The Thomistic Concept Of The Common Good

Abstract

As natural to man as any function of life, as natural as any manifestation of man's nature, has been the historical phenomenon of man coming together with man to organize into some type of society. This recognition by man of some inherent deficiency in his nature points to some form of social order. Aristotle's statement that man is by nature a political animal holds with great exactitudes man is a political animal because he is a rational animal, because reason requires development through character training, education and the cooperation of other men, and because society is thus indispensable to the accomplishment of human dignity. On the basis of such a beginning it will be evident that to treat of man as just an individual without taking into account his relations to the political community, would be to mutilate human nature and to deal with an abstraction, not with man as he is in his concrete existence. For there is not and never was a human individual independent of relations to a community. The nearest approach to the pure individual we have heard of was Man, and of him it was said: It is not good for man to be alone.