Editing Common good (section)

===Ancient Greeks===
For the [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greeks]], the Common Good was the flourishing of the hierarchical network of people, known as the [[Polis#The_polis_in_Ancient_Greek_philosophy|polis]] (one's city, or state). The phrase "common good" then, does not appear in texts of [[Plato]], but instead the phrase "the good of a city".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Plato |title=Republic |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book V. 462a |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+5.462a&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168 |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref>  In ''[[The Republic (Plato)|The Republic]]'', Plato's character [[Socrates]] contends repeatedly that a particular common goal exists in politics and society,<ref name="Simm">{{cite journal|last1=Simm|first1=Kadri|title=The Concepts of Common Good and Public Interest: From Plato to Biobanking|journal=Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics|date=16 August 2011|volume=20|issue=4|pages=554–62|doi=10.1017/S0963180111000296|pmid=21843386|s2cid=36435554 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1240338}}</ref> and that that goal is the same as the goal for a flourishing human being, namely, to be a [[philosopher king]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Plato |title=Republic |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book V. 473d |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+5.473&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168 |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref> ruled by the highest good, [[Reason]], rather than one of Plato's four lesser goods: honor-seeking, money-making, pleasure-seeking, or empassioned addiction.  For Plato, the best political order is one in which the entire society submits to the dictates of the leaders' faculty of Reason, even [[communism|communistically]] holding possessions, wives, and children in common,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Plato |title=Republic |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book V. 462b-465b |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+5.462&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168 |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref> creating a "cohesion and unity" that "result[s] from the common feelings of pleasure and pain which you get when all members of a society are glad or sorry for the same successes and failures."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Plato|title=Republic|date=2003|publisher=Penguin Books|location=London|pages=462a–b}}</ref>

Plato's student [[Aristotle]], considered by many to be the father of the idea of a common good, uses the concept of "the common interest" ({{Lang|grc-latn|to koinei sympheron}} in [[Greek language|Greek]]) as the basis for his distinction between his three "right" constitutions, which are in the common interest, and "wrong" constitutions, which are in the interest of rulers.<ref name="3_good_constitutions_A">{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book IV.2. (1289a27-37) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D4%3Asection%3D1289a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref><ref name="3_good_constitutions_B">{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Nicomachean Ethics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book VIII.10. (1160a31-35) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker+page%3D1160a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref><ref name="Diggs 283–293"/> To Aristotle, Plato is wrong about the desire to simply impose top-down unity;<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book II.1-2. (1261a4-23) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D1261a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref> for Aristotle, a common good is synthesized upwardly/[[Teleology|teleologically]] from the lesser goods of individuals, and their various kinds of larger-and-larger partnerships: marital couple, or parent-over-child, or master-over-slave; household; then village; then state.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book I.2. (1252a24-1253a38) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0058 |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref>  In this teleological view, the good stems from objective facts about human life and purpose, which may vary, depending upon peoples' occupations, virtue-levels, etc.<ref name="Simm" />  However, noting that only citizens have the salvation (common good) of the city at heart,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book III.4. (1276b28-31) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D3%3Asection%3D1276b |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref> Aristotle argues that, regardless of form of government,<ref name="3_good_constitutions_A"/><ref name="3_good_constitutions_B"/><ref name="Politics_III_13">{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book III.13. (1284b25-35) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D3%3Asection%3D1284b |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref>  those who have more of a rational understanding of the needs of the state's salvation, are entitled to a greater share in administering and determining justice, within the light of its common good,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book III.9. (1281a2-8) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D3%3Asection%3D1281a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book VII.8-9. (1328b33-1329a40) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D1328b |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref> than those who have less, or no such understanding or concern for it, such as selfish despots and political factions,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book III.6-7. (1279a16-20, 1279b4-10) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D3%3Asection%3D1279a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref> as well as uneducated artisans and freedmen, women and children, slaves, etc.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book III.4-5. (1277a19-33,1277b34-1278a14) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D3%3Asection%3D1278a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref><ref name="Clayton">{{cite web|last1=Clayton|first1=Edward|title=Aristotle: Politics|url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-pol/|website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref>  More than this, Aristotle argues that rational discourse itself is what the state's Common Good relies upon,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book I.2. (1253a7-17) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D1253a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref> identifying those who lack it as "slaves by nature",<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book I.5. (1254b20) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D1254b |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book I.13. (1260a13) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D1260a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref> while those who excel in it are nearly divine,<ref name="Politics_III_13"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Nicomachean Ethics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book X.7. (1177b15-35) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker+page%3D1177b |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref><ref>Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics [Internet]. The Internet Classics Archive; available at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html. I.2.1094b7–10 (last accessed 30 Jan 2011).</ref> possessing in themselves the whole purpose for which states exist, namely, the perfectly complete good/blessed life.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Politics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book III.6,9. (1278b24, 1280a32, 1280b33) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D3%3Asection%3D1280a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref><ref name="Nicomachean_VIII_9">{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Nicomachean Ethics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book VIII.9. (1160a8-30) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker+page%3D1160a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref>  In his [[Nicomachean Ethics]] then, Aristotle ties up the Common Good of the state, with that of friendship, implying by this, that friendly, rational discourse is the primary activity by which citizens and rulers bring about the Common Good, both amongst themselves, and so far as it involves their inferiors.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aristotle |title=Nicomachean Ethics |publisher=Perseus Digital Library |pages=Book VIII.11-12. (1160a8-30) |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker+page%3D1160a |access-date=19 April 2022}}</ref>  According to one common contemporary usage, rooted in Aristotle's philosophy, common good then refers to "a good proper to, and attainable, only by the community, yet individually shared in, by its members."<ref name="Dupré" />