Evening Ethics Discussion: The Common Good

What is the common good? Does it still matter today:

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/common-good/#SocJusComGoo
First published Mon Feb 26, 2018; substantive revision Wed Aug 14, 2024
In ordinary political discourse, the “common good” refers to those facilities—whether material, cultural or institutional—that the members of a community provide to all members in order to fulfill a relational obligation they all have to care for certain interests that they have in common. Some canonical examples of the common good in a modern liberal democracy include: the road system; public parks; police protection and public safety; courts and the judicial system; public schools; museums and cultural institutions; public transportation; civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech and the freedom of association; the system of property; clean air and clean water; and national defense. The term itself may refer either to the interests that members have in common or to the facilities that serve common interests. For example, people may say, “the new public library will serve the common good” or “the public library is part of the common good.” The terms “public good” and “common good” are sometimes treated as synonyms and at other times the modifier “public” is used to draw attention to the role of the state in the authoritative allocation of goods (see Section 2 for more detail)
As a philosophical concept, the common good is best understood as part of an encompassing model for practical reasoning among the members of a political community. The model takes for granted that citizens stand in a “political” or “civic” relationship with one another and that this relationship requires them to create and maintain certain facilities on the grounds that these facilities serve certain common interests. The relevant facilities and interests together constitute the common good and serve as a shared standpoint for political deliberation.[1] When citizens face various questions about legislation, public policy or social responsibility, they resolve these questions by appeal to a conception of the relevant facilities and the relevant interests. That is, they argue about what facilities have a special claim on their attention, how they should expand, contract or maintain existing facilities, and what facilities they should design and build in the future.
The common good is an important concept in political philosophy because it plays a central role in philosophical reflection about the public and private dimensions of social life. Let’s say that “public life” in a political community consists of a shared effort among members to maintain certain facilities for the sake of common interests. “Private life” consists of each member’s pursuit of a distinct set of personal projects. As members of a political community, we are each involved in our community’s public life and in our own private lives, and this raises an array of questions about the nature and scope of each of these enterprises. For example, when are we supposed to make decisions based on the common good? Most of us would agree that we are required to do so when we act as legislators or civil servants. But what about as journalists, corporate executives or consumers? More fundamentally, why should we care about the common good? What would be wrong with a community whose members withdraw from public life and focus exclusively on their own private lives? These are some of the questions that motivate philosophical discussions of the common good.

Let's talk reflecting on decisions in our political environment today.

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