The common good

Let me now mention a difference between my view of society and that of previous philosophers; it deals with the concept of "the common good."

In Christian philosophy and Theology, the teaching, as I have so often pointed out, has been that God has a "purpose" for each of us, a role that each of us is to play in his plan, which implies that there is some definite set of actions that is "what is really and truly good for us," and is what God sees (and therefore what is) our objective greatest good. This, of course, I see as the serpent masquerading as the spokesman for God--as I have also pointed out so often.

Now this notion that there is an act (or is a set of acts) which is objectively what my goodness consists in doing was around in ancient times, and it led philosophers like Plato and Aristotle to say that the function of society was to legislate these acts (in a small way in lesser societies, and in general in the society called civil society). Thus, the "common good" or "common welfare" of the members was one of the objects of society, in addition to the specific object (the common goal) for which the society was set up. The idea was that the legislation of society should look to how the members would be better off, and should legislate in such a way that the greatest number received the greatest objective benefit--of course, consistently with not doing any member damage. This ancient notion of the function of society carried through medieval times, right up to the time of John Locke, when the self-determination of the individual began to be stressed, and the seeds were sown that showed its inadequacy as a concept.

In the old days, it was assumed that the ruler of the society was like a wise father, and the members were like children, who did not know (as well as the father did) what was good for them. His job, then, was to guide them benignly to their objective happiness, and force them (always benignly) by legislation and therefore threats of punishment to do what was objectively good for them and would make them happy if they did it. Since they didn't realize what really would make them happy, they would go astray like sheep unless the wise father shepherded them.

But if you take my view, that goodness is at base subjective, because it rests on a self-created ideal which may or may not have anything to do with the way things are, and is necessarily (as a goal) always different from the way things are to some extent, then--I cannot stress it too much, because we have been so brainwashed--there is no meaning to what is "really" good for us and a "wise father" knows exactly no more about this subject than anyone else. The difference between a father and a child is that the child does not realize all of the effects of his acts, or that effects can't be prevented once the act is performed simply by not wanting them; the difference is not that the father has a more objective idea of what is good than the child.

Therefore, once you get a person into a situation where he can see the results of his actions and recognize their inevitability, then if he is doing something that to you seems a waste of his life, who are you to say that your notion of what is good is "better" than his?

I interject once again that right and wrong are not the same as good and bad; actions that are inconsistent with the agent are objectively so; actions that pretend that things aren't what they are are an objective pretense. But if a person sets up as a goal lifting weights and he has enormous musical talent, my contention is that it is not "objectively better" for him to study music and become an opera singer than to work on cars and go down to the gym three times a week and lift. If, on the other hand, a woman chooses to have an abortion because she doesn't want to be a mother, she's too late: she only becomes the mother of a murdered child; and if she knows that this is what abortion is, it doesn't matter what she pretends; she condemns herself to eternal frustration (from which she can be redeemed, of course).

In any case, the point here is that in my view there is no objective good that the "fatherly" ruler has any business imposing on us; and so the notion of the "common good" as traditionally understood has no place in a just society. If it is "good" for us to wear seat belts, then perhaps legislation could make them available to those who want to use them; but unless you can show some damage to anyone but the non-wearer, then the society has no business threatening punishment on anyone who doesn't wear them. This would be one case of the "common good" as traditionally understood; if everybody wore seat belts, fewer of us would die in auto crashes, and that's good. But is it better objectively than if we don't wear seat belts and have millions of driver-and-passenger miles with the comfort of being able to move around in your seat?

You see, there is no calculus by which you can compare the amount of "objective benefit" in 500 fewer deaths as opposed to the 250,000 miles of driving chafed and hampered by a seat belt which will bring it about. "Well, if it saves even one life, it's worth it." Is it? Is not dying the greatest of all goods? For you, perhaps. But what about others? The martyrs, after all, considered keeping their faith worth dying for. Ah, but they were looking at eternity. Well, shouldn't we all? Always? This life is not the only life; and so dying is not necessarily the worst thing that can happen.

Then how do you compare things like this? In the individual, there is no problem. You look at dying or being maimed, and you compare this with the discomfort. Depending on the likelihood you see in your being killed, and the discomfort in wearing the seat belt, you make up your mind. I personally always wear a seat belt, and I've got so in the habit of it that I feel uncomfortable without one in a car. But that is beside the point. The point is that the "goodness" and "badness" calculus depends on your notion of what you are, which depends on your choice, and is not something that applies to anyone but you.

All this by way of saying that I think that there must be a different interpretation of the "common good."

In my system, the common good of a society is the rights that the individual members have not given up in joining the society.

That is, the "common good" is essentially a negative concept which is to guide legislation; and it guides it in this way:

1. The society may never legislate any action which violates any right of any member of the society, however "beneficial" that action may be to however many other members of the society. If a member has a right, even an alienable right (one he can give up if he wants) which has not been given up as a condition of membership, then he cannot be forced by the society's laws to do anything that violates that right.

For example, government may tax people to see to it that those whose ownership of more than they need does not deprive others of necessities. But as soon as government taxes the rich more than enough to provide for the bare necessities for the poor, it is "doing good" and the rich then are forced to give to the poor more than what is necessary; so doing more than is necessary becomes necessary--which is a clear contradiction.

2. When society demands generous behavior of its members (as it does), then it must follow what I call the "Principle of Least Demand," that is it must choose the course of action that demands the least from the fewest number of people consistent with getting the job done. Otherwise, people again are threatened with harm if they don't do more than what has to be done by them. This means that the "common good" in the sense of "the greatest benefit to the greatest number" is exactly the opposite of what society is supposed to be promoting; and is the opposite of what I mean by the "common good." There is no common good; there is only the individual "goods" of the individual members of the society, and each of these are at base subjective, and a thousand subjectivities do not an ounce of objectivity make, nor do a thousand discrete individualities an ounce of "commonness" make--any more than the fifty individual goals of getting to Cleveland make the passengers on the bus have a common goal of getting there.

It follows from this that the paternalistic theory of government is wrong and is in fact degrading to the members of society, all of whom are adults, and each of whom is the only expert in what is "really good" for him. The only notion of the "common good" that makes sense, once we have asserted the subjectivity of goodness, is non-violation of rights.