Place. Limits. Liberty.
Join us for FPR’s 2025 Conference on “Work and Leisure”

common good 15

The Wicked Common Good: An All Hallows’ Eve Meditation

The spirit of community that arises from festivals such as Halloween is a common good. I suggest that it is also a great time to practice the virtues of shared…
October 31, 2022

Common Good and Bad Ideas

By reducing the value of words and, hence, constitutions, common good constitutionalism seems even more likely to veer into the dangerous realm of personal preference-based decision-making. Many figures could be…

Allowing a Little More Room for Subsidiarity: A Review of Adrian Vermeule’s Common Good Constitutionalism

Harvard Law School produces many of our future rulers, and it may be better for us if aspiring federal administrators learn from Vermeule at least the presumptive desirability of honoring…

Finding Common Ground on Climate: A Review of Saving Us

In the balance, Hayhoe’s book makes a positive contribution to the climate conversation. The book encourages dialogue rather than hectoring. In that sense, though the targeted topic is climate change,…

Common Good or Common Fear

In times of crisis a common fear can elicit behavior that appears similar to actions born of a commitment to the common good.

COVID-19: Crisis and Opportunity

Perhaps this crisis, while revealing the fragility of many aspects of American society, can at the same time provide opportunities for a recovery.

Cities, Common Spaces, and the Coronavirus

To be isolated from one another, and in particular from those third places where the rich possibilities of community are most regularly realized strains urban interdependence as nothing else.

Rise Up, O Saints, and Plant Gardens

Jake Meador’s In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World is a remarkably successful attempt to bring together the core teachings of Christianity and the community-centered…

One Good Politician

It can be discouraging watching people vie for political power. That they are motivated by a concern for our good is often hard to believe. A man like Aristides is…

Please Block the Way: Campaigning Against Courtesy

Japanese rail commuters ride train station escalators the way you might expect: those who are in no hurry stand to the right, leaving a ‘passing lane’ for those who walk…
September 7, 2014

Common Good Politics: A Review of Nader’s Book

In his new book, Ralph Nader argues that the Left and the Right should unite against the economic and political establishment in the Center.

The Closing of the Republican Mind (A Séance)

Lucky me, to be invited to try the beta version of Google’s newest and coolest app — Séance! After a quick download and install, I wasted no time in launching…
January 24, 2012

Monarchy and Regalism

A thing without proper limits becomes its own opposite, and benevolence quickly becomes a tyranny which threatens both civil and religious order.

The Politics of Ingratitude

Here is the great secret of my generation: What our parents gave us as a gift we have received as an entitlement. No one is not grateful for an entitlement.…

Is America Ungovernable?

Otto von Bismark, the 19th century Iron Chancellor and architect of modern Germany, once remarked that “If you like law and sausages, you shouldn't watch either being made.” One could…