scholarly journals Realism of Political Activity in the Teaching of Pope Francis

2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 143-156
Author(s):  
Janusz Szulist
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Unique Status

This paper presents an argument for political realism in response to the trends of populism and liberalism. Pope Francis emphasizes the need to restore a social order whose functioning would be judged from the perspective of the common good. The human person holds an overriding social value that is not subject to the laws of exchange. This unique status justifies selflessness of action as a long-term measure aimed at restoring social equity. In that context, education as a process of the formation of personality becomes synonymous with the process of humanization of the world, where the human person is increasingly conscious of his or her subjectivity. Conversely, the ideologies of populism and liberalism and the resulting systems aim to objectify the individual by catering to the lowest instincts and seeking immediate benefits. In his political reflection, Pope Francis draws directly from his encyclical letter Laudato si, and thus – indirectly – from the constitution Gaudium et Spes.

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 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.”

scholarly journals The impact of transformational leadership in improvement of the organizational capability

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Silvana Pasovska ◽  
Trajko Miceski
Keyword(s):  
Transformational Leadership ◽  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Power Bases ◽  
Organizational Capability ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

Transformational leadership has a major impact on the improvement of organizational culture and success. It affects change in cultural characteristics of the individual and improvement of human achievements in all areas, thus creating a long-term positive approach of a person. It results in positive transformation of a person and improvement of its potentials. The transformational approach has a capacity to make significant change both in individuals and in the organization through adaptation, expectations, aspirations, perceptions and values. Such an approach is based mostly on leader’s personality, his character, vision, the power to accept the challenge and on his own example.Transformational leaders are focused on the "common good" instead of their individual "power bases”, they are broad-minded and respect the interests of their followers. With such leaders people are willing to create and innovate and to work harder than expected,.The paper studies some views on transformational leadership based on charisma, innovation of the companies, producing success and building personalities with durable and unperishable values. This is empirical research on the image of organizations formulated through the statements of managers and employees and presented through tabular, graphical and calculated correlative values.

Public Service, Public Goods, and the Common Good

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerardo Sanchis Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Common ◽  
Appointed Officials

The proper provision of public goods by a well-functioning, impartial government is not the only thing necessary for attaining the common good, but it is essential. The economic view of the human person as a rational, self-interested maximizer has become pervasive in analyzing government dysfunction and is employed by international agencies to generate proposals to realign the economic incentives of government officials. But this mindset assumes and encourages self-interest and undermines idoneidad (suitability)—which includes integrity, motivation, and competence—as the most fundamental characteristic that must be demanded of both elected and appointed officials at all levels of government. The failure of public institutions in Argentina is employed as a telling example of such problems.

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.

Corporate Politics in the Public Sphere: Corporate Citizenspeak in a Mass Media Policy Contest

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 579-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Nyberg ◽  
John Murray
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Corporate Political Activity ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article connects the previously isolated literatures on corporate citizenship and corporate political activity to explain how firms construct political influence in the public sphere. The public engagement of firms as political actors is explored empirically through a discursive analysis of a public debate between the mining industry and the Australian government over a proposed tax. The findings show how the mining industry acted as a corporate citizen concerned about the common good. This, in turn, legitimized corporate political activity, which undermined deliberation about the common good. The findings explain how the public sphere is refeudalized through corporate manipulation of deliberative processes via what we term corporate citizenspeak—simultaneously speaking as corporate citizens and for individual citizens. Corporate citizenspeak illustrates the duplicitous engagement of firms as political actors, claiming political legitimacy while subverting deliberative norms. This contributes to the theoretical development of corporations as political actors by explaining how corporate interests are aggregated to represent the common good and how corporate political activity is employed to dominate the public sphere. This has important implications for understanding how corporations undermine democratic principles.

Solidarity, the Common Good and Social Justice in the Catholic Social Teaching within the Framework of Globalization

2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
Rochus-Antonin (Roman) Gruijters
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Person ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Academic Level ◽  
Religious Intolerance ◽  
Moral Perspective ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religious Problems ◽  
Globalized World

This article argues that when globalization is accompanied by such problems as religious intolerance, social injustice, poverty, disrespect for the human dignity and oppression, Catholics should address these challenges on a social and an academic level. The Catholic social tradition, as the single bearer of reflection on the meaning of the common good, envisions the idea of this common good in particularly useful ways by linking it to concepts of solidarity and justice. Furthermore, the Catholic Social Doctrine offers a vision of humanity which rejects intolerance and violence and proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person should be the foundation of a moral vision for society. In short, this article will expand how – from a Catholic intellectual and moral perspective on a globalized world – the concept of bonum commune can address contemporary social, cultural and religious problems.

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.

scholarly journals Health Care Today: Whom Do We Really Care About

2020 ◽  
pp. 002436392095166
Author(s):  
Brother Ignatius Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Human Person ◽  
The United States ◽  
American People ◽  
Health Care Needs ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Continuum

Health services in the United States, driven by moral relativism, technology, financial algorithms, present draconian threats to the ability of these services to respond to the health care needs of the American people. Critical moral issues must be addressed, resolved, and serve as the foundation for a renewed health care system that fulfills the call for the common good and provides services in response to the question “who do we really care about.” Millions of our brothers and sisters continue to join the ranks of the uninsured and unemployed. What is urgently needed is a fair, equitable, accessible, affordable, and, most importantly, an ethical system of health care where the dignity and freedom of the human person, across the continuum of life from conception to natural death, is once again recognized as the summit of the work before us.

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