Economics and the Common Good

CRESPO, RICARDO F.

Coimbra

Seminario; Fifth CES International Seminar on the Foundations of Economics, Common Good and Common Interest; 2013

CES, Universidad de Coimbra

We hear a lot about ‘common good’. However, if we analyse the different references of this expression we conclude that for from having a univocal meaning it is equivocal. In this paper I adopt what I termed the ‘classical notion of the common good’. It has its roots in Aristotle, it was picked up and developed by St. Thomas Aquinas, and diffusively used in the last centuries. This paper develops the specific meaning of common good in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition. First, in the next section, it introduces its origins in Aristotle. Then, in Section 3, it explains Aquinas’ developments. Section 4 addresses the different meanings of common good of the twentieth century. Given that the classical version of the common good implies an anthropological position and a theory of the good, Section 5 extracts them from Aristotle’s works. Section 6 deduces policy implications of the previous definitions. Section 7 analyses two current economic theories from the point of view of their relation with the common good: economics of happiness and the capability approach. Finally, Section 8 concludes.