What is the 'common good,' anyway?

My social media feeds have recently been full of discussions of "the common good." It is mostly driven by advocates of "classical liberalism" or libertarianism, who essentially negatively equate common good with something like totalitarian collectivism.

And, of course (it's social media after all), defenders of common good have been energetic in their replies. The problem, however, is that these two groups are talking past one another. This is largely because "the common good" is so difficult to define, even in Church documents such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

As a threshold matter, the common good is a non-negotiable aspect of the Church's moral teaching, as one of the four pillars (with dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity) of Catholic social doctrine. "Gaudium et Spes" explains that the "political community exists … for the sake of the common good, in which it finds its full justification and significance, and the source of its inherent legitimacy."

The Catechism describes common good as "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily." This fulfillment, of course, is not met merely by the attainment of material goods.

Certainly, for the common good to be achieved, certain levels of material wealth and economic vitality are required. Some quantifiable goods such as access to housing, health care, education, nutrition and leisure to worship are necessary constitutive elements of common good. But common good is not achieved merely by the attainment of a minimum level of material prosperity. It cannot be reduced to a calculation or spreadsheet.

Nor is common good simply the measure of the distribution (or redistribution) of wealth. Significant disparities of wealth may be an indicator that common good has not been achieved in a particular political economy. And certain tools for regulating wealth accumulation or effecting redistribution may be necessary constitutive elements of common good.

But absent a host of other goods -- some quantifiable and some not -- merely redistributing wealth to achieve something like relative equality will not achieve common good. Common good is not simply another name for some goal of the welfare state or a result of redistributive regulatory structures.

Perhaps the best we can do, then, is describe aspects of our lives together that are consistent with dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity -- the other three of the four pillars of Catholic Social Doctrine -- and conclude that the extent to which we can achieve policies consistent with those values, we have approximated common good.

Put another way, perhaps the best way to define common good is as a state of affairs in which dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity are acknowledged and approximately achieved.

To define common good in this way is a concession to both hurdles above. But it is still a useful definition. If, theoretically, we live in a society in which true visions of dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity are observed and achieved, it seems almost necessarily to follow that common good would obtain.

Because the good is "common," it cannot be diminished by being shared. The social conditions by which the human person is able to pursue fulfillment must be the same for all, or else it is not common.

Nor is it divisible, as though some people may have a greater quantity of "common" good than others. To be sure, common good may be approximated even in the presence of some degree of inequality. But common good itself -- and the minimum social conditions that make it possible -- must be available to all. This is the mandate for all persons to work for the good of others as though it were our own good.

If common good is truly common -- and if it is not diminished by being shared -- then we all have a moral mandate to pursue it for others as though as for ourselves. When it is (approximately) achieved for one, it is no less achieved for all.

Moreover, if common good is the achievement of the conditions for true human fulfilment, some laws, policies and public institutions can never be compatible with common good.

Euthanasia, abortion, contraception, torture, pornography, prostitution, surrogate parenting, capital punishment and restrictions on freedom of religion, assembly, and travel are all detrimental to authentic human fulfilment and flourishing.

While some of these things will always be subject to democratic compromise, the requirements of common good give us Catholics a mandate to work toward changing hearts, minds, laws and regulations, such that they are more consistent with genuine human development. One cannot simultaneously be committed to the common good and affirm any of these social maladies. And that's a start.