At a recent symposium on Franciscan values,
the presenters emphasized Francis's profound respect for the individual and his
willingness to form a community committed to sharing a life informed by vows of
poverty, chastity and obedience.
In the ensuing discussion, a member of the
audience sought to situate the distinction between respect for individuals and
a concern for community in the context of medieval ethical theories which
centered moral discourse in references to "the common good".
Clearly, the efforts by contemporary
Thomists to use references to "the common good" as a god-term in
moral discourse are designed to re-establish the authority of Aquinas in the
Catholic tradition. That authority is
crucial to their argument that a rational and purposive Creator inscribed an
objective moral order that can be discerned by the use of reaso—creation by a
rational and purposive Creator. But this
argument (and the authority of Aquinas) is undermined, irreparably, by
Descartes' geometrization of the universe, which made references to a
teleologically structure universe meaningless.
And it was further undermined by the way that modern champions of
individuality filled the hollow centers of their metaphors of individuality
with a voice of reason.
These metaphors are profoundly indebted to
the metaphor of a solipsistic individual generated by Descartes' methodical
doubt. More recently, they incorporate
Kant's abstract conception of the autonomous individual. Despite the role they played in deconstructing
the framework for inquiry forged by medieval Scholasticism, however, the fatal
flaws inherent in moral discourses centered in metaphors of individuality are
becoming glaringly evident. As Kundera
suggests, they have generated genuinely liberating moral discourses, but
discourses celebrating the autonomy of moral agents cannot voice a passionate
moral protest against violence or sterility.
In effect, they cannot provide grounds for rejecting the dictum, "Might
makes right" or countering Nietzsche's worship of an unrestrained will to
power.
Concern with the harsh fact that, too
often, might dictates what is right, inspired the Hellenic search for an
ethical theory which validated moral judgments and protests. Since Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle believed
that the city was the cradle and crucible of culture and civilization, they
recognized that any privileging of detachment over involvement ultimately
fostered eruptions of violence on the part of individuals who feel alienated,
isolated, abandoned or betrayed.
This context might seem to provide a
fertile soil for an ethical theory which invokes "the common good" as
its god-term. Clearly, the use of such a
notion would re-center a moral discourse previously dominated by metaphors of
individuality in a communitarian or participative existence, while welcoming
the ways that they empowered individuals whose voices might otherwise be
silenced. But the notion itself has a
hollow center which can be filled in incompatible ways by ethical theorists.
Hobbes' contract theory of society provides a
case in point. To present his version of
the social contract as universal and timeless, Hobbes posited a primordial
state of nature in which the absence of law implied a right of all to all. To populate this state of existence, he
stated, categorically and reductively, that human beings are rational
animals. As animals, they naturally seek
pleasure and avoid pain. Since the resources
at hand were always insufficient to gratify the desires of all fully, this
motivation generates a perpetual war of all against all. In this context, reason reveals that there is
only one way to introduce order amidst this chaos and security for all: all
reasonable beings always and everywhere agree to a social contract in which
they grant absolute power to a dictator irrevocably. And in this argument, Hobbes believed that he
had established his authority over the moral discourse advocated by medieval
Scholastics by showing that reasonable beings would see that the common good
required the constitution of such a society.
In the same vein, the rhetoric which
celebrates a laissez faire capitalism
also exploits the notion of the common good.
Thus, as the premise for the argument in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith assumed that reasonable beings
would seek to maximize the gratification of their desires. Implicitly, this thesis is centered in a
moral discourse indebted to the prophets who defined human existence as a quest
for a fully human and uniquely personal existence. Through its emphasis on the gratification of
desires, however, it fused a quest for the good with a quest for goods. And over the course of centuries, this fusion
found its way into the argument that any politically inspired intervention in
the operation of the economic system interferes with the operation of the
"invisible hand" which rules laissez
faire capitalism. As such, it delays
the coming of the kingdom.
(Addendum: Today, Republicans appeal to the workings of
the "invisible hand," not the prophetic proclamations that God's
moral will speaks in and through the cries of the dispossessed, the exploited,
the violated, the marginalized and the silenced. In sum, their rhetoric promises that a
capitalistic system allowed to operate without interference will ultimately
recover the paradise lost by Adam's sin.
Implicitly, they ask those who are exploited by the system to rejoice
that they are contributing to "the common good." And the more righteous among them proclaim
that the benefits they receive are their due and pretend that policies and
programs designed to benefit the disadvantaged merely enable the disadvantaged
to avoid honest work. In point of fact,
they embrace the dehumanizing and depersonalizing structures of an impersonally
operating system which they know how to manipulate.
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