The Writings of Charles De Koninck: Volume 2

ON THE COMMON GOOD

O  C G Review of The Primacy of the Common Good MN Yves R. Simon  DeKoninck-03 5/13/09 3:50 PM Page 165 DeKoninck-03 5/13/09 3:50 PM Page 166 MN Of all the philosophical investigations which may throw light on our political , social and moral problems, none is more badly needed and eagerly demanded than a thorough study of the concept of common good. To achieve such a contribution, nobody is better qualified than the young and profound philosopher who heads the Laval School of Philosophy. On the other hand, there is little doubt that the various“personalistic”schools, which have been noisy in the last twelve years or so, shelter quite a few trends of such a nature as to jeopardize the primacy of the common good. Cardinal Villeneuve, in his preface to De la primauté du bien commun contre les personalistes, stresses felicitously both the timeliness of a sound doctrine of the common good and the urgency of a criticism of those “personalistic” trends. It cannot be said that De Koninck’s book meets our expectation. It cannot be said, either, that it brings about disappointment. The truth is that the present volume is by no means a book on the common good. It contains only a short essay on that topic ( pages). The rest of the volume is made up of an essay on The Principle of the New Order and a few notes in which the writer describes philosophical and theological errors that he perceives at the root of the calamities of our time. Considering, accordingly, that we have to do, not with a book, but with a short essay, let us say that De Koninck has outlined, with unusual profundity and accuracy, the main aspects of a theory of the common good. It would be unfair to blame such a brief treatment for what we do not find in it. We do find in it a most valuable contribution to the definition of the common good and to the vindication of its primacy. Here is a survey of the main doctrinal points treated by De Koninck. . If the common good were merely a collection of private goods, its excellence would be merely material. The genuine principle of its excellence is its communicability. “The common good is greater [than the private good] for every being which participates in it, inasmuch as it is communicable to other particular beings” (p. ). . The common good of a multitude is the good of every member of the multitude. If it were merely the good of the multitude itself, considered  DeKoninck-03 5/13/09 3:50 PM Page 167 as a kind of individual entity, it would not really be common. Let us not say, for instance, that the species seeks its own good against the natural desire of the individual; let us say, rather, that the individual itself naturally seeks the good of the species more than its private good. Accordingly, the common good is not by any means a bonum alienum. . Rational creatures, on the ground of their ability to grasp the allembracing concept of being, are capable of relating themselves actively, through knowledge and love, to the common good of the whole universe. Rational natures are distinguished by the incomparably greater intimacy, as well as by the loftiness, of their relation to the common good (pp. ‒ ‒). . Loving the common good in order to possess it is not loving the common good as such. That kind of love for the common good characterizes tyrants. A society made of people who all love the common good that way would be a society of tyrants (p. ). . The subordination of the temporal common good to the supernatural good should not be mistaken for the subordination of a good that is common to a good that is private; the higher good to which all temporal good is subordinated is itself a common good (p. ).“The supernatural good of the individual person is essentially subordinated to the supernatural common good, in such a way that it is impossible to distinguish between the supernatural virtue of a man and the supernatural virtue of the same man considered as part of the heavenly city” (p. ). So much for the doctrine outlined by De Koninck.It calls for many specifications and further developments, but it constitutes a very sound foundation for any further development of the theory of...