Abusing Aristotle

# What the essay addresses

Michael Pakaluk examines how the phrase "the common good" has been adopted in recent right-wing public debate and disputes the depth and fidelity of those appeals to Aristotle and Aquinas. He argues that the New Right tends to borrow Aristotelian rhetoric without seriously engaging the texts or concepts. The result is a mismatch between the classical meaning of the common good and the policy aims that rhetoric is meant to justify.

# Classical meaning of common good

Pakaluk restates a classical framework: a good is a goal, and a common good arises when people share a goal. Common goods are pervasive and mundane: a fair tee time, a semester of calculus, or a safe neighborhood are all common goods that attach to specific associations. Precisely because these goods are so ordinary, anyone invoking a common good should identify the association in view—for example, the common good of the competitors or of the neighborhood.

He then notes a special case: a goal at the top of a hierarchy of goals can be called "the" common good without qualification. Drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas, Pakaluk lists three such supreme common goods traditionally recognized: the theological common good (God as the ultimate end), the political common good (the end of a complete political community), and the common good of humankind (the conditions that make pursuit of other goods possible).

# How Americans frame the common good

# Aristotelian language

The essay's core critique is that the New Right uses Aristotelian vocabulary as a rhetorical device. Pakaluk says the movement often does not engage Aristotle or Aquinas closely. Instead, it applies grand language to justify policy ends that, if analyzed plainly, look like collective-action problems or parochial priorities. In other words, lofty talk about a civilizational crisis serves to repackage ordinary partisan goals.

# The tension with an American conception

Because much of the American tradition explicitly links the common good with liberty and rights, Pakaluk argues there is a real tension between that conception and the New Right's strategy. If the classical ordering of goods is to be respected, political aims should be transparent about which common good they address and how they relate to liberty and the broader common good of humankind. Using Aristotelian language without that clarity risks substituting rhetorical cover for serious argument.

# Bottom line

Pakaluk calls for clearer, textually grounded use of classical concepts. He urges that invoking the common good should require specification of the association and honest engagement with trade-offs—rather than deploying Aristotle's authority to lend moral weight to contested policy choices.