scholarly journals Valuing Compromise for the Common Good

Daedalus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Gutmann ◽  
Dennis Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Common Mistake ◽  
Permanent Campaign ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common

Pursuing the common good in a pluralist democracy is not possible without making compromises. Yet the spirit of compromise is in short supply in contemporary American politics. The permanent campaign has made compromise more difficult to achieve, as the uncompromising mindset suitable for campaigning has come to dominate the task of governing. To begin to make compromise more feasible and the common good more attainable, we need to appreciate the distinctive value of compromise and recognize the misconceptions that stand in its way. A common mistake is to assume that compromise requires finding the common ground on which all can agree. That undermines more realistic efforts to seek classic compromises, in which each party gains by sacrificing something valuable to the other, and together they serve the common good by improving upon the status quo. Institutional reforms are desirable, but they, too, cannot get off the ground without the support of leaders and citizens who learn how and when to adopt a compromising mindset.

Desperately seeking the good society

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 636-654
Author(s):  
Gill Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Good Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
Northern City

Working towards the ‘good society’ is an important aspiration to hold, but equally its subjectivity complicates the realisation for all – each person’s view of what ‘good’ means in relation to society differs. The notion is also open to statutory appropriation and mainstreaming using rhetoric to suggest its centrality to governmental thinking, but the reality reveals policy and practice, which undermines the accomplishment of social justice and thus a good society. This paper seeks to explore this complexity through dissecting the processes of representation of the ‘good society’ in theory and in practice. The paper will argue that the ‘good society’ might be termed a doxic construct. Bourdieu used ‘doxa’ to explain how arbitrariness shapes people’s acceptance of their place in the world, the covert process is ‘internalised’, seemingly objectively, into the ‘social structures and mental structures’, producing a universal and accepted knowledge of something (Bourdieu, 1977 ). The possibility of difference is undermined; thus, the varied needs and contexts of people’s lived realities are consumed within prevailing normative narratives. Foucault (cited in Simon, 1971 : 198) referred to a ‘system of limits’ and Bourdieu (1977: 164) ‘ sense of limits’, both authors will assist in seeking to uncover how such invisible practices limit and constrain the imagining of possibilities beyond the taken-for-granted. The paper argues that community development can be a catalyst to challenge this invisibility by utilising Freire’s ( 1970 ) conscientisation, enabling people to recognise structural oppression to challenge the status quo. This paper will draw on examples offered within a northern city to build on Knight’s, 2015 research, which posed the question ‘[w]hat kind of society do we want?’, identifying, when asked, a hunger for change. The paper explores whether there is a desire to overturn the predominant individualism of the neoliberal era to reignite the notion of the common good.

scholarly journals The Common Good and the Egalitarian Research Imperative

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-174
Author(s):  
Alex John London
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Moral Claim ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Community Members ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
Central Claim

This chapter distinguishes two conceptions of the common good and argues that reluctance to embrace a research imperative grounded in the corporate conception of the common good is sound. In contrast, it is argued that the basic or generic interest conception of the common good grounds an imperative with two requirements: to carry out research that produces the information necessary to enable a community’s basic social systems to efficiently and equitably advance the basic interests of its members and to ensure that this activity is organized as a voluntary scheme of social cooperation that respects the moral claim of its constituent members to be treated as free and equal. A central claim of this chapter is that an imperative to improve the capacity of social institutions to secure the interests of community members can be reconciled with fundamental moral respect for the status of the individuals who make such progress possible.

scholarly journals The Common Good As A Social Debt and Patrimony of the Person

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Ilboudo SJ
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual

Aristotle’s statement that the individual human being is a social or a political animal can be misguiding if we understand it as meaning that relationships between the individual and the society are natural and obvious. Individual’s dream of autonomy and ruthless struggle to access to scarce resources on one hand and liberal and competitive societies where there is no room for “lame ducks” on the other hand, can make relationships between the person and the society conflicting and violent. The consequences can be marginalization from the social order or rebellion against it.How can we strive to make person-society relationships more integrative and fecund? In other words, what skills, social ethics as a field of Christian theology and Catholic tradition does provide for the social integration of the person and the awakening of his or her social responsibility?  This paper would like to suggest and defend that the concept of the common good is a common ground for the person and the society mutual flourishing. The paragraph 26 of Gaudium et Spes defines the common good as “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.” Interestingly also, Laudato Si’ builds up on the common good and defines it as “belonging to all and meant for all.” (Paragraph 23) In a more complex way, Thomas Aquinas elaborates the common good and locates it at the junction of distributive justice and piety as one’s love of his or her country. In the light of his thought, the common good as a dynamic interaction between the person and the society, becomes the cement of what Thomas Aquinas calls “civil communion.”

An economist in the public space

2017 ◽  
pp. 42-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tirole
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common

This third chapter of the book “The economy of the common good” considers the status of academic economists as public intellectuals. It discusses the pitfalls economists face when engaging in public debates, in providing expertise for businesses or governments. It also makes some normative claims as to the socially best form of interaction between economics and practice.

Integrative Curriculum

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Beane
Keyword(s):  
General Education ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Integrative Curriculum ◽  
The Status ◽  
Subject Areas ◽  
The Common

An integrative curriculum is intended to help young people organize and integrate their present experiences so that they might be carried forward for the benefit of both self and the common good. As such, this kind of curriculum has historically been proposed as a preferred design for a general education intended for all students, particularly in programs meant to promote democratic living and learning. An integrative curriculum involves arrangements and methods that engage students in identifying self and social issues, critiquing the status of society and the common good, planning for new learning experiences, accessing resources, researching and solving problems, communicating ideas, collaborating with others, and reflecting on the meaning and value of experiences. Crucial to the use of the term “integrative” is the idea that individuals do their own integrating. This definition distinguishes an integrative curriculum from “integrated” curriculum organizations, such as “multidisciplinary” or “interdisciplinary,” in which teachers and others correlate content and skills from two or more subject areas with the intention of illustrating connections among them or making their content more accessible and engaging for students. Use of an integrative approach has a long history tied to progressive and democratic arrangements in elementary and secondary schools. These include CORE Programs, the experience-centered approach to curriculum, and many problem-centered courses. At present, some integrated approaches are enjoying popularity, as are methods like project- and problem-centered activities that are historically associated with integrative approaches. However, the student-centered, democratic philosophy that partly defines an integrative curriculum approach has waned under pressure from bureaucratic subject-based standards, tests, and prescriptive curriculum plans.

The Common Good and Common Ground

2019 ◽  
pp. 34-51
Author(s):  
Jonathan H. Marks
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Responsibility Of Government ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
The Common

This chapter reviews the related notions of the common good, the public good, and the public interest. Although corporations can contribute to the common good, they are not guardians of the common good. That is the responsibility of government bodies and public officials. There may be reasonable disagreements about how to define and promote the common good. But policymakers should not conflate the commercial interests of powerful industry actors with the common good. Nor should public officials confound the common good and common ground. Finding common ground with industry ordinarily requires public officials to take off the table interventions that might promote the common good. Public health officials should expressly consider ways to promote the public health that may not create benefits for the private sector, and may even be inimical to the interests of industry.

Finding Common Ground for the Common Good: Compromise in Health Care

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (10) ◽  
pp. 926-928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Cleary ◽  
Sancia West ◽  
Farida Saghafi ◽  
David Lees ◽  
Rachel Kornhaber
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Good Compromise ◽  
The Common
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