Some Reflections on the Common Good in Modern Catholic Social Doctrine | Prof. Russell Hittinger

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Common good of a human society is a duplex ordo, a two-fold order. If you don’t get both, you’re going to make a mess of things.

For human beings, social union—the intrinsic common good—is what Aristotle and Aquinas call the form of order. It’s real, but it’s a social form and not a substantial form. And of course the extrinsic common good which is the end or the goal, maybe ends even in some cases, of the social form.

This lecture was given to the Dominican House of Studies on February 26, 2021 as part of the second installment of the annual Thomistic Circles series: What is the Common Good?

ABOUT THOMISTIC CIRCLES: Our Thomistic Circles Conferences at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. bring together prominent professors (principally in theology and philosophy), graduate students, seminarians, and Dominican brothers to provide a forum for examining contemporary questions from the perspective of classical Catholic theology, and to encourage the renewal of theology and philosophy in the Thomistic tradition.

These conferences are distinctive not only because of their academic quality, but also because they take place in the context of a vibrant Dominican studium and religious community. As befits the Dominican tradition, the serious study of theology and philosophy is integrated with the contemplation of the mysteries of the faith.

Thomistic Circles have been held under the auspices of the faculty at the Dominican House of Studies (founded in Washington, D.C. in 1905) for most of its history.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Russell Hittinger is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of St. Louis. He was the Warren Chair of Catholic Studies and Research Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa from 1996-2019. Russell has been a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas since 2001 and was appointed an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in 2009 by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. He has taught at Fordham University and at the Catholic University of America, as well as at many other universities as a visiting professor, including Providence College and Princeton. Along with a plethora of articles, he has written The First Grace: Rediscovering Natural Law in a Post-Christian Age and A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory.

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