In the most
popular post on my blog, written in 2009, I asked: What
are the characteristics of a good society? I began the post by suggesting
that a good society would have good institutions – norms and laws that are good
for its members. I noted that in thinking about the characteristics of a good
society different people tend to emphasise different things that they consider
to be important e.g. egalitarianism, personal freedom, moral values and
spirituality. I then suggested that rather than just agreeing to differ, it
might be useful to try to identify some characteristics of a good society that
nearly everyone would agree to be important.
The three characteristics I identified were:
- institutions that enable members to live together in peace;
- institutions that provide members with opportunities to flourish – to have more of the things that are good for humans to have;
- and institutions that provide members with a degree of security against potential threats to individual flourishing.
No-one has
suggested to me that they disagree that good societies should have those three characteristics.
However, I
have been wondering recently how I should respond if someone suggested that in
some societies a substantial proportion of the population hold attitudes that
place a relatively low priority on living together peacefully. For example, while
they may play lip service to peacefulness, people in some societies may not consider
that it is important for children to learn to have tolerance and respect for
others. The chart shown above suggests that the importance placed on that
particular child quality does indeed vary substantially throughout the world.
On
reflection, I have decided that my view that peacefulness is a characteristic
of a good society does not actually depend on the degree of support for that
view in any society.
Why is
peacefulness important?
It is appropriate
to begin with the proposition that a good society would have good institutions
– norms and laws that are good for its members. What that means is that a good
society has institutions that support the flourishing of its individual
members.
In my book, Freedom,
Progress, and Human Flourishing, I identified several basic goods that a flourishing
person could be expected to have:
- Wise and well-informed self-direction
- Health and longevity
- Positive relationships
- Living in harmony with nature
- Psychological well-being.
The merits of
that list is a matter for ongoing reflection and discussion but I think it is helpful
in considering what characteristics a society needs to have if it is to support
the flourishing of individual members.
The contributions
of peacefulness are fairly obvious. Peaceful societies protect the rights of individuals
to self-direct, provided they do not interfere with the rights of others. They
contribute to health and longevity my minimizing violence. They provide a
context in which people can develop trusting relationships with others.
There isn’t any
explicit discussion of the concept of a good society in Freedom, Progress, and
Human Flourishing but the extensive discussion of progress in that book is
highly relevant. Progress is defined in the book as growth of opportunities for
human flourishing. On that basis, the good societies are those in which a great
deal of progress has occurred in the past. Progress can be ongoing because there
is always scope for good societies to become better.
Importance
of consensus about the desirability of peacefulness
Widespread
agreement about the importance of peacefulness to human flourishing provides
important support for institutions that enable the peaceful resolution of
disputes among people with different political objectives. A society has little
hope of becoming good, or remaining good, when an increasing number of people become
willing to resort to violence to impose their visions of a good society on
others.
