Professor Brad Lewis discusses the concept of the common good in politics, contrasting contemporary Catholic social teaching with Aquinas's view and addressing criticisms of both.

This lecture was given on October 1st, 2024, at Indiana University.

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About the Speaker:

Bradley Lewis is associate professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America. He specializes in political and legal philosophy, especially in classical Greek political thought and in the theory of natural law. He holds a B.A. from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He has published scholarly articles in Polity, History of Political Thought, the Southern Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Communio, the Josephinum Journal of Theology, the Pepperdine Law Review, the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, and the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, as well as chapters in a number of books. He is currently working on a book project provisionally titled The Common Good and the Modern State. He is also a fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology and serves as associate editor of the American Journal of Jurisprudence.

Keywords: American Founding, Aristotle, Catholic Social Teaching, Common Good, Gaudium Et Spes, Hillary Clinton, Mater Et Magistra, Political Philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas