NOTES 50. I say "political common good" because in one meaning of the phrase "common good" happiness is a common goodÑa good common to all men because they are specifically the same in nature. The political common good is also a good which is common in that sense, but, in addition, when the phrase "common good" is used in the restricted political sense, it means the goodness of the political community as such. In what follows, I shall use the phrase "common good" only in this restricted sense to mean "the welfare or well-being of the community itself."
51. I undertook the dialectic of morals as an effort to overcome moral skepticism and hedonism on the part of contemporary students. See Chapter I. As I pointed out, skepticism about the objectivity of moral truths necessarily leads to the adoption of realpolitik, which is skepticism about the objectivity or universality of political principles. See note 9. Furthermore, just as the student who is a skeptic about moral matters is also usually a hedonist in his explanation of moral phenomena (i.e., the facts of preference), so those who adopt the position of realpolitik are usually advocates of totalitarianismÑeven if they would be shocked to discover this. Even those who think they oppose totalitarianism, because they magnify the "rights of the individual," affirm its basic tenets when they claim that all "moral values" are relative to the mores of the community, for then there are no independent moral criteria by which the community itself can be criticized as good or bad. Furthermore, just as hedonism is the error of converting a partial good into the whole good (treating pleasure as if it were happiness), so totalitarianism is the error of similarly converting a partial goodÑtreating the State as if it were the absolute end. In the dialectic of morals, I did not attempt to criticize every variety of error in ethical theory, but only to answer the moral skeptic and the hedonist; so here, in considering the foundations of moral philosophy, I shall try to refute only realpolitik and totalitarianism. Other fallacies in political doctrine can be readily corrected by anyone who knows the right principles.
52. See Politics, I, 2.
53. See Politics, 1, 2, 1252b 27-30. One point should be stressed, namely, that the acquirement of the moral virtues depends, as we have seen, upon good government. See Chapter VI. Wise regulations in the domestic community and just laws in the political community are indispensable as extrinsic, efficient causes for the production of the virtues in an inchoate form; and inchoate virtue is, in turn, a necessary stage through which the individual must pass in becoming genuinely a man of virtue, Furthermore, because man is not simply rational, because he is an animal, a creature of passions, reason needs external help in enforcing its own rule upon the appetites. The good which reason may truly apprehend exercises authority over his actions, but the authority is unsupported by enforceable sanctions. This is the essential defect of ethical eudamonism, for, considering the individual in isolation, the pursuit of happiness cannot be enforced: a man cannot impose extrinsic sanctions upon himself; he is not forcefully obligated to become happy; he is not duty-bound by risk of punishment. This defect is, of course, remedied by considering the individual in relation to his fellow men, with whom he is associated in the political community. Since other men, as well as himself, depend upon the common good for the pursuit of happiness, he is obligated to act for the common good; and his social duties, enforced by political sanctions, operate reflexively to support the rule of reason in his own private life. Purely moral authority being authority divorced from power, the good as apprehended exercises only moral authority over a man's actions; authority combined with power being effective sovereignty, the state exercises sovereignty over human life. SovereigntyÑand the obligations, duties, and sanctions which it institutesÑis indispensable in the moral order because man is not purely a creature of reason. There are, in short, two sorts of natural authority: the moral authority of a man's own reason, which imposes only intrinsic obligations upon his will and his acts, and the political authority of a sovereign (i. e., a man's community), which obligates him extrinsically, and enforces duties by sanctions.
Even political sovereignty, the theologian tells us, is not sufficient, when we consider man's fallen nature. Though virtue is the intrinsic principle of good acts, two extrinsic principles are required for the formation of virtue: direction (i.e., law) and help (i.e., grace). In making this point, St. Thomas means by law, not merely human law, but Divine law, proceeding from the sovereignty which God exercises over human life. See note 47.
54. As an unjust law is a law in name only, being really an expression of force, so a state not founded on the justice of its members is a state in name only, being really an organization of violence, in which some men dominate others by force and the others submit through fear. Though an association of men through force and fear may endure for some time, it lacks the unity of peace which prevails only when all the members work for a common good. When men are organized by violence, those who wield force exercise it for their private interests, and the rest are enslaved. (Of course, even the just society requires government with enforceable sanctions: those who do not act justly out of conscience must be compelled by fear of the law. See note 53.)
The definition of justice throws light on this point. As temperance is the habit of forgoing immediate pleasures for the sake of a greater good, as fortitude is the habit of suffering immediate pains for the sake of a greater good, so justice, as a special virtue, is the habit of not willing an excess of good for one's self at the expense of a diminished good for others. And justice, generally, consists of all the virtues directed simultaneously to the good of others and to one's own good through being directed to the common good in the fruits of which all equally share. "Justice," said Aristotle, "is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice is the principle of order in political society" (Politics, I, 2, 1253a 37).
55. Though the state appears to be a whole, of which its human members are parts, the goodness of this whole is not greater than the goodness of the parts, i.e., the perfection of their being by happiness. On the contrary, the goodness of this whole (i.e., the common good) is, along with other social goods, a constitutive part of happiness, even though happiness appear to be the good of a part (i.e., the perfection of a single human life). Though the common good be the good of a whole, i.e., the community, it is not the whole of goods, for that is happiness. There is nothing paradoxical about this when one remembers that the individual man is a substance, whereas the state is nothing but an accidental being. Just as the perfection of a man (happiness) is greater than the perfection of any of his powers (virtues), because the goodness of a substance in being and operation is greater than the goodness of an accidental being and a principle of operation; so happiness is greater than the common goodÑincluding it as a partial good, and subordinating it, along with virtue, as an end subordinates its productive means. (On the ambiguity of "common good," see Summa Theologica, I-II, 90, 2.)
Traditional statements to the contrary, suggesting that the good of the state is greater than the good of its members, as the good of the body is greater than the good of its parts, can be accounted for by the error of neglecting the fact that the state is not a substance, nor are its human members substantial parts of a substantial whole. Though the error is made by Aristotle (see Politics, I, 2, 1253a 19-24 and Ethics, I, 2, 1094b 7-10), though it is repeated by St. Thomas in places too numerous to cite, the source of the fallacy is in Plato's conception of the state by analogy with the soul, in the Republic. It is a profound historical misfortune that Aristotle, whose greatest achievement in metaphysics was the notion of substance, did not employ this notion to purify his own political thinking of Platonic reminiscences. This error, combined with a failure to understand the nature of temporal happiness, has led some scholastics to suppose that the State, or the common good, is the supreme temporal good, from complete subordination to which man can be saved only through his ordination to God and the supernatural good of eternal happiness. See Father John McCormick, The Individual and the State, in Proc. Am. Cath. Phil. Assoc., XV, pp. 10-21. Cf. J. Maritain, Freedom in the Modern World: pp. 49-53. Only religion can save man from totalitarianism. This may be true practically, but it is certainly not true theoretically, for by principles known through reason alone, we know that temporal happiness is the end which the state must serve, and that the natural perfection of man's life, as the end in the temporal order, subordinates the political common good, both as a constitutive and a generative means. This truth is not inconsistent with that other truth, namely, that under certain circumstances and in certain respects, the individual's well-being must be sacrificed for the welfare of the community, especially when the existence of the community is threatened by external aggression, the very fact that such sacrifice can be justified only by extraordinary circumstances indicates that normally the good of the individual is paramount.
56. See my paper, The Demonstration of Democracy, in Proc. Am. Cath. Phil. Assoc., XV, pp. 122-165; my answer to Dr. O'Neil, The Demonstrability of Democracy in The New Scholasticism, XV, 2, pp. 162-168; and a series of articles, by Father Walter Farrell, O.P., and myself, under the title, The Theory of Democracy, beginning in The Thomist, III, 3. Many of the points here barely indicated, concerning the nature of the common good and the character of temporal happiness, will be therein expounded with greater analytical detail than was possible in this brief statement.