Together for the Common Good : Towards a National Conversation

How can we work together for the common good today? Thirteen contributors – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, non-religious – discuss the common good from a wide range of viewpoints. How have thinkers like Aristotle and Edmund Burke talked about the common good in the past? Catholic Social Teaching has a lot to say about the common good: what does the common good mean for the world’s great religious traditions today? How can we usefully talk about the common good in a plural society? What responsibility has the state for the common good? Can the market serve the common good? If we care about the common good, what should we think – and do - about immigration, education, the NHS, inequality, and freedom? This book starts from the example of David Sheppard and Derek Worlock, the Anglican Bishop and Roman Catholic Archbishop, who famously worked together for the good of the city of Liverpool in the 1980s. The contributors call for a national conversation about how, despite our differences, we can work together – locally, nationally, internationally – for the common good.