law always ordered toward the common good as its end?
seems that law is not always ordered toward the common
good (bonum commune) as its end:
It is law’s function to command and forbid. But
precepts are ordered toward certain individual goods
(singularia bona). Therefore, law does
not always have the common good as its end.
Law directs a man toward acting. But human acts
have to do with particular matters. Therefore,
law is likewise ordered toward a certain particular
good (particulare bonum).
In Etymologia Isidore says, “If law is founded
upon reason, then law will consist of everything that
is founded upon reason.” But it is not just what
is ordered toward the common good that is founded upon
reason, but also what is ordered toward one’s private
good. Therefore, law is ordered not only toward
the common good, but also toward one’s private good.
contrary to this:
In Etymologia 5 Isidore says, “Law is formulated
not for any private advantage, but for common benefit
of the citizens.”
As has been explained (art. 1), by virtue of the fact
that law is a rule and measure, it has to do with the
principle of human acts. Now just as reason is
the principle of human acts, so too within reason itself
there is something which is the principle with respect
to everything else. Hence, this must be what law
is principally and especially concerned with.
Now in actions, which practical reason is concerned
with, the first principle is the ultimate end.
But, as was established above (q. 2, a. 7), the
ultimate end of human life is happiness or beatitude.
Hence, law must have to do mainly with an ordering that
leads to beatitude.
Again, since (a) every part is ordered toward its whole
in the way that what is incomplete (imperfectum)
is ordered toward what is complete (perfectum),
and since (b) a man is part of a complete community,
law must properly be concerned with the ordering that
leads to communal happiness. Hence, in the definition
of legal affairs alluded to above, the Philosopher makes
mention of both happiness and political union.
For in Ethics 5 he says, “The laws (legalia)
we call ‘just’ are those that effect and conserve happiness
and its elements within the political community.”
For as Politics 1 puts it, a city is a complete
Now in every genus,
the genus is especially predicated of the thing that
serves as the principle of the others, and the genus
is predicated of the others because of their relation
to that thing. For instance, fire, which is maximally
hot, is a cause of the heat in mixed bodies, which are
called ‘hot’ to the extent that they participate in
fire. Hence, since ‘law’ is predicated especially
in relation to the common good, it must be the case
that any other precept about a particular act has the
character of law only to the extent that it is ordered
toward the common good. And so every law is ordered
toward the common good.
to objection 1:
‘Precept’ implies the application of law to the things
that are regulated by the law. But an ordering
toward the common good, which law is concerned with,
is applicable to individual ends. Accordingly,
precepts are likewise handed down with respect to certain
to objection 2:
Actions are, to be sure, concerned with particular matters.
However, those particular matters can be referred back
to the common good—not, indeed, because they share with
it a common genus or species, but rather because they
share with it a common final cause. This is why
the common good is called a common end.
to objection 3:
Just as nothing is firmly established through speculative
reason except by being traced back to first indemonstrable
principles, so too nothing is firmly established through
practical reason except by being ordered to the ultimate
end, which is the common good. But what is founded
upon reason in this way has the character of law.