Common Front for Social Justice

Common Good vs. Private Good

By Al Daly, member of the Southeast Chapter of the CFSJ

Commenting on the many economic and social problems that western society now confronts, Newsweek columnist Robert J Samuelson recently wrote: “We face a choice between a society where people accept modest sacrifices for a common good or a more contentious society where groups selfishly protect their own benefits.” As well, Daniel Callahan, an expert on bioethics, argues that solving the current crisis in our health care system - rapidly rising costs and dwindling access - requires replacing the current ethic of individual rights with an ethic of the common good.”

What exactly is “the common good” and why has it come to have such a critical place in current discussions of problems in our society? The common good is a notion that originated over two thousand years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. In his letter to Barnabas, the apostle Paul writes “Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already justified, but gather instead to seek the common good.” More recently, the contemporary ethicist, John Rawls defined the common good as “certain general conditions that are equally to everyone’s advantage” The common good, then, consists primarily of having the social systems, institutions, and environments on which we all depend work in a manner that benefits all people. Examples of common goods are an accessible and affordable public health care system and an effective system of public security. 

As those examples suggest, the common good does not just happen. Establishing and maintaining the common good requires the cooperative efforts of many people. Just as keeping a park free of litter depends on each user picking up after himself, so also maintaining the social conditions from which we all benefit requires the cooperative efforts of citizens. But these efforts pay off, for the common good is a good to which all members of society have access and from whose enjoyment no one can be easily excluded. All persons, for example, enjoy the benefits of clean air or an unpolluted environment.

The reason for the existence of governments at all levels of society is to provide for the common good. This is more difficult today with our individualistic society. We need to remind ourselves that people were not made to live solely as individuals but for family, for community and for social participation. Freedom is not found in solitude. We are bound to one another by an obligation of solidarity and have a duty to one another, especially the poor. We have a duty to participate in the social order and find a way to build a society with all men and women even those who are different from us and with whom we do not agree. Bearing this in mind will contribute to a better society in which no one is left behind.

It would appear that today’s governments have mainly lost sight of this obligation and raison d’etre to provide for the common good. Certainly, the tendency towards the right of the political spectrum has left the poor, poorer and the rich, richer. Power and money have seduced otherwise well-intentioned people into abandoning the high moral ground. This direction has serious consequences for the present and future of this country we are so proud of.