It's the majority, stupid

Does something become good just because many people do it or want that it be done? Is the majority the measure of all things? Is it the source of morality? Is it the final arbiter of what is good or what is bad? Does the majority decide what is the common good?

If the majority decides that anyone with a dark, or light skin for that matter, be confined to prison just because of the colour of his or her skin, will that be an action conducive to the common good? Don't we have rights that are intrinsically ours because we are humans and not because they are given to us by a majority? Is the majority answerable to nothing?

These are some of the questions that come to my mind following last week's blog on "Doing the decent thing .... Decently." The blog elicited very few comments in contrast to several of my recent blogs that made it to the top two posts of the Most Commented category. However it elicited three very interesting and challenging comments from Etienne Bonanno.

He wrote:

"I would have thought that in a democracy, the populist will is taken to be the common good by default. Otherwise who decides what the common good happens to be? The party in power? The church? The finance capitalists? Within which context should the "common good" be evaluated? Is there such a thing as a "common good"?

Failing to take the populist vote as the closest approximation possible to the "common good", how does that make such a system different from a dictatorship?"

I would like to dialogue more than discuss these points with Mr Bonanno, and with anyone else who cares to join in this search for an answer or tentative answer to the above questions. I will put forward the position of the tradition I belong to and believe in hoping that others would do the same for their own philosophical or religious tradition.

A Utilitarian approach

Those who adopt a utilitarian approach look at the common good as that which represents the greatest possible "good" for the greatest possible number of individuals. Mr Bonanno seems to belong to this school of thought. Their argument would run along these lines: Define the private interest of individual "A". Add the number of persons who would consider that as their own their private interest as well. If the number happens to be a majority, then, hey presto, one has the common good.

If the interests of that majority changes then the common good changes as well. In this perspective, the common good does not have an intrinsic grounding. It depends on the shifting will (or whim) of the majority.

Let us consider this example. Citizen "A" believes that having a slave is in his or her private interest. The numbers of citizens who share this view are a majority. Therefore, slavery is for the common good. It becomes the law of the state.

This positivist approach considers that rights can be given or denied as the majority decrees. This position is defective as it does not consider, for example, the rights of the minority who then are made slaves. The dictatorship of the majority can be as cruel and heartless as the dictatorship of the minority. The majority is not necessarily right.

Being human includes having rights

The tradition I come from takes a different perspective.

Every human being has rights because he or she is a human being. Our rights are enshrined in our nature. They are not granted by the pleasure of the majority and so they cannot be withdrawn by a different majority. If a majority decides to take away any of anybody's basic human rights the majority will probably have its way as the majority has the de facto right to enact a law. However, that law would not be for the common good as it flies in the face of basic human rights. It is an abuse of the common good.It is in the interest of the majority to respect the rights of the minority, for example.

The "good" cannot, thus, be looked at as that which is most convenient at one particular point in time to a particular majority. The "good" is what will help each one of us live to the full our humanity. The person who becomes rich by selling slaves or by using their labour is not only offending the basic and inalienable dignity of the slaves. He or she is also offending his or her own dignity. The dignity of every one of us is fully respected only when the dignity of others is also fully respected.

I cannot be fully free when others are denied their freedom. Solidarity is not a slogan but a constitutive element of our being human. The common good is, therefore, that which promotes the ultimate good of all and not that which finds the support of a particular majority at a particular point in time though it denies basic rights. Human nature more than positivistic decisions should be the locus for the search and discovery of the common good.

The Catholic position

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the common good "is to be understood as the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily. The common good concerns the life of all" (para 1906).

It then outlines three essential elements of the common good. It includes:

i. respect for the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person and for the exercise of the natural freedoms indispensible for the development of the human vocation, such as the right to act according to a sound norm of conscience and to safeguard . . . privacy, and rightful freedom also in matters of religion.

ii. the social well-being and development of the group itself. Authority should make accessible to each what is needed to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education and culture, suitable information, the right to establish a family, and so on.

iii. The common good requires peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order.

Concrete problems and difficulties

There are problems and difficulties. Let me outline just a few:

i. In a pluralistic society, it is difficult to arrive at a consensus about the best way forward for people to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily. How are we to proceed in such circumstances?

ii. What are we to do with the so-called "free riders", i.e. those who take the benefits that the common good provides while refusing to do their part to support the common good?

iii. How can one promote the common good in a culture imbued with the spirit of individualism? How can one persuade people to sacrifice some of the things which guarantee their self interest for the good of others?

I have not answered all the questions I myself have put forward. The dialogue that these questions can evoke lies interestingly wide open.