Is the fundamental and essential point of forming the polity the polity itself, or is the polity primarily a means of protecting and achieving many other valuable ends?

The Common Good: 

Instrumental But Not Just Contractual

by Robert P. George

Yesterday on Public Discourse, Michael W. Hannon posted a vigorous critique of a thesis I have defended about the nature of the political common good. I will reply, but before doing that I want to thank Mr. Hannon. Although he did not manage to persuade me of the error of my ways, I was gratified and impressed by the intelligence and moral seriousness of his essay. When criticism is this thoughtful, one needn't be persuaded in order to appreciate and even learn from it.

In my article "Ruling to Serve," published in the April 2013 issue of First Things magazine, I argued "that the common good of political society is fundamentally an instrumental good and that this entails moral limits on justified governmental power." Please note two things about this claim. First, I do not deny that life in political society provides many opportunities for the realization of human goods that are not merely instrumental. Second, I do not claim that the only moral limits on the scope of governmental power are those entailed by the nature of the common good of political society as fundamentally an instrumental good.

What does it mean to say that the common good of a community or form of association is fundamentally an instrumental good, as opposed to an intrinsic good?

It means that the community in question is primarily a means to the realization of valuable ends by members of the community; it is not an end in itself. Participating in the life of the community as one of its members does not immediately instantiate a basic aspect of our well-being and fulfillment as human persons.

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