will remain of any political community. Even as they were the communities where "the most complete realization" of the common good was found.
That should have made clear that the common good is sought for the sake of the people who belong to the community.
BTW, & perhaps somewhat off-topic, if you constrast the doctrine above with Italian fascism's 1927 Charter of Labour (Carta del Lavoro)
"The Italian Nation is an organism with ends, life and means of action superior, per power and duration, to those of the individuals ... that comprise it."
or with the Duce's words
"For fascism, the State is an absolute, in front of which individuals ... are relative."
it becomes clear that the very basic tenet of fascist ideology is incompatible with Catholic doctrine.
Johannes, I would refer you to Charles De Koninck's "The Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists."
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