At one session, several faculty members and students engaged in a debate in which references were vaguely and frequently made to the common good. One student bravely asked a political philosophy professor to define what he meant. Sensing that no answer was forthcoming, I decided to jump in. To discover what constitutes the common good, I said, it is necessary to determine what makes man what he is. Man's distinctive nature is exhibited in his rational thinking, the process of abstraction and conceptualization, that is necessary for his survival and self-actualization.
Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies, and integrates the input received from the senses.
His rational faculty sets him apart from all other living species. To live as a human being, man must think, act, and create the conditions that his life requires to survive and prosper. Freedom, a fundamental personal and social good, is another natural requirement of man's existence. Each person has the ability to think his own thoughts and control his own energies in his efforts to act according to those thoughts. Men are rational beings with free wills, who have the ability to form their own purposes, aims, and intentions.