Living with Others

Start here: alone on an island

Imagine you were shipwrecked as a baby on a deserted island and somehow survived on your own. Could you become fully yourself?

You would never learn to speak, because language is learned from others. You’d have no one to teach you, love you, argue with you or be a friend to. Aristotle said that someone who could live entirely alone would have to be either a beast or a god. Human beings are neither. We are made to live with others.

Social by nature

Some modern thinkers have imagined that society began as a kind of contract: isolated individuals agreeing to live together for safety. Aristotle and Aquinas see it differently. Human beings are social by nature. We need others to be born, raised, educated, and to live well. Community isn’t a compromise we put up with; it is part of how we flourish.

The common good

Every community exists for a common good: the conditions of social life that allow everyone, together and individually, to flourish. Peace, justice, safety, education, a healthy culture and strong families are all part of it.

The common good isn’t simply “whatever the majority wants,” nor the total of everyone’s private wishes added up. And it isn’t opposed to the good of the individual person. Two errors are worth avoiding:

The Thomistic view holds both together: the common good serves persons, and persons serve the common good.

The family, the state and subsidiarity

The family is the first and most basic society. It is where we are born, loved, taught and formed in virtue. Larger communities, such as neighbourhoods, schools, parishes and the state, are built out of families and exist to support them.

Authority exists to serve the common good. A good ruler, parent or teacher uses authority for the good of those in their care, not for their own advantage.

This leads to the principle of subsidiarity: larger communities should not take over what smaller ones can do well themselves. The state shouldn’t do what families can do; a national body shouldn’t do what a local community can do. Higher authorities help and support; they don’t replace.

Rights and duties

You have rights: to life, to seek the truth, to worship God, to raise a family, to work. But every right comes with duties. My right to life gives you a duty not to harm me; your right to speak freely comes with a duty to speak truthfully and fairly. Rights and duties both flow from the same source: the natural law and the dignity of the person (Lesson 9).

Friendship

Aristotle thought friendship was so important that no one would choose to live without friends, even if they had every other good thing. He describes three kinds:

• Friendships of usefulness: we are friends because we help each other.
• Friendships of pleasure: we are friends because we enjoy each other’s company.
• Friendships of virtue: we are friends because each wants the good of the other for their own sake.

The first two are real but fragile: they end when the usefulness or fun runs out. The third is rare, lasting and the best. It needs good character on both sides, which is why virtue (Lesson 8) matters so much for our relationships.

Final project: bringing it together

Choose one of these questions:

1. Should euthanasia be legal?
2. Can social media friendships be true friendships?
3. Could an artificial intelligence ever be a person?
4. What do we owe people living in poverty?

Write a short answer (about one page), or record a three-minute talk, that uses at least three ideas from the course, including:

• a clear argument, set out so its premises and conclusion can be tested (Lesson 2),
• a claim about human nature (Lessons 4 and 6),
• a moral analysis drawing on happiness, virtue or the natural law (Lessons 7–9).

Then state the strongest objection to your answer and reply to it fairly. A good philosopher always takes the other side seriously.

Where to go from here

This course has given you a foundation: how to think clearly, what is real, who you are, and how to live well. Every one of these topics goes much deeper. The branches of catholicphilosophy.info are a good place to keep reading, starting with whichever lesson interested you most.

Read the texts

Read Aristotle, Politics I.2, Summa Theologica I-II, q.90, a.2 and Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VIII.3. As you read, ask:

1. What does Aristotle mean when he says the city exists “by nature”?
2. Why does Aquinas insist that every true law must be directed to the common good?