Reforming Society by Reclaiming our Social Nature in the Common Good
Man's Ultimate End is not Private Happiness, but Universal Happiness
I. Introduction
The mindset behind political systems and approaches significantly shapes not only a society's stability and progress but also its capacity for fostering harmony, friendship, and family life. To evaluate the goodness of such dialogue and progress, however, we must first establish a deeply grounded anthropology—an understanding of man and his relationships rooted in his ultimate end. Liberalism, with its inordinate focus on individual rights, fails to adequately address man’s real needs because it neglects to regulate such rights according to the common good. The common good cannot be separated from man’s anthropological end because man is, by nature, a social animal who thrives through friendship and responsibility toward his neighbor. By contrast, the Thomistic approach to civil society, rooted in an understanding of man’s nature as ordered toward both individual and communal flourishing, offers a robust critique of Liberalism’s shortcomings. This paper will argue that grounding civil society in the common good and the cultivation of virtue provides a better framework for human flourishing. To this end, the paper is organized as follows: Section II: Liberalism’s anthropological errors, examining Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Section III: The common good, anthropology, and man’s social end. Section IV: Fragmentation overcome by Friendship and Virtue. In these four sections, a clear path is set from an erroneous approach to civil society to a healthy and flourishing one. In this way Liberalism fails to address man’s ultimate needs, but its half-truths can be saved if regulated by the common good.
II. Liberalism’s Shortcomings
From a Catholic point of view, understanding our own anthropology is not an easy task.
Dogmatically we uphold two truths that must be held in a tension: man is very good[i] and man is fallen.[ii] As a result of this interior state of war between man’s addiction to sin, and his good nature, it is common that one might emphasize the positive or negative dimensions to the neglect of the other. Locke, for instance, might consider man’s state in such an optimistic manner that individual liberty will naturally lead to a flourishing society rather than its corruption. On the other hand, Hobbes might argue that the state of nature is war while neglecting that dimension which is most dominant in man: an ontological configuration toward what is ultimately good. In both cases, the anthropological pendulum can swing fostering an ideation from a truly human political system that is either to enable man’s fallen-state or to repress his natural state. Therefore, it is not the objective of this article to imply that natural rights of the individual are a failure of Liberalism, but rather integrate in a tension the good nature of man who is ordered toward the good of his neighbor with the problem of a fallen disposition. In order to accomplish this, it is incumbent for us to examine some of the incomplete or half-truths found in Liberalism’s advocates.
Many philosophers continue to presume Catholic values regarding the organization of civil society. Many thoughts tend to be automatic when they are second-nature, yet when a systematic philosophical system is developed that uproots the basis of those principle-centred approaches, we begin to do something like eat fresh fruit from a recently cut-down tree. While the fruit may still be palatable, after some time it will begin to taste rotten. Likewise, the Christian values that guide civil society become rotten to contemporary society because the ideation from such well-founded principles are no longer understood or embraced speculatively. Hobbes constructed a philosophy around man’s nature in suggesting that it was in a state of war. “During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre.”[iii] One cannot deny that man finds himself in a type of state of war, but to deepen this statement to an ontological state exaggerates the real situation man finds himself. Rooted within this premise around man’s anthropology ultimately is to declare that his state of nature is not peace with other persons, as though there is an innate end in man for communion. Rather, man is not primordially a social animal, but is pre-political, wicked and in need of governance in order to violently reshape his dispositions. In order to accomplish this man must voluntarily give up his own rights, in order to be governed. “It is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to Himselfe. And therefore there be some Rights, which no man can be understood by any words, or other signes, to have abandoned, or transferred.”[iv] This transference of power is a matter of contractual agreement, but does not seem to find an ultimate basis in nature for Hobbes. Rather, the social contract developed is rooted in a response to the nature of man in a type of antagonism. “The mutuall transferring of Right, is that which men call contract.”[v] The social contract whereby man voluntarily surrenders his individual rights in order to be governed, is therefore presented to be at odds with nature, rather than in support of man’s actual nature. The reason for this is that man’s rights are understood only in the context of the individual, whereby a responsibility to deny himself of some liberty for the sake of the common-good is not a dimension that exists within the nature of man. This is proven to be Hobbes’ position when he writes:
The Common good differeth not from the Private; and being by nature enclined to their private, they procure thereby the common benefit. But man, whose Joy consisteth in comparing himselfe with other men, can relish nothing but what is eminent.[vi]
In this way, the common good is seen as a mere aggregate of man’s private goods. Rather than understanding the common good as a type of immaterial good that is not quantifiable but pertains to man’s contribution toward the good of others which is also his own good.
Locke addresses differing problems that arise from placing too much trust in sovereigns in the place of a more optimistic approach to the populace. In this way, it would seem, Locke is only negative about man’s nature when he has power. Conversely for Hobbes, man who leads is likely to be someone good. As a result, placing power into the people’s hands is more appropriate and avoids a type of corruption from a tyrant, enabling man to thrive in his own expression of individual rights. Within the family, however, he continues to understand governance as something conventional or contractual. “But that this was not by any paternal right, but only by the consent of his children.”[vii] The regulation of power within the family essentially rests on the father not ultimately because he is powerful, but rather due to the consent of his children. Once again, there is a type of nominal approach to authority that does not root itself in the designation of human relationships that ontologically exists, even within the context of the family. In this way, Locke practically applies the same Hobbesian principles of individual rights to the most basic and fundamental building block of society. Conceiving that the family itself enters into a contract subscribes to a strange notion that families are not an organic development that comes about through offspring and the natural order. The personal responsibility that parentage has toward children to lead, provide, and develop is reduced to a contractual agreement. Rousseau continues along these lines when he seems to define any type of ownership or governance as arbitrary. “The first person who, having fenced off a plot of ground, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.”[viii] Rousseau’s motivation seems to be in criticizing man in dumbly entered contracts with others, and perceives this as a type of unnecessary submission. This is not to say that Rousseau perceives all contracts as imprudent, but those to which limit man’s liberty unnecessarily. Nonetheless, Rousseau would seem to consider man’s ultimate flourishing derives itself from a society that is leaves the individual alone as far as possible and insofar as it does not do harm.
These three philosophical positions (Rousseau, Locke, and Hobbes) all are addressing the mere displacement of man’s fallen nature. One might localize evil in the sovereign’s violation of natural rights, idealizing the rational individual in a pre-political state while overlooking the deeper moral disorder in man (Locke). Or man in his pre-political state is found to be entirely savage, and in need of voluntary oppression (Hobbes). Or, finally, displacing man’s fallen nature onto society, idealizing the ‘noble savage’ while scapegoating governance as a source of inequality, and corruption (Rousseau). These position demonstrates that ultimately displacing the fallen-state of man can end up becoming a derivative scapegoating into the various groups, while also ascribing a type of benevolence in another faction that would seem to be antagonized by the alternative.
III. The Common Good, Anthropology, and Man’s Social End.
Beginning with the errors in Liberalism allows us to frame the discussion and clarify the need for a renewed vision of how to build social communities. Since Liberalism serves as the starting point ideologically for many, it is appropriate to reintroduce the notion of the common good at this stage, where its relevance can be more fully appreciated. When examining human law, St. Thomas Aquinas states that such laws are not ultimately ordered towards a private good, but rather the common good. Quoting Isidore he says, “laws are enacted for no private profit, but for the common good.”[ix] Aquinas moves onto draw a deep connection between law, the common good and man’s anthropology when he writes:
The law must needs regard principally the relationship to happiness. Moreover, since every part is ordained to the whole, as imperfect to perfect; and since one man is a part of the perfect community, the law must needs regard properly the relationship to universal happiness. Wherefore the Philosopher, in the above definition of legal matters mentions both happiness and the body politic: for he says that we call those legal matters "just, which are adapted to produce and preserve happiness and its parts for the body politic": since the state is a perfect community.[x]
Aquinas, working from the anthropology of Aristotle recognizes that man’s own happiness cannot be separated from the community. In this sense, he recognizes that man is considered in his very nature as a part in relation to the whole. This causes man to look inward and recognize a type of incompleteness within himself. As such, the interpersonal relationships man forms with others becomes his own good, not a matter of innate antagonism. Not merely as though he is filling within himself what is lacking, but also in a relationship of responsibility, addressing the other parts which also long to operate as a whole. Where man acts according to justice toward his neighbor, he addresses his own good which is to be just. In this context Aquinas helps the Liberalism of our day integrate into the notion of happiness the other. This seems to confront the individualism that Liberalism innately tends toward, since its basis is rooted upon individual rights with no regulatory principle directing the usage of such rights toward the common-good.
Rightly ordering individual rights to the common-good, and the private goods need not contain antagonistic notions between state or man, or men and leaders, or even man against man. Such ordering of goods exists only in a harmony that can exist because of a “subordination”[xi] that is non-violent nor merely conventional. He says, “Since the law is chiefly ordained to the common good, any other precept in regard to some individual work, must needs be devoid of the nature of law, save in so far as it regards the common good.”[xii] In other words, where laws protect individual rights, they nonetheless exist as a means to bring about the common-good. Yet, within the notion of Liberalism, individual liberty itself seems to be the ultimate end of law, and the various structures used in the various forms of sovereignty. Alternatively, what regulates the discernment of private goods is whether they promote what is commonly good for each person and the whole of society. Although, I do not believe that liberty itself is actually the end or motive of such philosophers. Rather, the false notion that such liberty grants each individual the ability to flourish becomes the new automatic assumption. In reality, such an excessive approach to individual rights unregulated by the common-good thrusts us into a state of war, but between our good nature and our own moral character. Radical individualism thrusts people not only into a war with one another, but places man at odds with his own good, found in what is common. In this sense, the ultimate end for such thinkers is not liberty per se, but the assumption that liberty itself de facto causes man to become happy or fulfilled. In reality, it thrusts him into conflict with himself and others because it denies his disposition towards the common-good and fragments all of society.
IV. Fragmentation Overcome by Friendship and Virtue
Given that man is ontologically configured for a perfect community, we arrive at the obvious problem: fragmentation. If man’s ultimate end is considered not merely as a private end, but one shared in the context of a community, than fragmentation within the community becomes the real issue to address. Fragmentation can be understood in many different ways, but for the sake of brevity, I will consider it the absence of communion. The material manifestation of division exists where the common-good is not experienced, and interpersonal relationships do not involve an inner penetration of one’s own good. This beckons us to return to a fundamental dimension that must exist within the body-politic: friendship.
This is evident from the fact that not every friendship is praiseworthy and virtuous, as in the case of friendship based on pleasure or utility. Wherefore friendship for the virtuous is something consequent to virtue rather than a virtue. Moreover there is no comparison with charity since it is not founded principally on the virtue of a man, but on the goodness of God.[xiii]
Here, Aquinas refers to the erroneous types of friendship as to decipher from those rooted in charity and virtue, and those rooted in a self-referential approach to one’s own good. In the case of utility, man simply uses another for his own end. In this case, we can see individualism that places man’s own private good as the object of his most basic relationships. Pleasure likewise would denote the same problem, whereby even if mutual pleasure is sought, it could also be sought entirely for one’s self. Contractual agreements to enter into such relations do not place a shared good between them, but rather the aggregation of their own goods insofar as they mutual benefit one another, individually. In such cases we can clearly state, that in these contracts man does not will the good of the other for his own sake, but rather only wills what is good for the other only when it pleases himself. Whence such a benefit to himself finds itself no longer availing, the relationship ends. Whereas, when the two seek the other’s good for their own sake, such a disposition involves actual reciprocal friendship or the orientation toward developing a friendship even with one’s enemy. As such, what healthy friendship unveils itself to be, in contrast with utility and pleasure, is virtue. Virtue for the polis is essential, especially in whosoever takes upon themselves the role of leadership. Aristotle states:
Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.[xiv]
Aristotle explains that society requires virtue in order to function properly. While this principle is most appropriately tied to the leadership within the structure of governance, the structure is no longer the essential characteristic of good leadership. Rather virtue becomes the organic dimension that leads to a healthy civilization even within the contemporary notion of democracy and the voluntary transmission of power. If a leader and its people are imprudent, disregarding the common-good, either materially (by the people), and formally (by leadership) then the society finds itself fragmented. Such imprudence will necessarily occur where a self-referential approach to individual liberties and rights is stressed at the neglect of the common good. Friendship that is rooted in virtue is a concrete manifestation of man entering, in an organic and natural way, the state of peace. Although friendship is one type of relationship that exists within civilization, it is a source of moral-formation that enables man to become virtuous and to produce virtuous leaders.
Other dimensions within the organic and natural relationships that build society are found in family and mentorship. Within the family a natural organization of private goods is regulated by parents in order to support the family’s thriving, commonly. The parents who have the maturity and role of leadership to discern appropriately, become a domestic-polis of their own. The family is not only a microcosm for the polis, but the first experience of anyone in the ordering of human social relations. Where the family fails, society naturally asserts the need for adoption, protection, and a type of substitution for what ought to naturally have been the case. Mentorship is also a dimension that forms individuals in virtue, whereby a person experiences an idealized yet concrete manifestation of greatness which they wish to imitate. Learning from a master, for instance, becomes the docile approach of the student to become teachable, and develop growth in the life of virtue.
Conclusion
Virtue is, therefore, the founding principle—the roots of the tree that bears the fruit of a healthy society. While people often focus on the structures of society, this causes us to neglect to examine the roots, which otherwise leads to inevitable decay. Many problematic structures exist not because of flaws in their design but because they are corrupted by vice. To address the root problem of political fragmentation and the shortcomings in Liberalism, we must step back and ask: what is the ultimate object of a socio-political society? The common good is achieved when the polis as a whole seeks virtue, making the social end of man both attainable and sustainable. Amid the ideological sophistication of debates over governance, we are left with a simple truth: virtue, cultivated through friendship, family, and mentorship, is what is most needed. While this may seem obvious, a return to the basic decency of human relationships offers a way to transcend the sophistry and errors of our post-Enlightenment approach to modern politics. Such an approach rehabilitates within the mind of man the notion of who we are as social beings, and our relationship with one another: seeking the common-good. While Liberalism has ultimately failed to bring man to his end in the common-good, we must recognize the half-truths that simply need to be rightly ordered to man’s social end in the common good.
[i] Genesis 1:31.
[ii] CCC 404.
[iii] Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan (Part I, Chapter VIII), (1651). Project Gutenberg. At https://www.gutenberg.org.
[iv] Hobbes, Leviathan (Part I, Chapter XIV). At https://www.gutenberg.org.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Hobbes, Leviathan (Part II, Chapter XVII). At https://www.gutenberg.org.
[vii] Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government (s. 74). Project Gutenberg. At https://www.gutenberg.org.
[viii] Rousseau, J.-J. (1964). The First and Second Discourses (R. D. Masters & J. Masters, Trans.; R. D. Masters, Ed., p. 141). Bedford/St. Martin's.
[ix] ST I-II q. 90 a. 2.
[x] Ibid.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] ST II-II, q. 23 a. 3.
[xiv] Aristotle. Politics b. I p. II (B. Jowett, Trans.). The Internet Classics Archive. At https://classics.mit.edu.
If I understood correctly, the return to basic decency in relations is the answer stated in the conclusion.
What is that if not complete respect for individual rights?
The problem with the common good theme in catholic circles is that it's always poisoned with veiled utilitarianism and consequentialism.
Common good is not and end, but a state in which all men are the most optimal in their pursuit for their own good (to be in a state of grace).
That state is totally incompatible with any violating of individual rights.
Liberalism at its inception is christian and correct.
Both liberal born ideologies and the Church's interpretation of liberalism by its fruits and not its origin are the problem.
Break the vicious circle. Forget ideologies and embrace ideas. Liberalism as a notion of property rights and individual freedom is a good idea, christian to the core.