Yves R. Simon and "The Common Good": A Note on the Concept

Abstract

The term is not much in use of late. Public has largely replaced it. Yet some of problems of modern political thought are evident in current widespread disagreement about meaning of the public interest. Many reject idea of public interest or common good altogether;2 others identify it with an aggregation of particular interests.3 Most commonly, public interest is conceived as policy which emerges from conflict of interests within democratic process, or, occasionally, as process of interest conflict and compromise itself. I have criticized these conceptions elsewhere.4 Their most fundamental flaw is failure to see anything to beyond encounter of interests: that is, wants, desires, or preferences. In politics of there is no public to possess an interest, let alone any criteria according to which an interest's moral or political worth might be assessed. I do not intend to re-cover that ground in this essay. I intend, rather, to suggest how a unitary conception of common good, such as Yves R. Simon's, avoids theoretical pitfalls to which other are subject. The term is taken from Virginia Held's classification of public interest theories. Held's criticism of other conceptions-preponderance theories and interest theories-parallels and complements that given above of dominant conceptions and need not be