If the voters merely vote what is in their own private best interest (especially financially), then the form of government which they comprise is a bad regime. It is easy to forget this when dealing with contemporary politics, in which the rhetoric of freedom is bandied about. Nonetheless, democracy is excoriated by Plato and Aristotle for good reason. For many American voters, the ultimate criterion for deciding how to vote is how a proposed law or a politician's platform will affect one's bank accounts.

How would Aristotle judge the beliefs of personalists and proponents of the NNLT that the common good is an instrumental good, ordered to the good of the individual (or of the family)? How is that any different from a society in which the good of the family is privileged over that of society? One could argue that in the former, if it is corrupt, some sort of injustice is being committed against others or society at large by those in power for the benefit of their families. However, in a personalist society, there are laws which punish these sorts of acts.

Is it possible that the legislation produced by a personalist understanding of the common good could turn out to be the same as one produced by an adherent of the classical understanding? Perhaps the "instrumental" common good is not the same as the "classical" or "holistic" common good.