Question One: Concerning the Common Good to Be Pursued

S. Th. II-II, q. 58, a. 5 and 6; I-II, q. 90, a. 2 and 3.

262. Legal justice is necessary to man, by which he may order his acts to the common good of the whole society. For it is natural to man to live in society, because outside society he cannot attain in this life his end, temporal happiness or perfect sufficiency of life, nor consequently eternal beatitude. But for man living in society it is necessary to order his acts to the common good: for happiness or sufficiency of life must be obtained by the operations of individuals coordinated among themselves toward that end which is to be procured for all existing in society. But to order acts to the common good pertains to legal justice. Therefore legal justice is necessary to man.

263. How the common good is to be obtained. — Society is not a mere aggregation but an organized multitude. A community, namely, is not a mechanical whole, coalescing from homogeneous parts merely placed side by side and for this reason alone counted under one enumeration of multitude, as happens in a heap of wheat; — but it is an organic whole, coalescing from heterogeneous parts fitted among themselves in due proportion and coordinated to one end, from which the whole obtains its species and name, as happens in a clock, in a tree, in the human body. Hence this end is obtained by the active conspiring of the individual parts, acting according to their mode and according to their function.

"The whole which is a civil multitude," says St. Thomas, I Eth., lect. 1, "has only unity of order, according to which it is not something simply one. And therefore a part of that whole can have an operation which is not the operation of the whole, just as a soldier in an army has an operation which is not that of the whole army. Nevertheless the whole itself also has some operation which is not proper to any of the parts, but to the whole, for instance the conflict of the whole army; and the dragging of a ship is the operation of the multitude dragging the ship."

Thus those living in society sometimes exercise operations by which they are referred to themselves or to other private persons; but there are other operations by which they are immediately referred to the whole society, for example, that they establish or observe law, or that each one contribute into the public treasury the due part from his own goods. These operations are specifically distinguished, as being ordered to a diverse good.

264. The common good is spoken of by opposition to private good: not indeed in the sense that it excludes private good, for the common good redounds into private good; but because the common good is something more excellent and more extensive than private good and specifically distinct from it.

The common good, namely, is not a heap of particular goods or a mere resultant from particular goods; but the good of the whole collectivity, the common happiness of society. Hence "they do not differ only according to much and little (quantitatively), but according to formal difference (qualitatively and specifically). For the account of common good and of singular good is diverse, just as the account of whole and part is diverse" (q. 58, a. 5, ad 1), or the proper good of the individual is one thing, and the good of human nature as such is another.

Therefore the common good is not an addition of particular goods: for an addition of opposed individual utilities could not constitute a common good which serves all and from which the right of drawing is open to all. But it is a higher, more eminent human good, although of the same order.

But this good is to be procured in society:

1. by the social operation of the whole, by which, with forces coordinated, individuals conspire toward the common good of the whole according as it has been prescribed by law to individuals;

2. by the individual operations of individuals: for all his operations, and not only those by which he is directly referred to others, it is fitting for a man living in society to refer to the common good, according to the principle: the part is for the sake of the whole. "All," says St. Thomas, q. 58, a. 5, "who are contained under some community are compared to the community as parts to the whole; but the part is that which belongs to the whole; whence also any good of the part is orderable to the good of the whole."

Hence although from every act of a particular virtue something flows back into the common good secondarily and mediately, insofar as the good of the part is indirectly also the good of the whole, nevertheless this is by accident when the proper account of each virtue is considered; and therefore "there must be another higher virtue, which (properly and per se) orders all virtues to the common good, which is legal justice and is another virtue by essence from every virtue" (q. 58, a. 6, ad 4).

There is an obligation of acting toward the common good: 1. special, a) if positive law prescribes something on account of the common good; b) likewise if in determinate circumstances to do or omit something is necessary to the common good, as can happen for the use of the right of suffrage: then the natural law obligates to this; 2. also general, by which not only is each one prohibited from harming the common good, but also he ought so to do all actions which he posits as a member of the community that they are at least virtually ordered to the common good of society: for the part as part is for the good of the whole.

265. The common good is the common temporal happiness of the whole society, or perfect sufficiency of life, duly subordinated to eternal beatitude: human well-being, or the harmonious plenitude of human goods, human good in plenitude and according to the proportion which human nature requires, perfect human good as it can be had on this earth.

But this consists principally in the good of human virtue, intellectual and moral. For since man is in potency to act, the perfection or happiness of man is in the act of virtuous operation, which, namely, is conformable to his rational nature. Hence essentially it is in those virtues which must be exercised for perfect human life, whether contemplative or active; integrally in the remaining sciences and arts; consequently in common friendship and peace, which connaturally follows from virtuous life; instrumentally in a certain abundance of external goods, whose use is required in a well constituted society. Hence St. Thomas, I-II, q. 4, a. 7:

"For imperfect beatitude, such as can be had in this life, exterior goods are required... as serving beatitude instrumentally, which consists in the operation of virtue. For man in this life needs the necessities of the body, both for the operation of contemplative virtue and also for the operation of active virtue, for which several other things are also required, by which he may exercise the works of virtue. The reason for this is that all exterior goods of this kind are either required for the sustenance of the animal body, or are required for certain operations which we exercise through the animal body, and which befit human life."

It should be noted that for the common good it is not required that it immediately touch all and each member of society, but it is enough if it regards all mediately and by redundancy. There is a twofold good of the republic: one which per se and immediately is ordered to the use of the whole community and is not under the dominion of anyone, such as temples, sacred things, magistracies, public roads, common pastures, etc. Another which immediately is ordered to private good, but secondarily and by a certain redundancy to the common good; and this in two ways: a) from the fact that each person is a part of the community, the good of each, provided it is not harmful to others, is for the advantage of the whole community; whence they say that it is expedient for the republic that citizens be wealthy and that no one use his own thing badly; — b) if the good regards the common utility of citizens of some order, or condition, or office, or place, etc., insofar as it pertains to the good of the republic that opportune provision be made for its diverse orders, conditions and offices, and for its individual parts and organs. For, as Leo XIII says, "among the not few nor slight duties of rulers consulting well for the people, this especially stands out: that they protect each order of citizens equably, preserving inviolate that, namely, which is called distributive justice."

The common good or perfect sufficiency of life is obtained in a perfect society. But the life whose perfect sufficiency is to be procured is twofold: eternal life, which is to be procured through the Church of Christ, and temporal life duly subordinated to eternal life, to be brought forth through the city and in the city; hence:

1. Legal justice exists in a twofold perfect society: namely, in civil society and in the Church.

2. But since relations among peoples become more frequent from day to day, and since for perfect sufficiency of human life and common peace international pacts are now made and required, indeed a certain society of nations has been constituted, legal justice must now be extended to the common good of nations; — indeed, even apart from special present-day conditions or human conventions, the whole of humanity seems to be considered as one society of rational beings under God, which is ruled by natural and divine law:¹ for if there were no civil society, there would still be the common good of humanity to be pursued. Hence the goods of individual nations must be subordinated to the common good of the whole of humanity.²

¹ I-II, q. 100, a. 5.

² Thus Fr. de Victoria; Suarez also seems to admit this, De Legibus, l. II, c. 19, n. 9. — Aptly Pius XI, in the encyclical Quadragesimo anno, May 15, 1931: "Indeed it is fitting that the various nations, by associated studies and labors, strive for this, that, since in the economic order they depend very much upon one another and need mutual help, they promote by wise pacts and institutions a certain favorable and happy conspiracy of peoples in economic matters." And below: "The public institutions of peoples themselves ought to conform the whole human fellowship to the necessities of the common good or to the norm of social justice; by which it cannot happen otherwise than that even that most grave part of social life, which is the economic order, return to a right and sound order."

3. On the contrary, in communities or particular societies it must be said that there is not properly a special legal justice, because those societies tend to some particular good, and do not regard or procure a common good specifically distinct from the good of the whole Church or city, but help procure it in a partial or particular way. Hence, since the particular good of these societies is a mode or part of the common good of the whole perfect society, the common legal justice suffices for ordering the acts of members to the common good of particular societies.

4. Specifically, it is not in domestic society, which constitutes something particular for the particular good of the members. For it is not a union of distinct persons, as citizens are united in the city; but each person is something of another: husband and wife constitute one principle of the generation and education of offspring; children are something of father and mother; servants with and under the master are one principle of operation for procuring the necessities of domestic life. Hence in the family there is not given a common good specifically and adequately distinct from the particular good of the members.

266. Corollary. — Since the end of society is the end itself of men, and the perfection of man itself, or the sufficiency of life, is the end to which the city, from the nature of things, is ordered, it follows:

1. Where in the city the citizens did not have aid for procuring for themselves sufficiency of life, the city would not obtain its end and would become useless.

2. Where the city itself stood in the way of the sufficiency of life to be procured, it would act against natural justice and would have to be fled rather than sought.

3. Where many citizens did not obtain sufficiency of life, and there were no other means for procuring it, not only the right but also the office of the city demands that it intervene.