Politics and the Modern State: Understanding the Common Good | Prof. Brad Lewis

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Professor Brad Lewis discusses the concept of the common good in politics, contrasting contemporary Catholic social teaching with Aquinas's view and addressing criticisms of both.

This lecture was given on October 1st, 2024, at Indiana University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speaker:

Bradley Lewis is associate professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America. He specializes in political and legal philosophy, especially in classical Greek political thought and in the theory of natural law. He holds a B.A. from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He has published scholarly articles in Polity, History of Political Thought, the Southern Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Communio, the Josephinum Journal of Theology, the Pepperdine Law Review, the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, and the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, as well as chapters in a number of books. He is currently working on a book project provisionally titled The Common Good and the Modern State. He is also a fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology and serves as associate editor of the American Journal of Jurisprudence.

Keywords: American Founding, Aristotle, Catholic Social Teaching, Common Good, Gaudium Et Spes, Hillary Clinton, Mater Et Magistra, Political Philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas

Transcript

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0:00.0	Did you know the Timistic Institute offers two full-ride scholarships for the
0:03.8	Masters in Theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.?
0:07.8	If you or someone you know has a passion for the Catholic intellectual tradition, especially
0:12.5	the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, this could be the opportunity of a lifetime.
0:16.8	Visit tamistic institute.org slash ma-d dash scholarships to learn more and apply today.
0:22.5	This is a competitive scholarship. To be considered, please apply for the 2025 to
0:26.5	26 academic year by January 28th, 2025, the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.
0:32.5	That's to mystic institute.org slash MA dash scholarships.
0:39.7	Welcome to the Thomistic Institute.org slash MA-M-A-dash scholarships. Welcome to the Thomistic Institute podcast.
0:42.6	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church,
0:47.1	and the wider public square.
0:48.9	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute
0:53.4	chapters around the world. To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org.
1:01.0	In 2004, then Senator Hillary Clinton spoke at a fundraising event in San Francisco for then-Senator Barbara Boxer.
1:11.4	She criticized tax cuts supported by the then Bush administration, and suggesting that they
1:17.9	would be repealed if the Democrats took office that year, bluntly told her well-heeled audience,
1:24.5	quote, we're going to take things away from you on behalf of the
1:29.1	common good, unquote. The blogosphere exploded with many conservatives expressing indignation
1:37.4	at what they identified as Clinton's rank Marxism. Common good communist, right?
1:45.0	You can almost run it together.
1:47.0	More recently, a number of decidedly more conservative public intellectuals have championed
1:52.4	things like common good constitutionalism, common good economics.
	...

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