Common Goods and the Common Good in John Duns Scotus

Abstract

John Duns Scotus did not devote a treatise or even a question to the matter of the common good, or the good of the community, as opposed to the good of the individual. Throughout his moral and political writings, he did, however, provide a sketch of his views regarding the general nature of the common good, defined as what is to be preserved by the laws of human communities as well as regarding the way in which this can be applied concretely. Most of the developments that pertain to this topic can be found in Ordinatio 4, distinction 15, question 2, a question devoted to whether a penitent thief ought to make restitution to his victims. In discussing this, Scotus produces a short biblical genealogy of private property as it was known and practiced in the societies of his time: it was instituted in answer to the Fall to ensure that humans interact peacefully and that each of them has what they need to survive. This goal is a general definition of the common good itself, which is obtained by making all goods private and by having a wise ruler to arbitrate all conflicts. This chapter examines what this view entails.

1 Introduction

The present chapter bears on the link between common goods and the common good in John Duns Scotus (d. 1308), a Franciscan theologian and philosopher famous for the many innovative philosophical and theological views that he put forward and for being one of the most authoritative thinkers of the Franciscan order since its beginning of the fourteenth century.¹ He did not write any systematic work on politics nor on economic questions, but many insights can be gathered from his theological works.²

The adjective “common” applied to the noun “good” rarely appears in Scotus’ moral and political writings outside of the question how best to organise the ownership of goods.³ In fact, in the sense of the good of the community, the term “common good” never does appear. There are equivalent expressions, however, as will be seen in the texts quoted below: the good of the commonwealth or of the state, the public good, the well-being of the community, and others. It so happens that, in dealing with the subject of common and private ownership, the Franciscan sketches an idea of the good of the commonwealth that is applicable outside of this question and can be examined to see how the defence of the public good may or may not interfere with the preservation of individual goods and interests.

The present chapter argues that something can be said about his view and analyses the link between the concept of the common good and the nature of common goods. Now, this is not something Scotus deals with at length, but we can nevertheless situate his view within the history of the question. In his work on the common good in late medieval philosophy, Matthew Kempshall distinguishes between two main senses of the common good of the city: the life of virtue, as permitted by life in a political community, and the mere utility of this community, taken as the peace and prosperity of its members, without regard for the kind of moral existence that this utility allows for. According to Kempshall, one of the relevant criteria that one can use to distinguish between medieval authors is whether they put an emphasis on the former or the latter sense.⁴

Now, Scotus very rarely uses the term utility, but given the chance, he would apparently tend to position himself in the second camp, that of authors who identify the common good with utility, as I will show.

In order to understand Scotus’ view on the common good and common goods, I deal with the topic in five stages. In section two, I show how Scotus explains that all goods before the Fall were possessed in common and to what end this common ownership was intended. Then, in section three, I explain how he justifies the privatization, so to speak, of all goods after the Fall, which was meant to achieve exactly the same end, the same kind of common good. Third, I show how this privatization came about, that is, in which general way it is determined what belongs to whom and how this is connected with seeking the common good (section four). Fourth, I examine a number of examples of ways to administer property rights. They show that, even though the only kind of legitimate property, according to Scotus, seems to be private property, this does not entail that the ruler has no right to interfere or to make decisions that go or seem to go against the individual interests of private owners (section five). Finally, in section six, I briefly indicate how spiritual goods, and God in particular, seem to be the only goods that may remain common inasmuch as they ought not, and indeed cannot be appropriated.

2 Common Goods Before the Fall

Scotus is very clear about the reality of property before the Fall when no human law was instated and no conflict existed for the possession or use of goods. At that time, human beings were morally perfect and found it easy to know and act according to the natural law immanent in the world created by God. There was no private property, but all things that could be owned or used were common to all. To show this, Scotus relies on a number of authorities, mainly Augustine, by grounding his view on the tradition of Canon Law as represented by Gratian and his commentators.⁵ But he also presents arguments that justify this situation in the state of grace, relying on reason rather than authority. This gives him an opportunity to implicitly bring out what should be expected, in his view, from any property regime:

There is a twofold reason for this: First, according to right reason the use of things ought to belong to human beings in a way that conduces to peaceful dealings in society and to meeting people’s needs. And in the state of innocence having the use of things in common was more efficacious for these purposes than private property, since at that time no one would have laid claim to what someone else needed, and it would not have been necessary for anyone to wrest what he needed from another by violence. Rather, each person would claim whatever he came across first for his own need. Also, in that way there would have been a greater abundance to meet everyone’s needs than if one person’s use of something were forestalled because someone else had appropriated that thing for himself.⁶

Right reason (i.e., reason as it is correctly applied to moral or practical reflection) prescribes that goods be owned and used in such a way that (1) human society be at peace and (2) the people’s needs be met. In the state of innocence, there are two reasons why these two goals are best fulfilled through common property.

The first reason is that, in that state, human beings are inherently virtuous. They have not sinned and are not fallen: therefore, they have clear and complete moral knowledge and find it perfectly natural to act according to that moral knowledge. Thus, there is no need to institute boundaries between human beings and their goods since mutual respect will prevent all from abusing anyone or anything. This in turn implies that human creatures will be at peace with each other because no one will attempt to deprive another of what he or she needs.

The second reason is that it is more practical to let everyone take whatever they need at any given place and time. If they had to preoccupy themselves with who owns what, they would have to delay the satisfaction of their needs, and so everyone’s needs would be met less efficiently.

Together, these reasons form the general formula of the common good that applies also after the Fall: what is good for the commonwealth is that relations between human beings be peaceful and that their needs be satisfied. Before the Fall, the highly moral character of humans is what justified the common ownership and use of goods without external restriction, because humans will naturally restrain themselves in such a way that they will be peaceful and will find their needs met. Although this general normative formula also applies after the Fall, the concrete situation is radically different, indeed diametrically opposed, since human beings have lost easy access to their moral compass.

3 Private Goods After the Fall, for the Common Good

According to Scotus, after the Fall, the emergence of vice in social life requires the revocation of the common ownership of all goods, because covetousness and violence threaten both peace and the satisfaction of everyone’s needs since the strong appropriate more than they need from the weak through brutality.⁷ If no one can claim that certain goods that are necessary for the satisfaction of their needs belong to them, then a violent man may, without legitimate opposition, wrest something he does not need from someone who needs it,⁸ which means that (1) society will no longer be at peace and (2) everyone’s needs will cease to be met. Instituting private property simply means forbidding the strong from threatening collective peace and granting the weak the right to keep what they need to survive.⁹

This is not to say that having all things in common would necessarily lead to universal strife and famine. Scotus acknowledges that a human community, even a community made up of people “of weak character”, that is, who are prone to succumbing to their worse tendencies, could live without constant conflict. Nevertheless, in such communities, those who are of weak character would constantly attempt to take possession for themselves of the goods that are held in common, and tension would constantly ensue, which would find no peaceful resolution without a clear demarcation between what each member of the community owns. Living in a community of this sort might not always lead to widespread violence, we can assume, but would surely make communal life painful.¹⁰ Thus, though human beings could live together in a political community with common ownership as their rule, they would not live well.

As such, both because of the threat of violence and because of this constant tension, Scotus calls private property “consonant” with human nature. This means that we cannot logically conclude from what we know of our nature that private property is an absolutely necessary law within human communities, but we can conclude that it is the law that best fits human beings as they are after the Fall.

This view should not be surprising: a Franciscan like Scotus could scarcely defend any other position. How else could he explain that monastic communities, whose members are surely not all of perfect character, are viable? It can be surmised that the very strict principles that frame the existence of the regular clergy are precisely designed, in Scotus’ opinion, to offset the sinful tendencies of some monks, or at least to strongly hinder their expression. The vows taken by monks and the strict rules of behaviour and expression that they must adhere to on pain of punishment or exclusion serve this objective.

Scotus gives a specific example of this general view, namely, the common possession of women. He reprises Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s view and argues that women should not be possessed in common because if they were, we can assume, the strongest would appropriate all of them and leave none for the others.

Scotus also thinks that it would be unreasonable in any community to copulate indiscriminately.¹¹ He does not explain why exactly, but we can conjecture that there is at least one reason for this: there would be no way to know who begat whom, which would make it difficult for paternal authority to exert itself. But paternal authority, as we shall see shortly, is one of the most important ways to make a society consent to its own laws.

Interestingly, the Franciscan’s treatment of this matter gives him the opportunity to produce an unexpected defence of divorce that shows his commitment to upholding peace within the human community. Surely the indissolubility of marriage is a good thing, but should conjugal life take a turn for the worst and the life of the wife be at risk, then the marriage must be dissolved because uxoricide would lead to tensions within the community as the wife’s family would attempt to get revenge. It would also imperil the couple’s children since the father would die either by the hand of his wife’s avengers or from the lawful punishment for his crime, and the children would be left with no one to care for them and educate them.¹² Again, not only peace but also paternal authority would be threatened because of the father’s death.

This goes to show that private property, applied to women or otherwise, is not a miracle cure for society’s ills: it also needs to be reasonably managed and, if need be, revoked for the good of the commonwealth to be preserved. Now that I have dealt with these well-known bases of Scotus’ view of ownership, the question, of course, is who should manage it and by what right.

4 How the Privatization of Goods Comes About for the Common Good

John Duns Scotus determines that the institution of private property was a product of positive law by a process of elimination, which begins with the following principle that comes from Canon law. All legal precepts derive either from divine law (legal norms that are instituted by God), natural law (legal norms that can be derived from the nature of things, and especially of human beings), or positive law (legal norms that are instituted by human beings).¹³

Based on several quotes drawn from Augustine, Scotus argues that private property cannot have been instituted by God. It cannot pertain to natural law either, for Scotus seems to hold that natural law is unchangeable and cannot at one point in history obligate to something and obligate to the opposite at a later point in time.¹⁴ Therefore, since natural law did prescribe that property be common to all before the Fall, it cannot now prescribe that it should be private. This leaves us with a single option: private property pertains to positive or human law, whose necessity results from the absence of divine or natural law on the matter. The Franciscan suggests that once it is instituted by positive law, the way in which private property is distributed may be derived from the nature of things. But he harbours no certainty on the matter and does not seem to deem it all that important. In the end, he thinks it best to say that “the first division of goods into private property was made by some positive law”.¹⁵

Now, how do positive laws come about and what makes them just? Duns Scotus’ answer is quite clear: a positive law is introduced by a legislator, and a legislator can legitimately introduce one provided (1) they are prudent, that is, that they follow right reason in making the law, and (2) they hold authority, that is, that the community of human beings they are a part of be bound by their law.¹⁶

When it comes to the second condition, Scotus recognizes two acceptable sources of legal authority. One is biological: a father always exercises authority over his descendants, whether or not they form a community located in a certain place at a certain time. Therefore, whenever a father prudently institutes a law for his descendants, then this law is just. The other form of legal authority derives from common agreement and concerns not the members of a family but those who live together as a community. Indeed, they may deem it necessary to entrust someone with the duty of governing their community, that is, of making laws and enforcing them. Now, the members of the community may agree that they, as a collective, will make and enforce the law, or they could decide that a certain individual is better fit for the task. If so, they may decide that this individual’s successor will be chosen as this individual was, by common consent, or agree that this individual’s biological heir will be the successor:

Paternal authority has to do with natural descent, even if [the members of the family are] not living together in civil society. Political authority has to do with those who live together, no matter if they are not connected with one another by any kinship or closeness. For example, if certain unrelated persons should come together to build a city and dwell in it, and they see that they cannot be well-governed without some authority, they could agree among themselves to entrust the community either to one person or to the community itself – and if to one person, then either to him alone (and then his successor would be chosen in the same way that he was) or to him and all his heirs. And both kinds of political authority are just, because someone can justly submit himself either to one person or to the community in things that are not contrary to the law of God and in which he can be better directed by the one to whom he submits than he can by himself.¹⁷

In any case, regardless of whoever holds this political authority and however it is passed on, what matters is that it rests on the collective agreement of the members of the community. These members have decided at one point that positive law is required for the welfare of all and designated a political authority to promulgate and uphold it.

From these two kinds of authority, biological or paternal on the one hand, legal or political on the other, Scotus derives two possible scenarios by which private property became law:

And this is how it likely came about. After the flood, either Noah divided the lands among his sons, and each was to possess his own land either for himself or for his children and heirs, or else they agreed among themselves to divide the lands, as we read about Abraham and Lot in Genesis 13:8–9. For Abraham let Lot choose which part he wanted, and Abraham took what was left. Alternatively, a law was promulgated by the father, or by someone chosen by them as ruler, or [by someone chosen] by the community, to whom the community itself entrusted that authority. This law was, or could have been, that things not in anyone’s possession at that time would belong to whoever first took possession of them; and then afterward they scattered over the face of the earth, and one person took possession of one tract of land and another took possession of another.¹⁸

After the Flood, when the Earth was renewed and no one remained on it save for Noah and his family, one of two things happened: either the Earth was divided into territories to be respectively owned by Noah and his sons, or a law was promulgated according to which anyone who came across a piece of land and took possession of it would be deemed its rightful owner. Whichever decision was taken, Scotus remains open as to what kind of authority took it: Noah may have used his paternal authority to impose it, or the community (presumably Noah and his sons) may simply have agreed upon the decision.

Two things are quite interesting and worth noting here: first, it seems that the Franciscan thinks that even when paternal authority can be exercised upon a family, it does not need to be so, and the father may act as just another member of the community on equal footing with the others. Second, it appears that a particular social unit can sometimes be considered both a family (all of its members descend from the same father) and a community (all of its members live together), depending on one’s perspective. Consequently, it may legitimately submit to the different kinds of authority that correspond to these different kinds of social unit. For instance, a given family may be ruled by its head because he holds paternal authority or because he holds political authority by virtue of the decision of all the members of the family. On the other hand, provided the family head refrains from using his paternal authority, the family may collectively designate another of its members as a political leader.

Now that we know why Scotus believes that the private ownership of all goods is required for the common good and how it could have been justly promulgated, let us examine a few examples of how an authority may make just decisions regarding privately owned goods in order to preserve the common good. What is at stake is what is just when it comes to the transfer of ownership, whose necessity seems to arise as soon as every good is privately owned. Indeed, when everything is privately owned, there is no guarantee that the needs of everyone will be satisfied or that the desires of everyone will be met to such an extent that there will be no strife. When such circumstances arise, appealing to authority becomes justified in the eyes of Scotus.

5 Managing Private Goods for the Common Good

In order to understand how the preservation of the common good can in some cases overrule private ownership, one must first pay attention to the types of justice involved regarding the transfer of owned goods.¹⁹ This depends first on the kind of goods one considers. Scotus distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic goods. Intrinsic goods are those that are needed to sustain life, and extrinsic goods are those that are not. What happens when someone exchanges a good with one’s neighbour? If the shared good is extrinsic, then the justice one ought to follow is commutative justice: when a good is given, one of equal value must be given in return. If, however, the shared good is intrinsic, then the kind of justice is to be followed is either what Scotus terms “just dominion” or “just subordination”.²⁰

What Scotus means by this is not entirely clear. Let us determine what an intrinsic good is. It seems that, by contrast with extrinsic goods, it is defined as a good that pertains “to the sustaining of human life” and is “necessary for common life”. The sustaining of human life may be understood to refer to individual survival. In this sense, intrinsic goods are essentials, and it is clear that every member of a community must own what is essential to them. Otherwise, the members of the community, or at least one of them, will not have their needs met, and the common good will be in jeopardy: hence the reason why essentials are “necessary for common life”.

In another sense, one may consider that what is at stake is the sustaining of collective human life. In this sense, intrinsic goods are things whose ownership and possession by a given citizen are required for peace to be preserved and for everyone’s needs to be met. This second sense subsumes the first so that, in all cases, ‘intrinsic goods’ refer to things whose ownership and possession by certain citizens is required in the interest of the common good. Therefore, when it comes to intrinsic goods, justice requires that whoever receives ownership of such goods receives it according to what is good for the community and not in exchange for goods of equal value. Since the legislator is the one who determines what ought to be done for the good of the community, they must attribute intrinsic goods prudently – that is, by “just dominion” – and the members of the community must acquiesce to this attribution – that is, by “just subordination”. Let us call this sort of justice, by which one decides and another obeys justly, “authoritative justice”.

Let us now turn back to Scotus’ foundational principles: private ownership of all goods is consonant with the preservation of the good of the commonwealth. Such ownership, however, does not always abide by the same rules when it comes to its transfer: extrinsic goods must be transferred following commutative justice while intrinsic goods must be transferred following authoritative justice. Surely, in some cases, disagreement could arise over which goods are intrinsic and which are extrinsic. But even regarding goods whose nature is clear, doubt or conflict may arise because what is partially unjust – to deprive someone of a good they should receive according to commutative or authoritative justice – may be “publicly” just – that is, good for the commonwealth.²¹

In other terms, there are some goods, the extrinsic ones, that should be exchanged according to individual commutative justice (each person must receive something equal to what they give), and there are some goods, the intrinsic ones, that should be exchanged according to individual authoritative justice (each person must receive enough goods to ensure their survival and, if need be, such goods can be taken from others who have more than enough without compensation). Beyond these individual or partial justices, there is public justice, which I understand to be the justice according to which individuals may suffer injustice for the greater good (one may be deprived of what they are owed according to commutative justice or of what they need according to authoritative justice, provided this serves to ensure that the community as a whole continues to be peaceful and all of its other members get what they need).

Scotus gives us several examples of such cases that allow us to understand what measure of power political authority held over owned goods in the Franciscan’s view, even when all goods are privately owned.

Scotus first concerns himself with whether restitution is just in specific cases. Here, restitution simply refers to giving back a certain good that was unjustly taken from someone. In an example of restitution that we will shortly examine, the Franciscan supposes that the good that must be returned is a sword. Let us illustrate all cases of restitution mentioned by Scotus by supposing that they refer to a sword.

The first case²² is the following: Paul stole Peter’s sword. By all rights, he should give it back. Peter, however, is a mediocre swordsman, while Paul is an excellent one. The country needs to be defended, and Paul’s own sword is being repaired. In such a situation, Paul should keep the sword: it is a partial injustice done to Peter but it is publicly just because it preserves the peace of the country more efficiently. Here and in the examples that follow, I do not believe the matter to be linked to the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic goods: Scotus never says that Paul needs the sword as opposed to just wanting it. He simply says that it is better for everyone for the sword to be in competent hands, not that it is necessary.

Now let us suppose again that Paul stole Peter’s sword. Peter is still not much good in a fight, and Paul remains a superb warrior. However, in this case, Paul’s sword is not broken, nor is it any less sharp than Peter’s. Peter’s sword simply is more beautiful and expensive, and possessing it allows Paul to appear wealthier than he really is. In such a case, even though Paul is still more important than Peter for the commonwealth, it is unjust for him to keep the sword because possessing it only serves to bolster his reputation and increase his standing, which does not make him any more useful than he would be otherwise for the commonwealth. In other words, being useful to the state does not constitute a free pass to unjustly take anything from anyone: in order for a partial injustice to be permitted, it must be shown to contribute to public justice, not simply to a defender of public justice. This is Scotus’ second case.²³

The third case is different. What is at stake is not simply the comparison between what would be just for a given individual and what would be publicly just. The question is whether Peter’s sword, which was unjustly taken, should be given back to him while he is running amok in a state of fury. Surely not giving the sword back would be partially unjust inasmuch as it is rightfully his, and it would be publicly just inasmuch as it would prevent him from assaulting others and threatening the peace of the community. It would also be damaging to him, not only because he could hurt himself with the weapon but because it would put him in a situation where he would hurt the commonwealth, generating all sorts of negative repercussions for him.²⁴ In this case, I understand Scotus to mean that not giving the sword back would be individually unjust, according to commutative justice, but publicly as well as individually just according to authoritative justice because it is just to prevent one’s neighbour from harming themselves. Indeed, even if the common good were not at stake here, preventing Paul from hurting himself would be more than enough of a reason to withhold his sword from him.

Beyond restitution, Scotus also concerns himself with the transfer of ownership when it does not involve the explicit consent of the owner. This is what happens when the ownership of an abandoned property is granted to a member of the community: since it is abandoned, its owner is not here to accept the transfer. Nevertheless, Scotus tells us, the property should be transferred for the sake of peace, presumably because leaving something of value unattended would create feelings of bitterness and greed. The implicit consent of any member of the community to such a transfer, even when they are absent, should be assumed provided the transfer is made according to a just law.²⁵

Finally, it seems that Scotus believes that true altruistic actions can be performed for the common good, such as accepting to abandon one’s own life in its favour.²⁶ This highlights the value of the common good over individual good²⁷ inasmuch as Scotus clearly states that such a sacrifice is not made for the sake of the good morality of the agent but purely for the survival of the commonwealth. Thus, all personal desires and needs, even rightful ones, and all individual justices that one may aspire to are renounced in favour of public justice and the good of the commonwealth.

6 The Only Goods that Remain Common After the Fall: Spiritual Goods

Finally, we can briefly note that in Scotus’ mind, only one kind of good is still commonly owned: spiritual goods. However, it may be that Scotus uses the term common good equivocally, as his examples indicate. He gives two instances of this type of good: the infused habitus of charity (presumably this works for other habitus as well, at least those of hope and faith) and God himself, whom it would be vicious to want to keep for oneself since that would go against one’s duty to love one’s neighbour and thus prevent them from partaking in God’s bounty.

And this is clearly the case as far as the habit is concerned, because this habit, which by its nature is not private but common, is apt to incline one to love God non privately; and thus a private act of love that destroys love of neighbor cannot in any way be an act of that habit. This fact evinces the great perfection of this habit, because even if acquired envy could be greater, in terms of its intensity in eliciting acts, than infused charity of a modest degree, this habit – because it is ordinate and perfect in the genus of appetitive habits – cannot have to do with God otherwise than as the universal good who should be loved in common with others. Consequently, it cannot be the principle of any act that involves both love of God and the contrary of love of neighbor.²⁸

One may argue that such goods differ fundamentally from the ordinary, material goods that I have discussed above because it is not in the power of a person to share such goods: I can neither give my habitus to someone else, nor can I give them God. Furthermore, common ownership should not be understood when it comes to God or habitus in the same way as when it comes to material goods: while material goods are always limited, in terms of quantity as well as accessibility, immaterial goods are not: God can be enjoyed by an unlimited number of creatures equally, and these creatures may partake of God’s gifts, the supernatural habitus, equally (supernatural habitus should not be conceived of as natural habitus that are particular to individual persons: they are that by which one partakes in a certain way of God’s nature and identical in all men).

To make sense of this, however, we might surmise that what Scotus refers to here is pure jealousy: not wanting one to partake of the same goods as I have not because I would have less of them or because it would diminish my enjoyment of them but because of a disordered pride that leads me to want to be the only one to enjoy them. Though it would not be in my direct power to share these goods with others, or deprive others of them, still I would do everything I could to discourage them from partaking in God’s nature or enjoying the love of God.

It remains that such goods, dissimilar though they may be from ordinary, material goods, can and ought to be owned in common since such common ownership does not threaten the public good. Indeed, everyone can have as much as they need of them and have neither a reason nor the means to attempt to wrest them from others violently.

7 Conclusion

This brief foray into John Duns Scotus’ view of the common good shows that, in his mind, common good can be defined as peace among a given community whose every member’s basic needs are met. While this was attainable through the common ownership of goods before the Fall, given the morality of all involved, it generally cannot be so after the Fall. Human beings have become vicious, and legal boundaries need to be created so that everyone receives what they need to live, and the strong are not left to take everything from the weak, which would be a state of perpetual war. Private property, as administered by a just authority, is therefore the way to preserve the common good of the community. This is not to say that everyone has the final say regarding the goods they own no matter the circumstances. In fact, though political authority will not make private goods common, it has a great deal of power when it comes to redistributing goods, to such an extent that, in many cases, it is actually just to commit a private injustice if it is for the good of all. In the end, the only kind of good that can and must be owned in common is spiritual good, goods whose possession does not deprive anyone else, given that they can be equally possessed by all. This does not foster unrest since these goods are accessible to all.

Scotus thus appears as a champion of private property who nevertheless leaves a great deal of power in the hands of the state, provided it acts prudently. Such a balance makes Scotus’ contribution to political philosophy a nuanced and adaptable one.