Friday, February 10, 2017

Note on the Common Good

The common good cannot be separated from the good of individuals in particular.  The good of individuals is a necessary element of the common good.  Persons who love humanity in general but have no use for particular human beings do not thereby advance the common good.  Subordinating flesh-and-blood human beings to ideology does not serve the common good.  Even when an individual interest must give way to the common good, the common good nevertheless does not steamroll and run roughshod over the interests of individuals.

So anytime you hear somebody advancing some position in the name of the "common good" which however does not take into account the good of individuals, or which advances only the interests of one set of individuals at the expense of, or in disregard of, those of others...then the common good is not really being advanced.

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