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

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.