Abstract
In today’s Western political climate, political leaders often depend on the assumption that their personal indiscretions will be forgiven, or at least overlooked, by the general public. More often than not, this assumption holds true; most citizens will dismiss even the most shocking of vices in their political leaders’ private affairs with the justification that these private failings have no bearing on their abilities as a political leader. Similarly, most politicians capitalize on the assumption that their “private” beliefs (such as religious views) have no bearing on their duties in public office.
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Notes
- 1.
Whether or not the Thomistic tradition is still viable or relevant in today’s pluralistic society is a subject of debate that is much beyond the scope of this present chapter. The present chapter aims only to discuss the narrow question of whether or not there are philosophical roots in the West that tie personal virtue to good political leadership and to explore these roots. However, I tend to agree with David Solomon, who writes in his chapter in this volume that, although the Thomistic political tradition that focuses on the common good has typically been rejected by theorists because of its religious and teleological assumptions, such objections recently have lost ground, making the Thomistic political tradition perhaps more viable than once thought. He sees the contemporary philosophical climate as more open to serious consideration of teleology and the place of religion in practical reasoning, as well as accounts of the common good based on teleology and/or religion.
- 2.
These views are echoed throughout Aquinas’ various political works, not just in his commentaries and elaborations of Aristotle’s thought.
- 3.
“It is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness. For happiness is the perfect good, which lulls the appetite altogether; else it would not be the last end, if something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, i.e. of man’s appetite, is the universal good; just as the object of the intellect is the universal true. Hence it is evident that naught can lull man’s will, save the universal good. This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone; because every creature has goodness by participation. Wherefore God alone can satisfy the will of man, according to the words of Psalm 102:5: ‘Who satisfieth thy desire with good things.’ Therefore God alone constitutes man’s happiness” (Summa Theologiae (hereafter ST) I-II q. 2, a.8.).
- 4.
See, for example, ST I-II q. 72, a. 4.
- 5.
The argument concerning the need to avoid scandal comes the closest to addressing the need for virtue on the part of the political leader qua political leader, because it addresses his special role as the public face of the community. For, if the political leader so scandalizes the citizens of his political community that they no longer respect or trust him and consequently disobey him, the leader will not be able to command the citizens effectively and execute those actions necessary for the common good. However, scandal is the effect of vicious action and the lack of moral virtue on the part of the political leader. I take it that the more interesting and deeper question is whether or not the political leader can be morally vicious and still be a good leader perfected by the relevant virtues if he somehow is able to avoid causing scandal. This is the topic of the present essay.
- 6.
See, for example, ST I-II q. 95, a. 4.
- 7.
At this point, I refrain from defining the common good or even from discussing it at length, leaving alone the assumption that the common good is that toward which the virtuous political leader directs the legitimate political community. I address this issue of defining the common good in Sect. 11.5.
- 8.
Properly speaking, political science would be considered practical reasoning because it concerns human actions in the community. I nevertheless use political science as an example of speculative reasoning here because political science may be considered speculatively, that is, without an aim towards action in its mode and end. I explain this distinction further below.
- 9.
“Since every virtue is ordained to some good, as stated above (Q. 55, A. 3); a habit, as we have already observed (Q. 56, A. 3), may be called a virtue for two reasons: first, because it confers aptness in doing good; secondly, because besides aptness, it confers the right use of it. The latter condition, as above stated (ibid.), belongs to those habits alone which affect the appetitive part of the soul: since it is the soul’s appetitive power that puts all the powers and habits to their respective uses.
Since, then, the habits of the speculative intellect do not perfect the appetitive part, nor affect it in any way, but only the intellective part; they may indeed be called virtues insofar as they confer aptness for a good work, viz., the consideration of truth (since this is the good work of the intellect): yet they are not called virtues in the second way, as though they conferred the right use of a power or habit. For if a man possess a habit of speculative science, it does not follow that he is inclined to make use of it, but he is made able to consider the truth in those matters of which he has scientific knowledge—that he make use of the knowledge which he has, is due to the motion of his will” (ST I-II q. 57, a. 1).
- 10.
The one exception is the intellectual virtue of prudence, which presupposes the moral virtues. This point is explored later in this chapter. See ST I-II q. 58, a. 5.
- 11.
I do not claim that political leaders engage in no speculative reasoning whatsoever or that speculative truth has no bearing on political leadership. What I will show momentarily, however, is that the political leader engages primarily in practical reasoning.
- 12.
ST I-II q. 57, a. 4.
- 13.
For further discussion on this passage, see McInerny (1997, pp. 38–40).
- 14.
Although the dominant tradition in Thomistic studies has been to interpret the acts of the will and intellect as proceeding serially in producing human action, Westberg argues that such a picture distorts Aquinas’ theory of practical reasoning. He writes:
That liberum arbitrium is still translated as ‘free will’ and not ‘free choice’ indicates the truth of the observation that the latter emphasis on will in the scholastic tradition has affected the proper understanding of St. Thomas. The basic underlying error is to conceive the will and intellect to function independently, if not in opposition to each other. When they are pictured as operating sequentially, then it is inevitable that the locus of decision is resolved either by positing a judgment of the intellect followed by an acquiescent will (so that the ‘real decision’ is made by the intellect), or by an intellectual description of options presented with ‘indifference’, leaving the will free to make the decision (‘free will’).
The only way for choice to be the genuine product of both reason and will is for both to be active at the same time, and this is the right way to interpret Thomas. This is explained by a metaphysical distinction between the potencies: intellect and will (as described in Chapters 4 and 5) are different kinds of potencies, based on the different ways in which a person relates to an object, and they activate and guide each other (Westberg 1994, p. 82).
- 15.
If the acts are not so understood, inevitably either the will is favored or the intellect is favored as having the “final say,” thereby leading to a rationalist or voluntarist interpretation of Aquinas. If we privilege the will and skew Aquinas’ account of practical reasoning towards a voluntarist position where the will is what makes the final decision about what to do after reason explores the viable options, then we lose a robust sense as to why right reason is necessary. Similarly, if we privilege reason so that Aquinas’ position looks more rationalist such that reason makes the final decision, the role of the will is minimized, and thus moral virtue which perfects the will loses its importance.
- 16.
“The will moves the intellect as to the exercise of its act; since even the true itself which is the perfection of the intellect, is included in the universal good, as a particular good. But as to the determination of the act, which the act derives from the object, the intellect moves the will; since the good itself is apprehended under a special aspect as contained in the universal true. It is therefore evident that the same is not mover and moved in the same respect” (ST I-II, q. 9, a. 1, ad 3).
- 17.
“As we have said above (Q. 55, A. 3), virtue is a habit by which we work well. Now a habit may be directed to a good act in two ways. First, in so far as by the habit a man acquires an aptness to a good act; for instance, by the habit of grammar man has the aptness to speak correctly. But grammar does not make a man always speak correctly: for a grammarian may be guilty of a barbarism or make a solecism: and the case is the same with other sciences and arts. Secondly, a habit may confer not only aptness to act, but also the right use of that aptness: for instance, justice not only gives man the prompt will to do just actions, but also makes him act justly.
And since good, and, in like manner, being, is said of a thing simply, in respect, not of what it is potentially, but of what it is actually: therefore from having habits of the latter sort, man is said simply to do good, and to be good; for instance, because he is just, or temperate; and in like manner as regards other such virtues. And since virtue is that which makes its possessor good, and his work good likewise, these latter habits are called virtuous simply; because they make the work to be actually good, and the subject good simply. But the first kind of habits are not called virtues simply: because they do not make the work good except in regard to a certain aptness, nor do they make their possessor good simply. For through being gifted in science or art, a man is said to be good, not simply, but relatively; for instance, a good grammarian, or a good smith. And for this reason science and art are often divided against virtue; while at other times they are called virtues (Ethic. vi. 2)....
Hence the subject of a habit which is called a virtue in a relative sense, can be the intellect, and not only the practical intellect, but also the speculative, without any reference to the will… But the subject of a habit which is called a virtue simply, can only be the will, or some power in so far as it is moved by the will” (ST I-II q. 56, a. 4). See also ST I-II q. 57, a. 1.
- 18.
“The judgment of prudence is true, not because it is in conformity with the way things are, but because it is in conformity with moral virtue. Only if we are habitually ordered to the good, to the ends of the particular moral virtues, are we free to see how in the here and now these ends can be achieved” (McInerny 1997, p. 101).
- 19.
“Now in human acts the end is what the principles are in speculative matters, as stated in Ethic. vii. 8. Consequently, it is requisite for prudence which is right reason about things to be done that man be well disposed with regard to the ends: and this depends on the rectitude of his appetite. Wherefore, for prudence there is need of a moral virtue, which rectifies the appetite” (ST I-II q. 57, a. 4).
- 20.
“There is a false prudence, which takes its name from its likeness to true prudence. For since a prudent man is one who disposes well of the things that have to be done for a good end, whoever disposes well of such things as are fitting for an evil end, has false prudence, in so far as that which he takes for an end, is good, not in truth but in appearance. Thus a man is called a good robber, and in this way we may speak of a prudent robber, by way of similarity, because he devises fitting ways of committing robbery. This is the prudence of which the Apostle says (Rom. viii. 6): The prudence (Douay, wisdom) of the flesh is death, because, to wit, it places its ultimate end in the pleasures of the flesh” (ST II-II q. 47, 13).
- 21.
Regnative prudence is the species of political prudence that directs the political leader toward the common good: “As stated above, regnative is the most perfect species of prudence, wherefore the prudence of subjects, which falls short of regnative prudence, retains the common name of political prudence, even as in logic a convertible term which does not denote the essence of a thing retains the name of proper” (ST II-II q. 50, a. 3, ad 1).
- 22.
“That justice which seeks the common good is another virtue from that which is directed to the private good of an individual…” (ST I-II q. 60, a. 3, ad 2).
- 23.
See also ST II-II q. 58, a. 6.
- 24.
“On the other hand the other virtues perfect man in those matters only which befit him in relation to himself. Accordingly that which is right in the works of the other virtues, and to which the intention of the virtue tends as to its proper object, depends on its relation to the agent only…” (ST II-II q. 58, a. 2, ad 4). Also Aquinas writes: “Man’s dealings with himself are sufficiently rectified by the rectification of the passions by the other moral virtues. But his dealings with others need a special rectification, not only in relation to the agent, but also in relation to the person to whom they are directed. Hence about such dealings there is a special virtue, and this is justice” (ST II-II q. 57, a. 1).
- 25.
Aquinas also makes this point at ST I-II q. 96, a. 3, ad 3: “There is no virtue whose act is not ordainable to the common good, as stated above, either mediately or immediately.”
- 26.
There seems to be much agreement among the chapters in this issue that the common good eludes material definition. Fan, for example, defines the common good as a certain arrangement of social goods, but does not indicate which arrangement will conduce to the common good. P.C. Lo writes “I submit that to pursue the common good is to pursue goods common to all by participating in communities for common causes. Although this articulation of the common good does not provide a substantive, content-rich account of human goods, it will be shown to be a merit when we come to China in the last section of this chapter” (Lo 2013, p. 169–191).
- 27.
“The common good is common because it is received in persons, each one of whom is as a mirror of the whole. Among the bees, there is a public good, namely, the good functioning of the hive, but not a common good, that is, a good received and communicated” (Maritain 1966, p. 49).
- 28.
“The common good is better for each of the particulars that participate in it insofar as it is communicable to the other particulars: communicability is the very reason of its perfection. The particular does not attain the common good under the note itself of common good if it does not attain it as communicable to others. The good of the family is better than the singular good, not because all the members of the family find in it their singular good: the good of the family is better because, for each of its individual members, it is also the good of the others. This does not mean that the others are the reason for the proper lovableness of the common good. On the contrary, under this formal aspect, the others are lovable insofar as they can participate in this good” (De Koninck 2008, p. 75).
- 29.
To further complicate matters, it is indeed possible that vices of intemperance can be as corrosive of respect for the common good as vices of injustice if, for example, a man is intemperate to such an extent that he takes the pleasures of food and/or drink to be the highest end in life.
- 30.
All men who are afflicted with the vice of gluttony do not necessarily take food to be their ultimate good. Some gluttonous men may enjoy food to an excessive degree but still recognize that the pleasure of food is a lesser good than the common good. Other gluttonous men may enjoy food to such an excessive degree that food is considered to be a higher good than the common good. Given these two examples, it should be obvious that if we were in the unfortunate and highly contrived situation of being forced to choose one of these men to be our leader, all other things being equal, we ought to choose the former gluttonous man who still recognizes the common good to be a higher good than the pleasures of food.
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Chan, K.C. (2014). The Common Good and the Virtuous Political Leader. In: Solomon, D., Lo, P. (eds) The Common Good: Chinese and American Perspectives. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7272-4_11
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