Abstract
In the Western tradition of political thought at least since Plato and Aristotle wrote in ancient Athens, there has been a tendency to equate the notions of justice and common good. In Aristotle’s words, “the political good is justice,” which is “the common advantage” (Politics III.12). Few would take issue with the analogous but not identical claim that Augustine of Hippo would make centuries later, that where there is no true, common theory and practice of justice or right there can be no real res publica, no common-weal or community of shared goods and hence no genuine, lasting peace (see City of God IV.4 and XIX). Yet one may still wonder whether justice suffices for fully human common goods to subsist and for the persons, families, and other societies sharing in these common goods to flourish. Is attention to the truth of justice and its implications enough? If not, what other important sources and aspects of the common good should be understood, stressed, and supported?
This chapter was written for the conference “The Common Good for the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Individualism and Collectivism: A Sino-American Dialogue,” October 29–30, 2009, at the Center for Applied Ethics, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China. It was revised first for the second meeting of this working group on the common good, held at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, March 20–21, 2011, and again for inclusion in this volume. I am happy to thank the conference organizers, P.C. Lo of the Hong Kong Baptist University and David Solomon of the University of Notre Dame, for the opportunity to participate in this excellent collaborative project.
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- 1.
In earlier work I have argued for the connection between personal virtue and the common good, drawing especially from Aquinas’s studies of the virtues of justice, magnanimity, and humility (see Keys 2006). A review of that book noted that a key flaw was the paucity of consideration of the theological virtues, especially charity, vis-à-vis the common good (see Therrien 2007, pp. 378–379). Although I already intended to work more on charity and the common good, Therrien’s thoughtful comment underscored the value of this task. A forthcoming article co-authored with Rachel A. Amiri further addresses the social and civic value of the theological virtues from the vantage point of the writings of Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger): see Amiri and Keys (2012). Working with then-Notre Dame undergraduate Catherine C. Godfrey on her excellent senior thesis on mercy in political philosophy (Godfrey 2008) helped deepen my sense of mercy’s import as well, and so helped complete the theme of this chapter.
- 2.
Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologiae and other works in the Western medieval scholastic genre of the “disputed question” (quaestio disputata), a stylized dialogue and debate format. In this chapter all references to passages from the Summa Theologiae are given by volume number (in this reference, “I”), followed by question number (in this reference, “1”), and in most cases (although not in this reference) in turn followed by article number, which is at times followed with further indicators for specific sub-sections of that article (e.g., argument [argumentum] or objection, “obj.”; on the contrary [sed contra], “s.c.”; reply to argument or objection, “ad 1”). I quote in this chapter from the English translation made by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Aquinas 1981), modifying it occasionally according to my sense of Aquinas’s Latin, available on-line in Aquinas, Opera Omnia (2000), ed. E. Alarcon.
- 3.
Aquinas’s Latin for “love” in this question is chiefly the most general form, amor (cf. Proemium to I 20, “Primo, utrum in Deo sit amor,” and ff.); but the centrality of charity or love-caritas here is also apparent from the outset (cf. I 20, 1, s.c., quoting I John 4 and its famous line “God is love”, “Deus caritas est”). For recent studies of this central Christian teaching and its social and civic implications, see Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) (2005) and (2009).
- 4.
Cf. also Aristotle’s Metaphysics XII.7, 1072b 3–4 (in Aristotle 1984a, p. 1694), and the discussion of this text in Grant 1996, p. 515, for an analogous but not identical claim: that God as the first and unmoved mover causes the motion of and in the universe precisely by being loved, by being the object of love.
- 5.
For a detailed and very helpful discussion of the Biblical etymology of mercy, especially focusing on hesed and rahamim, two Old Testament Hebrew words commonly translated as misericordia in the Vulgate Latin Bible and as “mercy” in English, see John Paul II Dives in Misericordia (1980), note 52.
- 6.
In Rich in Mercy (John Paul II 1980) John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła) makes this point within the broad context of the Hebrew terms for mercy in the Old Testament, the meaning of which carries over into and is fulfilled in the New:
[I]n many cases [divine mercy] is shown to be not only more powerful than [divine] justice but also more profound. Even the Old Testament teaches that, although justice is an authentic virtue in man, and in God signifies transcendent perfection nevertheless love is “greater” than justice: greater in the sense that it is primary and fundamental. Love, so to speak, conditions justice and, in the final analysis, justice serves love. The primacy and superiority of love vis-à-vis justice—this is a mark of the whole of revelation—is revealed precisely through mercy. This seemed so obvious to the psalmists and prophets that the very term justice ended up by meaning the salvation accomplished by the Lord and His mercy. Mercy differs from justice, but is not in opposition to it, if we admit in the history of man—as the Old Testament precisely does—the presence of God, who already as Creator has linked Himself to His creature with a particular love (sec. 4; emphasis added).
- 7.
Cf. here Nigel Zimmermann (2009) on the phenomenological-philosophical and theological approaches of Emmanuel Levinas and Karol Wojtyła to “embodied self” and its moral significance.
- 8.
- 9.
For a thoughtful study of filial piety and the common good from a contemporary Confucian perspective, see Wang (2013). For a helpful analysis highlighting the importance of care in Aquinas’s understanding of justice, see Stump (1997); and for accounts of important rivals to Confucian understandings of care and common good in the history of Chinese thought, see Zhang (2013) on Mozi and Chen (2013) on Kang.
- 10.
- 11.
For a thoughtful analysis of the relationship between moral and legal justice and mercy see Floyd (2009). Floyd elaborates an important truth of Aquinas’s understanding of human mercy, its (at times, in justice) obligatory nature, that I have not been able to elaborate in this chapter. Floyd also provides a helpful review of literature on mercy in contemporary philosophy and religious studies.
- 12.
Cf. Aquinas’s parallel argument regarding the gift of wisdom which “corresponds” to charity: it is speculative and practical, able to assist in an eminent way to guide all a person’s contemplation and action (ST II-II 45, 3). For thoughtful studies connecting Aquinas’s virtue theory and especially his virtue of practical wisdom or prudence with the problem of excellent political leadership, see Chan (2013b) and Deutsch (2002).
- 13.
P.C. Lo (2013) draws a similar conclusion from the perspective of “Confucian ‘Habits of the Heart’” (my emphasis) and from reflecting on contemporary social and political realities in China today. For another interesting argument, overlapping with Lo’s but more confident that Confucianism can serve as the central source of deepened moral and civic formation in China today, see Fan (2013).
- 14.
Consider here Emperor Julian the Apostate’s failed attempt to retain charity in the service of the late Roman Empire’s welfare, while rejecting and marginalizing in the public square the Christianity from which, as Julian himself recognized, charity had been born and come into the empire to the great benefit of its people, especially the commoners and the poor. For an argument supporting the Confucian virtue of ren as better equipped than contemporary liberal theory to support care for the poor, see Chan (2013a).
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Keys, M.M. (2014). Why Justice Is Not Enough: Mercy, Love-Caritas, and the Common Good. In: Solomon, D., Lo, P. (eds) The Common Good: Chinese and American Perspectives. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7272-4_12
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