The Common Good ...
The Common Good
Think of some students who seek the help of their university tutor to prepare for an exam. The tutor, let’s imagine, makes herself available only to groups of two. So, two students can attain their objective only by collaborating with each other: agreeing with the tutor on a time that is convenient to both of them, letting each other ask questions of the tutor without interrupting each other, etc. Even if each student has no particular interest in how successful the other student is in the exam, each has an interest in maintaining the set of conditions which enables them to pursue their objectives. That set of conditions is good for both of them, or to put it another way, is a good that is common to them both; in this sense it is a ‘common good’.
Or, think of a group of work mates who form a team to play in the local basketball competition. Each is simply seeking a bit of fun, letting off steam after a hard day’s work, keeping fit, enjoying the game for itself. They can attain that objective only by collaborating with each other (about time, place, level of competition, positions on the court, etc) as well as committing to fair play and a good game. That set of conditions is a good common to each of them and in this sense a ‘common good’.
In each of these cases the ‘common good’ refers to a set of factors which enable the participants to realize their objectives. This sense of ‘common good’ derives from Aristotle’s Politics. John Finnis (1980: 155) explains this ‘Aristotelian’ sense of the term ‘common good’ as follows. The common good is ‘a set of conditions which enables the members of a community to attain for themselves reasonable objectives…’. Used in this sense, we can refer to the ‘common good’ for all human beings, meaning that set of conditions which enable citizens to participate in the goods which human beings freely value: life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, friendship, the pursuit of ultimate meaning, etc. Notice that our earlier examples were a microcosm of this larger group, and that is because, although the principle is the same – acting with the objective of securing the good of all those in the group – the size and nature of the group can change. It is theoretically possible to speak of the common good of humanity itself. In each case, all we need think about is the telos of the group (its end, goal, objective, or purpose), and from there we may estimate what it is the members need to do to act for the sake of this telos.
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