Pursuing the Common Good (3): Pierpaolo Donati’s relational vision of the common good

Donati writes from within the tradition of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and aims to push it towards a more radical relational understanding of its concept of the common good. The following are excerpts from his written contribution: For the Proceedings of THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, XIV Plenary Session, 2-6 May 2008. Prospects (working paper): Discovering the Relational Character of the Common Good. Pierpaolo Donati, University of Bologna and PASS

Donati:

If the good is a common object, it is because the individuals who share it also have certain relations among them. If it is a good (in a moral sense), this is because people relate in a certain way to such an object and also to one another.

In short: a good is a common good because only together can it be recognized and acted upon (generated and regenerated) as such, by all those who have a concern about it. At the same time, it must be produced and enjoyed together by all those who have a stake in it. For this reason, the good resides within the relations that connect the subjects. Ultimately, it is from such relations that the common good is generated. The single fruits that every single subject may obtain derive from each being in such a relationship.

The relational definition of the common good highlights those fundamental qualities that are obscured by proprietary definitions, previously mentioned .

We realize that the common good has its own inalienable nature, resting upon the relations existing among those sharing it, because it preserves the foundations of the social bond. But the sharing must be, and is, indeed, voluntary. It has not, and cannot have, a character reliant upon force. Precisely because the common good has a relational character, it resides in the mutual actions of those who contribute to generating and regenerating it.

Should the social link break, there would be a collapse of the qualities of the people sharing it, since human qualities depend on the link itself. Only if we see the common good as a relational good, can we understand its inner connection with the human person.

That is exactly what is stated by the Catholic social doctrine.

As a matter of fact, the social doctrine of the Church proposes a concept of the common good that is quite different from economic and political versions of it. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC n. 1905-1912) and in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (CDS n. 164-170) a vision of the common good is outlined, according to which:

(a) the common good is the social link joining people together, on which both the material and non-material goods of individuals depend (as the CDS n. 165 states: «The human person cannot find fulfilment in himself, that is, apart from the fact that he exists “with”others and “for” others. This truth does not simply require that he live with others at various levels of social life, but that he seek unceasingly – in actual practice and not merely at the level of ideas – the good, that is, the meaning and truth, found in existing forms of social life. No expression of social life – from the family to intermediate social groups, associations, enterprises of an economic nature, cities, regions, States, up to the community of peoples and nations – can escape the issue of its own common good, in that this is a constitutive element of its significance and the authentic reason for its very existence».

(b) the common good does not consist either in a state of things, or in a sum of single goods, or in a prearranged reality, but it is «the whole conditions of social life that allow groups, as well as the single members, to completely and quickly reach their own perfection » (Gaudium et Spes, 26); in particular, it consists in the conditions and exercise of natural liberties, which are essential for the full development of the human potential of people (e.g. the right to act according to the promptings of one’s conscience, the right to the freedom of religion, etc.);

(c) in brief: the common good represents the social and community dimension of the moral good; the common good is the moral good of any social or community relations («The common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains “common”, because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard to the future. Just as the moral actions of an individual are accomplished in doing what is good, so too the actions of a society attain their full stature when they bring about the common good. The common good, in fact, can be understood as the social and community dimension of the moral good.»: CDS n. 164).

Therefore, the social doctrine of the Church is critical towards materialist, positivist and utilitarian objectifications (reifications) of the common good. Its picture of the common good openly clashes with the ‘proprietary and utilitarian’ picture given by the ideas prevailing today. It appeals to reasons based on the fundamental sociability of human beings.

From this sociability, it draws conclusions that mean the common good cannot be confused with concepts whose similarity is only apparent, such as concepts of the collective good, of aggregate good, the good of the totality, vested interests, general interest and so forth. With that, the social doctrine preserves a potential for critique and for the advancement of human emancipation that modern and postmodern thought seem to have lost or relegated to the fringe of society.

A development of the social doctrine is required that takes into account globalized society’s great differentiation into spheres, which are more and more distinct and articulated among themselves, both at an infra-state and at a supra-state level. The common good becomes a responsibility not only of individuals and of the State, but also – in a completely new way – of the intermediate social bodies (‘civil societarian networks’) now playing a fundamental role in mediating the processes by which the common good is created. These are no longer solely bottom-up (realization of the common good though movements that come from below) and top-down (the creation of the common good by the State and then spreading downwards to the grassroots), but are also horizontal and lateral processes that depend neither upon the State nor upon the Market.

Summing up what has been said so far, the common good is not the result or the sum of the individuals’ actions, because it is a reality exceeding individuals and their products. On the other hand, it is not an “already given whole”, possessing inner properties and powers, making it indivisible and not commodifiable. It has an ontological status by virtue of its fruits because, without the common good, those fruits could not exist. But people can always make it divisible and commodifiable. When they do so, they destroy the common good and consequently the community ceases to exist.

The common good belongs to that reality which is relational in character («Life in its true sense … is a relationship», affirms Benedict XVI in the encyclical Spe Salvi, n. 27).”

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