The Political Common Good according to St. Thomas Aquinas and John Finnis

212 Pages·2014·1.75 MB·English

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

The Political Common Good according to St. Thomas Aquinas and John Finnis

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the

Department of Politics

School of Arts and Sciences

Of The Catholic University of America

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

©

Copyright

All Rights Reserved

By

Patrick B. Bersnak

Washington, DC

2014
The Political Common Good according to St. Thomas Aquinas and John Finnis

Patrick B. Bersnak, Ph.D.

Director: David A. Walsh, Ph.D.

This dissertation concerns John Finnis’s interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas’s
understanding of the political common good. Finnis is the most influential natural law theorist in
the English speaking world today. His natural law theory has sought to respond to modern
critics of natural law theory and be identifiably Thomistic at the same time. In order to ground
his theory in the thought of Aquinas, Finnis produced an interpretive work on Aquinas’s political
thought, reconciling Aquinas’s understanding of the common good with his own views.
Nevertheless, his interpretation of Aquinas’s political thought has been controversial, especially
his interpretation of Aquinas’s understanding of the political common good. Finnis’s
interpretation of Aquinas is shaped by his method of approaching politics through practical
reason. He almost completely excludes consideration of the role that metaphysics and theology
play in Aquinas’s political thought until his final chapter. As a result, the relationships between
practical philosophy, metaphysics, and theology in Aquinas’s political thought are not fully
articulated. Finnis claims that Aquinas believed that the political common good is limited and
instrumental to fostering the justice and peace that individuals and families need in order to
pursue what he calls the basic goods. But Aquinas believed that the political common good is to
make men virtuous, which is conducive to happiness, and disposes them to contemplation.
Finnis argues that positive law promotes virtue only to the extent that it is necessary to secure
justice and peace. But Aquinas believed that law promotes natural virtue, which disposes man to
receive supernatural virtue. Human beings have a natural inclination to live in society, but not to
life in specifically political community, according to Finnis. He says that for Aquinas, man is
more naturally a familial or social animal than a political animal. But Aquinas says that man is a
political animal, probably because the fullest range of virtues are available to man in political
community. The political common good is therefore basic and good in itself.
This dissertation by Patrick B. Bersnak fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral
degree in Political Theory approved by David J. Walsh, Ph.D., as Director, and by Claes G. Ryn,
Ph.D., and V. Bradley Lewis, Ph.D., as Readers.

____________________________________
David J. Walsh, Ph.D., Director

____________________________________
Claes G. Ryn, Ph.D., Reader

____________________________________
V. Bradley Lewis, Ph.D., Reader

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Table of Contents

Abbreviations, Conventions, and Translations ................................................................................v

Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... vii

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1

Chapter 1: Thomistic Debates about the Common Good from De Koninck to Finnis ....................5
Introduction ...............................................................................................................................5
De Koninck on the Primacy of the Common Good ..................................................................6
Maritain on the Person and the Common Good......................................................................11
Simon on De Koninck, Maritain, and the Common Good .....................................................15
The Common Good in Finnis’s Natural Law and Natural Rights .........................................16
Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................21

Chapter 2: The Good and Goods ...................................................................................................23
Introduction .............................................................................................................................23
Common Goods in Aquinas ....................................................................................................24
The Metaphysics and Theology of the Good ..........................................................................26
Ontological Good and Moral Good ........................................................................................32
Knowing the Good: Practical and Speculative Reason in Finnis and Aquinas ......................33
Basic Human Goods and Natural Inclinations ........................................................................40
Practical Reason and the Basic Good of Religion ..................................................................43
Analogy in Aquinas’s Political Thought.................................................................................48
Parts and Wholes: Man and the Universe ...............................................................................49
Divine Rule, Human Rule .......................................................................................................50
Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................54

Chapter 3: The Political Common Good .......................................................................................56
Introduction .............................................................................................................................56
Public and Private Good .........................................................................................................56
The Intrinsic Political Common Good: Parts and the Whole .................................................65
Particular Goods......................................................................................................................67
The Specifically Political Common Good and the Common Good of the Political
Community .............................................................................................................................70
Peace .......................................................................................................................................72
Justice ......................................................................................................................................75
Punishment and Social Coordination ......................................................................................80
The Functioning of Law and the End of Political Life ...........................................................88
The De Regno .........................................................................................................................90
The End of the Political Community in the De Regno ...........................................................96
Happiness and Virtue ............................................................................................................100
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Contemplation .......................................................................................................................110
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................113

Chapter 4: Law and Virtue ...........................................................................................................117
Introduction ...........................................................................................................................117
The Aims of Human Law and Divine Law ...........................................................................117
Human Law, the Virtues, and Interior Acts of the Will........................................................120
Justice, Peace, and Complete Virtue .....................................................................................126
Law and Virtue in the “Treatise on Law” .............................................................................127
Public Morality: Education and Religion .............................................................................134
In What Ways Is the Political Common Good Limited? ......................................................143
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................148

Chapter 5: Is Man a Political Animal? .........................................................................................149
Introduction ...........................................................................................................................149
Man as a “Conjugal Animal” ................................................................................................150
Reproduction, Marriage, and the Natural Inclinations..........................................................158
Man as Social Animal: Societas and Friendship...................................................................162
Self-Sacrifice for the Common Good ...................................................................................170
The State of Innocence..........................................................................................................174
Man as Political Animal........................................................................................................176
Political Community and the Virtues ....................................................................................179
Is the Political Common Good a Basic Good? ....................................................................186
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................187

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................189

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................194
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Abbreviations, Conventions, and Translations

Abbreviations

a. article

ad response (to an objection)

co. corpus

chap. chapter

d. distinction

1ect. lectio

lib. liber

n. paragraph number (in a commentary)

obj. objection

prol. prologue

q. quaestio

Works of Aquinas

Coll. Collationes in decem precepta (Commentary on the Ten Commandments).
English translation: Collins (1939).

Comp. Compendium Theologiae ad fratrem Reginaldum (A Compendium of Theology).
English translation: Vollert (1947).

Contra Imp. Contra Impugnantes Dei Cultum et Religionem (Against the Impugners of
Religious Life). English translation: Proctor (1902).
DR De Regno ad regem Cypri (On Kingship to the King of Cyprus). English
translation: Phelan (1949).

Eth. Sententia Libri Ethicorum (Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics).
References are to the book, lectio, and paragraph number. English translation:
Litzinger (1964).
v
Malo Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo (Disputed Questions on Evil). English
translation: Regan (2003).

Meta. Sententia super Metaphysicam (Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics)
English translation: Rowan (1961)

Perf. De Perfectione Spiritualis Vitae (The Perfection of the Spiritual Life). English
translation: Proctor (1902).

Pol. Sententia Libri Politicorum (Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics to Book III,
chap. 5, 1280a6). English translation: Regan (2007).

Pot. Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia (Disputed Questions on the Power of God).
English translation: English Dominican Fathers (1952).

Quodl. Quaestiones de Quodlibet (Disputed Questions). English translation: Edwards
(1983).

Rom. Commentarium super Epistolam ad Romanos (Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter
to the Romans).

Sent. Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardiensis (Commentary on the
Sentences of Peter Lombard). References are by book, distinction, question, and
article.

ScG Summa contra Gentiles (Summary against the Pagans). References are by book
and chapter number. English translation: Pegis, Anderson, Bourke, and O’Neil
(1955-57).

Spir. creat. Quaestiones Disputatae de Spiritualibus Creaturis (Disputed Questions on
Spiritual Creatures). English translation: Fitzpatrick and Wellmuth (1949).

ST Summa Theologiae (Summary of Theology). References are by are to the parts,
question, article, corpus, reply, and to numbered objections. English translation:
English Dominican Fathers (1948).

Sub. De Subtantiis Separatis (Treatise on Separate Substances). English translation:
Lescoe (1959).

Supp. Supplementum (A Supplement to ST, posthumously constructed from IV Sent.)

Ver. Questiones Disputatae de Veritate (De Veritate: Disputed Questions on Truth).
English translation: Mulligan, McGlynn, and Schmidt (1952-54).
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Virt. Quaestiones Disputatae de Virtutibus (De Virtutibus: Disputed Questions on the
Virtues). English translation: McInerny (1999).
Conventions

For the sake of clarity, when referring to a chapter of my own work, I use Arabic numerals, but
when referring to a chapter of Finnis’s Aquinas, I use Roman numerals.

Translations

Unless otherwise noted, translations have been drawn from the translations cited above. When I
have used another translation, it is indicated in the footnotes. When I have modified a
translation, this is indicated in the footnotes.
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Acknowledgements

I should first thank my adviser, Dr. David Walsh, for suggesting this topic as a way of
learning as much as possible about St. Thomas Aquinas while keeping my work focused as
narrowly as possible and speaking to the contemporary relevance of his thought in the work of
John Finnis. Gratitude is also due to my two readers, Drs. Claes Ryn and V. Bradley Lewis. Dr.
Lewis’s familiarity with the material kept me from many mistakes and helped me better
appreciate the subtlety of Finnis’s thought. Brian Fox, Steven Brust, and John Cuddeback all
read chapters and offered valuable comments. Brendan McGuire helped me with Latin
translations. Naturally, responsibility for the faults of this work are entirely my own.
I would like to thank the Department of Politics at the Catholic University of America for
its financial support. Christendom College has employed me teaching political theory full-time
for eight academic years now, so I should thank the College for its patience while I worked
toward finishing my degree. My Spring 2013 sabbatical was of incalculable importance in
allowing me to work on the dissertation. Thanks to the Vice President for Academic Affairs,
Steven Snyder, for making sure that I got it at a time when I needed it. Anne Thomas of the St.
John the Evangelist Library at Christendom helped me obtain many resources through
interlibrary loan.
I thank my wife, Tara, for her unstinting support while I worked on this project, and
finally, I thank God, Who answered my prayers in giving me the grace to finish it.
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