Editors’ note: the below is a response to “The fallacies of the common good” by Kim R. Holmes, the lead essay in “Common-good conservatism: a debate.” Holmes’s reply can be found here.
Conservatives are once again debating the nature of the political common good. This is salutary, for no political community should ignore the actual common good, nor avoid the concept of the common good. The common good plays an essential role for thinkers as profound as Aristotle and Aquinas, and for the Western tradition ever since. For Aristotle, whether or not a regime governs for the common good is the decisive factor in determining whether a regime is just or not. For Aquinas, the very definition of law—“an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated”—requires reference to the common good. Given the centrality of the common good, we might want to gain clarity about it.
The common good plays an essential role for thinkers as profound as Aristotle and Aquinas, and for the Western tradition ever since.
Every community has a common good: a good that perfects that community as a community, giving its members reason(s) to cooperate in a variety of ways, a good that all of the members participate in and benefit from as common, not private. You can think of the common good of a family, those ends that make the family flourish not as
