I wrote that little work to defend Aristotle and St. Thomas when they say that, within a given genus, the common good is always more divine than the proper or personal good. This proposition had been under attack for some time. The reasoning behind this open attack even by well-known Thomists assumed that "common good" is a univocal expression, i.e. with one single meaning, and that one can therefore pass from one genus to the other. Yet in fact the common good of the family (namely, the offspring) and that of the political community (the well-being of the citizens, which, in the end, consists in virtuous activity) are one only in proportion.
[The children are a common good; but family life, the domestic good is also a common good.] The common good of the political community is "the well-being of the citizens, which, in the end, consists in virtuous activity."
He also writes:
It is one thing to compare the member of a society to the society as a whole. The society is for the sake of the common good of its members who are individual persons. Hence society is for man, not man for society. But it does not follow from this that the common good of society must be broken down into individual goods, the way a loaf of bread is shared at the table.It is much easier to ask questions and obtain clarification from a living person than it is from a "dead" book. Is society separate from its members? Is it the same as the modern "state"? (Is this the identification that CDK is making here?) Is "society" different in meaning from "community"?
My reading:
A community is made up of its members, but these members are not taken in isolation from one another. Rather, these individuals have ordered relations to one another. Living in society is for the sake of man--because men by their nature are social, living with one another is a true good.
(Being in) Society (or community) is for the sake of its members' living together (well).
One of these days I'll try to find some proof texts from On the Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists to confirm this interpretation. I think the rest of the letter supports it, though, if one is able to make the comparison between the political community and the Church.
Michael A. Smith's Human Dignity and the Common Good in the Aristotelian-Thomistic Tradition. An ok introduction, but not without its problems when directly addressing the philosophical questions.
3 comments:
Here is Henri Grenier in his manual of Thomistic philosophy (Moral Philosophy, section 1094-1095). He was a Laval man, and it seems he is of the same mind as CDK. It might be a useful summary. The text:
1094. Personalism.---(1) Personalism is the teaching of those who, in order to safeguard the dignity of the human person, hold that the end of man, as a person, is superior to the end of civil society. Hence personalism denies that the proper ends of individual man are, as we have shown, directed to the end of civil society.
(2) All Catholic philosophers hold that the supernatural end of the human person is not subordinate to the end of civil society. The problem with which we are concerned at present is the relation between the ends of the individual person and the end of civil society, in the natural order only.
(3) Personalism holds that man may be considered either as an individual or as a person.
Man, considered as an individual, is, according to personalism, a part of civil society, and is related to it as the part to the whole.
But man, considered as a person, is superior to civil society, and is not related to it as the part to the whole. Therefore the ends of the individual man, in as much as the individual man is a person, i.e., has the dignity of a person, are not subordinate to the end of civil society.
Hence personalism may be defined: the doctrine of those who hold that the ends of the individual man, in as much as the individual man has the dignity of a person, are not subordinate, in the natural order, to the end of civil society, but vice versa.
(4) In refutation of personalism, we make the following observations.
a) The distinction which the personalists make between the individual and the person is of no value in the present question.
For the individual, considered as distinct from nature, can mean only two things:
either a singular nature without subsistence;
or a subsisting supposit in general(II-II, q. 32, a. 5, c.), not a supposit subsisting in rational nature.
If the individual signifies a singular nature without subsistence, it is wrong to say that man, as an individual, is a part of civil society. For society is a stable union of men *in the order of operation*, and, moreover, operations are proper to the supposit, i.e., to the subsisting being, not to nature without subsistence.
If the individual means a supposit in general, it is again wrong to say that man, as an individual, is a part of civil society, for otherwise, as we have already pointed out, a union of irrational animals would be a society. The individual man is formally a part of civil society in as much as he is endowed with an intellect, i.e., as he is a person.
b) The end of civil society is the greatest of all human goods. Hence the subordination of the individual person to civil society, as the part to the whole, is not at variance with the dignity of the human person, but is a subordination of the human person to the human person's greatest natural good, i.e., to the temporal happiness of this life.
c) Personalism is a form of *individualism*, because it makes the common good subordinate to the good of the individual person.
1095. Difficulties offered by personalism.---(1) Man is related to civil society as the part to the whole. But man is not a part of a whole as a person, but as an individual: for the principle by which man is multiplied in the same species is not personality, but the principle of individuation. Therefore man is not a part of civil society as a person, but as an individual, i.e., it is as an individual that is subordinate to society. (So teach the personalists.)
Major.---As the part to the whole in the order of being, I deny; in the order of operation, I concede.
Minor.---It is not as a person, but as an individual, that man is a part of a whole in the order of being, I concede; in that order of operation which constitutes society, I deny.
Society, as we have seen, is not a union of a plurality in the order of being, but in the order of operation, for society is a union of men for the pursuit of a common good; and, since operation is proper to the supposit, it is formally as a person that man is a part of society, and therefore it is as a person, not as an individual, that man is subordinate to the end of society.
The principle of individuation, i.e., first matter signed by quantity, is the principle by which man is multiplied in a whole, that is to say, in the same species, in the order of being.
(2) If the person is immediately destined for God, man as a person is not destined for society. But man is immediately destined for God(II-II, q. 2, a. 3). Therefore man as a person is not destined for society. (So claim the Personalists)
Major.---If the person is immediately destined for God, is as much as he, as living in society, does not attain God, I concede; in as much as the person is not destined for another creature, as the irrational animal is destined for man, I deny.
Minor.---In as much as he, as living in society, does not attain God, I deny; in as much as he is not destined for another creature, as the irrational animal is destined for man, I concede.
(3) If as a person man were destined for civil society, all that he is and that he possesses would be destined for civil society. But all that man is and all that he possesses are not destined for civil society(I-II, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3). Therefore man, as a person, is not destined for civil society.
Major.---All that man is and all he possesses would be destined for society if the end of civil society were were the absolutely ultimate end of human acts, I concede; if the end of civil society is ultimate only in its own order, in as much as it is the greatest of all human goods, I deny.
Minor.---Because the end of civil society is not the absolutely ultimate end of human acts, I concede; because man, as an individual person, is not destined for civil society, as the part to the whole, I deny.
The absolutely ultimate end of human acts is a divine good, i.e., the beatific vision; and the end of civil society, which is temporal happiness, is the ultimate end of human acts only in the order of human goods. Hence the end of civil society itself must be destined for a divine good. Hence all that man is and all that he possesses are not destined for civil society, but for a higher good.
(4) That which has substantial unity is superior to that which has only accidental unity. But the individual person has substantial unity, whereas civil society has only accidental unity, i.e., unity of order. Therefore the individual person is superior to civil society, and is not related to it as the part to the whole.
Major.---As a being, I concede;as a good, I deny.
Minor.---The private good of the individual person is superior to the common good, I deny; is inferior, I concede.
Goodness and being, though identical in reality, are logically distinct, i.e., distinct by a distinction of reason; and, moreover, absolute being is not absolute goodness, whereas absolute goodness is relative being. Therefore the common good of persons united in society is greater than the private good of the individual person.
Thank you for those posts; I wish I could lay out the logic of the arguments so easily.
Grenier says: "The end of civil society, which is temporal happiness, is the ultimate end of human acts only in the order of human goods."
Does he give any further explication of the political common good in his manual?
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