The Common Good and the Paradoxes of Right vs. Right

Although the concept of the common good has been subject to normative theorising for millennia, it is now widely understood as an "essentially contested concept," leading scholars to argue that, in complex, pluralistic societies, there is no single, determinate good (Rittel & Webber, 1973; Sluga, 2014). In an illuminating grand sweep of millennia of Western thought about the common good, the philosopher Hans Sluga (2014) writes:

…we can envisage the common good in very different ways, as high and low, as wide and narrow. We can speak of this common good in the language of justice, of freedom, security, order, morality, happiness, individual well-being, prosperity, progress and what have you. We can, moreover, envisage the community for which the good is sought in different ways: as tribal, local, national, international, or even global, as egalitarian or hierarchical in its order, as traditional or freely constituted, as unified or divided. And we can finally envisage the search itself in various ways: as organised or spontaneous, as guided or cooperative, as deliberate or merely implicit, as successful or thwarted.

Understood in this way, the common good is not a single thing but, rather, more an umbrella term for several interlocking concepts and conditions that underpin the survival and flourishing of life. The common good appears to be as much about process as it is about outcomes and the people who comprise the community for whom the good is sought (Wilson, 2023), suggesting a tripartite structure of what, how, and for whom (Wilson et al., 2022).

Notably, each perspective on the common good contains elements of wisdom that are missed by the others. Each perspective provides an expression of the way in which a considerable proportion of society feels we should live with one another (see, e.g., Verweij et al., 2006).

Although these diverse perspectives point to often contradictory perspectives on the common good, they are all, nevertheless, in some sense true. They exist simultaneously, persist over time, and, ultimately, need each other. These perspectives are all, in some sense, right. Taken together, they present us with paradoxes of right versus right.

Bolden and colleagues (2016) observe that people in Western cultures find such paradoxes especially hard to understand and accept. When confronted with a paradox, the first impulse of many people is to try to resolve it; to reconcile the conflicting statements so that they agree, removing the apparent contradiction. However, the central point to be made about paradoxes is that they are not opposites that can be reconciled (e.g., dialectically) or puzzles to be solved; they simply are (Bolden et al., 2016).

According to management scholars Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis (2011), paradoxes can be categorised into four basic types: paradoxes of performing, organising, learning, and belonging. This typology can be helpfully recruited to make sense of the many paradoxes of right versus right that characterise the common good.

Paradoxes of Performing

Performing paradoxes emerge in the context of diverse stakeholders and result in competing goals and outcomes. Consider, for example, Meadows’ (1998) sustainability framework that relates natural resources to human well-being through human, social, financial, and built capital. Although all capitals are important, and although it is important to maintain stocks of all capitals, doing so is not easy because the goal of maximising one type of capital (e.g., financial) is often in tension with the goal of maximising other types (e.g., natural).

This societal-level tension is recapitulated at the organisation level, such as between the goals of profit and social responsibility (Margolis & Walsh, 2003). The common good is associated with many other goal-related paradoxes. For example, as observed by Sluga (2014), we can speak of the common good in the language of justice, freedom, security, order, morality, and happiness. Whereas some goals are compatible (e.g., security and order), others may be incompatible (e.g., freedom and order). Moreover, apparent agreement (e.g., about equality), can mask competing goals (e.g., equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome).

Paradoxes of Organising

Organising paradoxes arise as complex systems create competing designs and processes to achieve desired goals and outcomes. The paradoxes of organising call attention to the divergent but legitimate processes that can be recruited in the search for the good. We can envisage the search for the common good in various ways: as cooperative or competitive, as centralised or decentralised, as organised or spontaneous, as guided or cooperative, or as traditional or freely constituted (Sluga, 2014). Moreover, we can imagine the search for the common good as patterned by distinct forms or ways of life—as individualistic, egalitarian, or hierarchical (Sluga, 2014), with corresponding differences in organising. The organising paradoxes observed at societal level are recapitulated at the organisational level, such as the tension between collaboration and control (Sundaramurthy & Lewis, 2003).

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Paradoxes of Learning

Learning paradoxes surface as dynamic systems adjust, adapt, change, renew, and innovate, which raises challenging questions about whether to build upon, abandon, or destroy the past in order to create the future. In essence, this reflects the tension between continuity and change, which is experienced by complex adaptive systems from individual humans all the way up to societies. The political arena is the domain in which the drama between continuity and change is played out most obviously, as reflected in political ideologies that seek to conserve or incrementally build upon tradition and those that strive for progress by destroying the past.

Paradoxes of Belonging

Finally, in terms of belonging paradoxes, which pertain to the nature of self and identity, consider the paradoxical tensions that exist between the needs of the individual and the needs of the community or collective (Murnighan & Conlon, 1991). So fundamental is this paradox that leadership scholars Donelson Forsyth and Crystal Hoyt (2011) call it the “master problem” of social life. Moreover, even when a collectivist perspective is assumed, belonging paradoxes do not disappear because the boundaries of our imagined communities can be ambiguous and transient. We can envisage communities as tribal, local, national, international, or even global, as unified or divided, with distinct and changing values, needs, interests, and identities (Sluga, 2014).

In addition to these performing, organising, learning, and belonging paradoxes, a host of paradoxes emerge at the intersection of these categories, representing paradoxical tensions between distinct ways of life. Decades of research in the social sciences have revealed that, beneath the rich diversity of human cultures and ways of life, human activities and ways of life are patterned by a limited set of basic social and cultural modes (Fiske, 1992) or forms (Verweij et al., 2006): egalitarianism, hierarchy, individualism, and fatalism. Despite their contradictions, these ways of life need each other. Schwartz (1991) characterises these interdependencies thus:

Each way of life undermines itself. Individualism would mean chaos without hierarchical authority to enforce contracts and repel enemies. To get work done and settle disputes the egalitarian order needs hierarchy. Hierarchies, in turn, would be stagnant without the creative energy of individualism, uncohesive without the binding force of equality, unstable without the passivity and acquiescence of fatalism. Dominant and subordinate ways of life thus exist in alliance, yet this relationship is fragile, constantly shifting, constantly generating a societal environment conducive to change (p. 765).

Understood in this way, the paradoxes of the common good are unavoidable in pluralistic societies. Moreover, these paradoxes are all for the good: something to be harnessed through constructive communication and negotiation (Verweij et al., 2006). Each of these perspectives distills certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others and provides an expression of the way in which a considerable proportion of the populace feels we should live with one another and with nature (Verweij et al., 2006).

Most importantly, each perspective needs all the others, and each time one of these perspectives on the common good is excluded from collective decision-making in shared power contexts, governance failure inevitably results (Verweij et al., 2006). These insights have profound implications for the search for the common good. Our responses to the paradoxes of right versus right may be a fundamental determinant of the fate of our society.