On Friday 19 May Professor Jeffery Nicholas, Providence University, U.S.A., lectured on "Diversity and the Common Good: A Need Defended" in Theoretical Ethics II class.

Abstract: The fundamental category of practical philosophy (human life) is human agency. All humans exercise agency for some good. We seek the good both individually and socially. The good the individual seeks is only known once the goods the community seeks are discovered, as I shall argue below. Thus, individual agency rests on social agency. If correct, then this analysis means that the fundamental category of human agency is the common good and the fundamental category of human action is the community. Does the prioritization of the common good and the community before the individual stand in contrast with our need to fight against oppression? Does it not support that oppression rather than provide a means for relieving it? Does it not in fact require a rejection of diversity? I shall argue that, in fact, diversity is necessary for understanding the common good and for achieving the common good. We can only conceive of the common good by conceiving of diversity, and we can only achieve the common good when we live in diverse communities.

See full text here.

Bio-note: Jeffery L. Nicholas (Ph.D philosophy, University of Kentucky) is an associate professor at Providence College and an international scholar on ethics and politics. He serves as research associate for the Center for Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics at London Metropolitan University and a foreign research associate at Universidad Sergio Arboleda in Bogotá Colombia. Dr. Nicholas is co-founder of and executive secretary for the International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry. He is the author of Reason, Tradition, and the Good: MacIntyre's Tradition Constituted Reason and Frankfurt School Critical Theory (UNDP 2012), as well as numerous articles. Dr. Nicholas writes on midwifery and birth, the common good, friendship and community, practical reason, and Native American philosophy. He aims to develop a philosophy of integral humanism that synthesizes the philosophical traditions of Alasdair MacIntyre, Frankfurt School Critical Theory, and Feminist Care Ethics.

Contact: jefferynicholas[at]gmail[dot]com