How Do Words Work? A Reply on Common Good

I confess I had to read Dan’s post “What Exactly Is ‘the Common Good’?” twice before I could believe he wrote it. Was he really suggesting that the prime criterion through which political discourse has been conducted from Aristotle through the Founding Fathers was either empty pettifoggery or, worse, a ruse? Perhaps Dan suffers very acutely from an undue fear of Adrian Vermeule and JD Vance. How else to explain a conservative (!) in National Review (!) recommending a form of prescribed amnesia that would render the political vocabulary of our Founding Fathers into a foreign language? Along with basically all classical political philosophy.

Dan points out, in several ways, that the meaning of “the common good” is contested, and he tries to demonstrate its uselessness by noting that while the Founders said they wanted to “establish Justice” and promote “the general Welfare” when describing the goals of government, they “avoided these terms when describing the powers of government.”

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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I confess I had to read Dan’s post “What Exactly Is ‘the Common Good’?” twice before I could believe he wrote it. Was he really suggesting that the prime criterion through which political discourse has been conducted from Aristotle through the Founding Fathers was either empty pettifoggery or, worse, a ruse? Perhaps Dan suffers very acutely from an undue fear of Adrian Vermeule and JD Vance. How else to explain a conservative (!) in National Review (!) recommending a form of prescribed amnesia that would render the political vocabulary of our Founding Fathers into a foreign language? Along with basically all classical political philosophy.

Dan points out, in several ways, that the meaning of “the common good” is contested, and he tries to demonstrate its uselessness by noting that while the Founders said they wanted to “establish Justice” and promote “the general Welfare” when describing the goals of government, they “avoided these terms when describing the powers of government.”