Medicine and the Common Good in the Aristotelian-Thomistic Tradition

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-144
Author(s):  
Kyle E Karches
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Alternative Conception ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Individual Good ◽  
Medical Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

Abstract Whereas bioethicists generally consider medicine a practice aimed at the individual good of each patient, in this paper I present an alternative conception of the goods of medicine. I first explain how modern liberal political theory gives rise to the predominant view of the medical good and then contrast this understanding of politics with that of Thomas Aquinas, informed by Aristotle. I then show how this Christian politics is implicit in certain aspects of contemporary medical practice and argue that Christians ought to draw more attention to this point in order to direct medicine toward the common good.

Aristotle on the Conditions for and Limits of the Common Good

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 625-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Liberal Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
External Goods ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
The Common ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

Contemporary debates over liberal political theory should encourage renewed investigation of the common good, and it is appropriate to begin by interrogating Aristotle's account. Aristotle argues that injustice stands in the way of the common good. Injustice is motivated by both overgrasping for scarce external goods, such as money, honor, and power, and by excessive desires. Aristotle argues that the common good requires a reorientation away from external goods to satisfying activities that do not diminish in the sharing. He sketches an analogical account of familial and political relationships that leads us to wonder what the political conditions are for the common good. Reflecting on these conditions not only points to the strict limits of the common good but also speaks to both sides in debates over liberal theory.

scholarly journals The Common Good As A Social Debt and Patrimony of the Person

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Ilboudo SJ
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual

Aristotle’s statement that the individual human being is a social or a political animal can be misguiding if we understand it as meaning that relationships between the individual and the society are natural and obvious. Individual’s dream of autonomy and ruthless struggle to access to scarce resources on one hand and liberal and competitive societies where there is no room for “lame ducks” on the other hand, can make relationships between the person and the society conflicting and violent. The consequences can be marginalization from the social order or rebellion against it.How can we strive to make person-society relationships more integrative and fecund? In other words, what skills, social ethics as a field of Christian theology and Catholic tradition does provide for the social integration of the person and the awakening of his or her social responsibility?  This paper would like to suggest and defend that the concept of the common good is a common ground for the person and the society mutual flourishing. The paragraph 26 of Gaudium et Spes defines the common good as “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.” Interestingly also, Laudato Si’ builds up on the common good and defines it as “belonging to all and meant for all.” (Paragraph 23) In a more complex way, Thomas Aquinas elaborates the common good and locates it at the junction of distributive justice and piety as one’s love of his or her country. In the light of his thought, the common good as a dynamic interaction between the person and the society, becomes the cement of what Thomas Aquinas calls “civil communion.”

What Can Economists Contribute to the Common Good Tradition?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Yuengert
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private Provision ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Insight Into

Although most economists are skeptical of or puzzled by the Catholic concept of the common good, a rejection of the economic approach as inimical to the common good would be hasty and counterproductive. Economic analysis can enrich the common good tradition in four ways. First, economics embodies a deep respect for economic agency and for the effects of policy and institutions on individual agents. Second, economics offers a rich literature on the nature of unplanned order and how it might be shaped by policy. Third, economics offers insight into the public and private provision of various kinds of goods (private, public, common pool resources). Fourth, recent work on the development and logic of institutions and norms emphasizes sustainability rooted in the good of the individual.

Can Communities Protect Autonomy? Ethical Dilemmas in HIV Preventative Drug Trials

1995 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Zion
Keyword(s):  
Advance Directive ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Drug Trials ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Gay Community ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Trial Participants

Before sailing past the sirens' “flowery meadow,” Ulysses instructed his sailors to lash him to the mast so that he would not succumb to the siren's singing. His advance directive demonstrated that he valued his dispositional or long-term autonomy over his unquestioned right to make decisions. He also indicated to his oarsmen that he understood the nature of temptation and his inability to resist it. Ideas of autonomy and sexual choice are central to this discussion of new AIDS treatments, especially the trials of preventative vaccines. Questions arise over the rights of individuals and the extent that these should be limited by concerns of the gay community. Should the gay community intervene in the risky decisions of individuals if no explicit advance directive exists? If so, how do they justify their paternalism? Could their aims not be better served through strengthening the individual dispositional autonomy of trial participants rather than making specific claims about the common good?

scholarly journals Thomas Aquinas’ influences inInfanteD. Pedro’ “Virtuosa Benfeitoria”: Scholastic tradition in History and History of Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Terezinha Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Social Project ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
The One ◽  
The University

The considerations on the book “VirtuosaBenfeitoria” aim atevaluating the relevance of a social project to guide the actions of the ruler and theindividuals, with a view to practical actions that converge to the common good. The infant D. Pedro, also known as the Duke of Coimbra, wrote the work. The central focus of the book is to address the sense of improvement and how the prince should practice and bestow it and how the subjects would receive and practice it. The arguments of D. Pedro to deal with the good and the society are strongly influenced by classical authorities and authors of scholasticism, especially Thomas Aquinas. In this sense, on the one hand our study seeks to show that such knowledge was essential for him to understand the plots that build human relationships, whose premises, to him, should be the ones leading society towards the common good;on the other hand, the goal is to analyze the work we regard as essential theoretical and methodological principles of history that allow us to recover, through memory, historical events that potentially guide us through paths that show the relevance of the Master of the University, as a vector in the organization of a given society. 

scholarly journals The Common Good in an Age of Moral Hyperpluralism: A Catholic Bioethical Perspective

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 345
Author(s):  
John Kleinsman
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Innovative Work ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Contemporary Account

This article will argue that the notion of the common good is imperilled by a particular contemporary account of the moral good; one which, because of its (somewhat narrow) emphasis on the individual, readily lends itself to a state of 'moral hyperpluralism' in which 'the good' is primarily defined in terms of the promotion and protection of self-interest. At the same time, it will be argued that any quest to recover the notion of the common good cannot be achieved by either returning to, or holding onto, a more traditional account of morality. It will also be proposed that, as part of the quest to recover the common good, close attention needs to be paid to how the term is understood. The tension between individual autonomy and the welfare of society, and the differing ways in which this tension is resolved within different moral paradigms, will emerge as central to any discussion about the ongoing place of the common good in contemporary legal and moral debates. Finally, it is suggested that a solid basis for articulating a robust account of the common good may be found in the foundational and innovative work being done by thinkers of the gift to establish an alternative account of morality. 

Ethics and Reality

1998 ◽  
pp. 150-155
Author(s):  
Alison Roberts Miculan
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Good For ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Way

One of the most pervasive problems in theoretical ethics has been the attempt to reconcile the good for the individual with the good for all. It is a problem which appears in contemporary discussions (like those initiated by Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue) as a debate between emotivism and rationalism, and in more traditional debates between relativism and absolutism. I believe that a vital cause of this difficulty arises from a failure to ground ethics in metaphysics. It is crucial, it seems to me, to begin with "the way the world is" before we begin to speculate about the way it ought to be. And, the most significant "way the world is" for ethics is that it is individuals in community. This paper attempts to develop an ethical theory based solidly on Whitehead’s metaphysics, and to address precisely the problem of the relation between the good for the individual and the common good, in such a way as to be sympathetic to both.

Relational Views of Humanness: The Reciprocity of Ontos and Telos

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-234
Author(s):  
Marcia Pally
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common

This article explores humanity’s ontology of relationality and telos of the common good as not only inseparable but mutually constitutive, drawing on the work of Thomas Aquinas and looking into the debates between Charles De Koninck and Jacques Maritain.

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