03/07/2026 15:00
- 17:10
HALL: Pola - Aula Magna
Contact:
Matricini B.
Chair:
Gabriel I.,
Stoeckl K.
The notion of the common good is back in public and academic discussion. Extensively used in classic political philosophy (Aristotle, Cicero) followed by the Catholic social traditions, Niklas Luhmann some time ago denounced it as "Old-European". And indeed, the social philosophy of Enlightenment in its liberal as well as in its Marxist versions discarded the notion of the common good. At present, the term is back and has become a flagship for authors who want to return to a pre-modern political philosophy, like Patrick J. Deneen who pleads for a common good conservatism, to which he devotes a whole chapter in his book Regime Chance (2023). To overcome the shortcomings of liberal (political) philosophy, he as well as others propose a 180 degree turn away from individualism which they (falsely) associate with individual rights.
These positions are of increasing political importance since they are taken up and even radicalized by nationalist and nativist politics which are in ascent in the West and beyond, the more since they are linked to earlier versions of nationalism using the slogan Common good before individual good (Gemeinwohl geht vor Eigenwohl was a widespread slogan in Hitler Germany). Though abusus non tollit usum, and the principle of common good being much older than its twentieth century usage, the urgent question that remains is how the individual good (of which human rights are an important component) and the common good, e. g. the good of all, are interrelated and how they are to be balanced in the contemporary political order. This requires the acknowledgment of a weak spot of political liberalism, which regards the common good as the simple sum of individual goods without a value of its own.
The panel is to discuss this from historical, social ethical and sociological perspectives. How do various philosophical-normative and religious perspectives integrate the common good in social philosophical discourse?
