The 2021 Center for Ethics and Culture Conference at Notre Dame featured several discussions which helped clarify where Catholic thinkers are, and whither we are tending. The theme of the conference was “Human Dignity in a Secular World”; the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre added to that title with his lecture, “Human Dignity: A Puzzling and Possibly Dangerous Idea?” MacIntyre rightly pointed out that “dignity” is a popular but ambiguous term that people use. Here is an illustration I would offer: Catholics defend the “dignity of the dying” and advocate against euthanasia, while Dr. Kevorkian argues for “death with dignity” and advocate for euthanasia. Clearly there must be some other ideas of justice underlying those claims of “dignity” that lead to the differing conclusions. MacIntyre suggested that in place of the term “dignity,” we ought to speak in terms of a “common good.” Use of the richer idea, common good, is something MacIntyre has argued in books and articles for quite some time- but what was new in this lecture was the version of the common good he espoused. MacIntyre argued for the Thomist philosopher Charles de Konink’s criteria of the common good, rather than Jacques Maritain’s, John Finnis’, or some other version.
To my mind, De Koninck’s discussion of the common good always was the most faithful to Aquinas as well as the most persuasive. Instead of seeing the common good as an individual desire to obey an aggregate of individual preferences, De Koninck argued that there was a duty to do what is truly best for a community. This requires sacrifices on the part of individuals living in that community- such as service in the military for the common good of national security.
During the Q and A, I had the opportunity to ask Alasdair MacIntyre what I thought was an obvious question: “does that mean that the nation state has a common good, not just local institutions?” MacIntyre replied with what I had heard from him before: “the nation state is problematic… But there’s nothing to be done about the nation state- it’s there, and therefore it’s within the organizational institutional framework that is presented by the state that one must work to achieve common goods… but it isn’t itself an instrument of the common good.”
After the lecture, a graduate student in politics from Notre Dame introduced himself to me: Hadar Hazony. He told me he didn’t think MacIntyre had really answered my question about the status of nation states. As it turns out Hadar is the son of Yoram Hazony, who had earlier that month organized a conference on “National Conservativism” in Orlando. I had not heard of “NatCon” before attending the Notre Dame conference, but I have learned a great deal about it since. They argue that globalized corporations and insulated bureaucratic experts are undermining the very notion of citizenship and should be stopped. Particularly on immigration, the NatCons are angry at big corporations on the right and liberal politicians on the left for frustrating immigration reform in the interest of cheap labor and votes. One of the participants in NatCon, Chris DeMuth, writes that:
modern progressives imagine themselves as champions of humanity at large and the nation as a primitive artifact that constrains human aspirations and inhibits global solutions. Progressives see the downtrodden as held down by structures of systemic privilege, embedded in the nation’s traditions and institutions.
To have a patria and be grateful to it is normal and humane. It is the ideologies of libertarianism and Marxism, with their hermeneutics of suspicion about common goods that scoff at the notion of citizenship. As my public choice economics professor once told me: “there’s always rent seeking going on, no matter what the government says they’re doing!” He espoused the “Chicago Credo” of the right, but Marxists on the left deny the possibility of nationhood and the common good just as much. For them, it’s always the interest of the wealthy that are being “masked.”
When it comes to MacIntyre on nationhood and the common good, I have to ask: can he answer my question? Owing to his Marxist roots I think, MacIntyre has denied the legitimacy of the nation state throughout his career. So much so, that earlier in his career he compared the sacrifice of soldiers dying for their country to dying for a public utility company, and claimed that voting in American elections was worthless because the governing institutions themselves are not owed our participation.
In 2008, my colleague at the University of St Thomas (Houston), Tom Osborne, critiqued MacIntyre on this very point in a symposium. Osborne argued that the conception of the common good which Aquinas and De Koninck lead us through argument to adopt is necessarily one that involves the coercive power of a state. The common goods provided by the police and military are ones that local and intermediate institutions such as clubs, churches, and associations simply cannot provide. MacIntyre responded to Osborne at the time by accepting much of what he argued, but refusing to go all the way. MacIntyre wrote then that he still could not accept the nation-state because globalization halts democratic deliberation. As a political scientist I would contest that, but I cannot not help but notice a bigger point: MacIntyre and the NatCons share a common enemy in the globalists. Is it too early to borrow a line from Jefferson and say: “We are all MacIntyreans now, we are all NatCons now”?
MacIntyre still seemed hesitant to accept that the nation state was a community with a common good when I pressed the question. But throughout his lecture he mentioned the failure of a several nations, namely Ireland and the United States, to serve their people. If there is a community failing, does not that imply a community? To my mind, in accepting De Koninck’s conception of the common good, MacIntyre has checkmated himself, and should drop that bit about our soldiers dying for a utility company.
Reading this post, I want to learn more about De Koninck, and find my interest in McIntyre dwindling down to near zero...
This symposium also discusses the Natcons and MacIntyre:
https://newcriterion.com/issues/2022/1/the-right-targets