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Solving A Key Puzzle: How to Reconcile the Incommensurable Value of Person with the Common Good? (Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1989). This work seeks to bridge the gap between liberalism and the Catholic notion of the "common good" by showing that the liberal tradition includes a vision of the common good, a vision both historically original and crucial to its defense of the human person. Too often, the liberal tradition is discussed wholly in terms of the individual, the rational economic agent, self-interest, and something like the utilitarian calculus. On the other side, too often the classical view of the common good is presented as though it did not respect the freedom of the human person, the rights of the individual, and the unique properties of the many different spheres through which the common good is cumulatively realized. Yet the liberal tradition has in fact greatly expanded and enriched the concept of the common good. And the Catholic tradition - through its distinctive concepts of the person, will, self-deception, virtue, practical wisdom, "the dark night of the soul," and insight itself - has thickened and enriched our under-standing of the individual. On matters of institutional realism, the liberal tradition has made discoveries that the Catholic tradition sorely needs; reciprocally, regarding certain philosophical-theological conceptions, the Catholic tradition has achieved some insights (e.g., into the nature of the human person, the human community, and mediating institutions) in which many in the liberal intellectual tradition are now expressing interest. The two traditions need each other, each being weaker where the other is stronger.
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I picked up this book this past week -- after reading a rather critical article in the Houston Catholic Worker in which this book was mentioned, I was inspired to read Novak himself and see what he had to say (the authors' "summary" of this book accused Novak of redefining the common good "to mean only the private good of individuals based on self-interest").
I actually found the book is a fairly substantial meditation, inspired by -- and written in tribute to -- Jacques Maritain, on the 40th anniversary of Maritain's 1946 classic "The Person and the Common Good." I'm only on the second chapter, but suffice to say I've benefited by Novak's drawing from the readings of St. Thomas Aquinas as well as Alexis de Tocqueville and the works of America's founding fathers in the Federalist Papers. It's a well crafted essay and much like Novak's other works offers much food for thought.
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