4

WHAT IS THE COMMON GOOD?

Central to my analysis is the idea that communities, local and national, serve the common good. This idea provides an important antidote to the tendencies of fragmentation, a centripetal force to limit centrifugal forces. Some critics contest the very concept of a common good. This chapter grapples with these critics.

Jeremy Bentham, for instance, characterized the concept of community as “fictitious.”1 Margaret Thatcher stated, “There is no such thing as society.”2 Proponents of such individualistic ideologies see the good as individually defined and social direction as arising out of the aggregation of individual choices and preferences.

Communitarian ideas contest individualistic ideologies and take two major forms. Some are authoritarian, as found in many East Asian countries that extol social obligations and the importance of the common good and accord much less weight to autonomy and rights. Liberal or responsive communitarianism, the other major form, holds that people face two major sources of normativity, that of the common good and that of autonomy and rights, neither of which in principle should take precedence over the other. I subscribe to the liberal communitarian viewpoint and have contributed some to its development.3 This book draws on this social philosophy.

Some point to nations in which the common good has been allowed to dominate and trump individual rights as a reason to see it as a dangerous concept. For instance, Singapore has been characterized as an authoritarian communitarian state. The one-party government holds that individuals must make sacrifices for the betterment of the communal whole but makes short shrift of individual rights.4 The state not only limits individual rights but also influences citizens’ everyday choices. Japan also exerts strong pressure to serve the common good and fulfill social responsibilities, but this pressure is less often directed by the state and more often promoted through social processes. For instance, even an act as simple as placing your bicycle in the wrong place can result in public rebuke and a request to change your behavior.5

I am not denying that the concept of the common good, like most others, can be usurped and abused. However, given this risk, I see only more reason to stress that the common good can be balanced with commitments to individual rights, interests, and pursuits—rather than oppression. To call for a patriotic movement means ipso facto to call for formulating—or, more accurately, restoring while reformulating—conceptions of the common good, those of the nation.

The Common Good Defined

The common good (also referred to as the “public interest” or “public goods”) is the sum of those goods that serve all members of a given community and its institutions, including goods that serve no identifiable group, as well as those that serve members of generations not yet born.

For many economists, the common good is the aggregation of individual goods.6 It grows out of economic exchanges, and hence there is no need for the state to promote the common good.7 The term “the common good” is contested on a number of fronts. First, there are those who argue that it does not exist at all. Ayn Rand wrote, “Since there is no such entity as ‘the public,’ since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that ‘the public interest’ supersedes private interests and rights, can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.”8 Political scientists who adopt the assumptions of economics see little need for the concept of the public interest.9 These political scientists hold that in a liberal democracy, competition among interest groups—which reveal and are guided by the preferences of individuals (i.e., private goods)—gives rise to a public policy that maximizes general welfare. Critics of that view argue that discrepancies in wealth, power, and social status grant various groups varying measures of leverage over the government. As a result, public policy—based on interest group politics—does not serve the common good but rather the interests of the powerful groups.10

In contrast, communitarians hold that the common good encompasses much more than the sum of all individual goods. Moreover, contributions to the common good often offer no immediate payout or benefit to anyone, and it is frequently difficult to foresee who will be the beneficiaries in the longer run. Members of communities invest in the common good not because their investment will necessarily benefit them but because they consider it a good in itself, for example, defending the nation or nature. Economists do recognize that there are situations in which the market fails to provide “public goods” that benefit society at large, making government promotion of these goods legitimate.11 Such public goods include defense, basic research, and public health (e.g., fluoridation and vaccinations).12

A criticism of the common good from the left holds that the concept serves to conceal class differences in economic interests and political power so as to keep those who are disadvantaged from making demands on the community.13 However, the fact that a concept is abused does not mean that it is without merit.

Finally, several academic communitarians, in particular Michael Sandel and Charles Taylor, have shown that conceptions of the common good must be formulated on the social level and that the community cannot be neutral in this matter.14 Moreover, unless there is a social formulation of the good, there can be no normative foundation for resolving conflicts of value among individuals and groups.

To state that a given value is a common good of a given community does not mean that all the members subscribe to it, and surely not that they all live up to its dictates. It suffices that the value is recognized as a common good by large majorities and is embodied in law and in other institutions. At the same time, a value to which members merely pay lip service cannot qualify. This chapter will show that it is essential for solid analysis to consider the extent to which values are institutionalized as a continuous variable rather than as a dichotomous one. Some values are relatively highly institutionalized (e.g., marriages in the US in the 1950s). Others are largely aspirational (e.g., the belief that the US should promote democratic regimes overseas). The common good may be promoted and enforced by the state, but this is not necessarily the case. Indeed, often values are promoted by informal social controls, by peer pressures, and by communities.

Particularly important and challenging is my observation, spelled out elsewhere, that references to the common good should be read as if the emphasis is on the “common” and not on the “good.” For the following discussion, the main issue is whether a value is widely shared and institutionalized—not whether a particular ethicist would judge it to be morally good. Thus, for example, a society may define the common good as giving precedence to economic development over political development—or expect that all members adhere to a particular religion. Many may not consider it a good society, but it is the “good” the given society has formulated as its common good. Shared values unify; whether the resulting union is one you and I judge morally sound is a separate consideration. As I noted above, one should not automatically assume that communities are “good”; they are needed, but one needs to pass moral judgment about the kind of values they promote. This why I am not a communitarian but a liberal communitarian.

Several scholars oppose the kind of balancing approach here followed.15 They argue that rights are a common good, and hence the very opposition of the two goods—rights and the common good—that the balancing analysis presupposes is a false one.16 This view is held particularly with regard to freedom of speech, taking inspiration from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissent in Abrams v. United States that the “ultimate good,”17 both for the individual and society, is “better reached by free trade in ideas.”18 It is expressed in the Federal Communications Commission’s opinion that “the public interest is best served by permitting free expression of views.”19 Likewise, Scott Cummings points out that many believe that “strong protection for individual rights is itself advancing the public interest.”20

In response, one next notes that many common goods are not recognized as rights either in the US Constitution or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.21 There is no right to national parks, historic preservation, public health, or basic research.22 One can of course aspire to add these rights, but until they are recognized as such, it is best not to dismiss the normative claims for these goods because they are “merely” common goods and not individual rights.

Indeed, some common goods cannot be reasonably defined as individual rights.23 The National Archive in Washington, DC, houses the original copy of the Constitution. This preservation is a clear common good.24 However, to argue that individual Americans have a right to have the Constitution preserved is stretching the concept of a right to the point that it becomes meaningless and has no foundation, either in American core normative concepts or in legal traditions.

National Creed vs. Constitutionalism

Some consider the core of the American faith a commitment to abide by the law, to play by the rules, to support democratic government and individual rights. This is one key interpretation of what is called constitutionalism. This concept is an essential element of the core values the patriotic moment needs to shore up, but it is also woefully inadequate. We need a much richer, “thicker” set of core values.

Various conceptions of the American Creed get closer to what is called for. William Tyler Page wrote a version of “The American’s Creed” in 1917, later passed as a resolution by the US House of Representatives on April 3, 1918, that reads:

I believe in the United States of America, as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.25

Gunnar Myrdal provides a different version,

where the American thinks, talks, and acts under the influence of high national and Christian precepts, and, on the other hand, the valuations on specific planes of individual and group living, where personal and local interests; economic, social, and sexual jealousies; considerations of community prestige and conformity; group prejudice against particular persons or types of people; and all sorts of miscellaneous wants, impulses, and habits dominate his outlook.26

This much richer, thicker concept includes the ideas encompassed by constitutionalism but adds substantial values. These are needs to be continually revisited by moral dialogues. However, whatever is agreed upon needs to be reinforced for all citizens and be introduced to new ones, whether they are youngsters entering the school system learning the ways of their country or if they are immigrants. Civics education and national service are two ways to promote these core values, part of the much more encompassing agenda of the patriotic movement.

In Conclusion

Shared recognition of a common good can hold otherwise fractious societies together. However, members of the patriotic movement should be clear that the common good does not trump individual rights but, rather, provides a balance to these rights. National moral dialogues will provide the opportunity to develop an understanding of the common good—of the responsibilities patriots should foster and the rights that must be honored.