A noble life is lived for a higher purpose

Our lives should be ordered to what is good. The observation is so commonplace that it can sound trite. In English, we compare good to great. In our practical lives, we can sometimes tell ourselves that we are basically good, as long as we have not done anything bad. Yet in what sense is good the ultimate end toward which we order our lives? That sense of good is exalted, grand, supreme. Our lives are not supposed to be merely good, as, for instance, four on a five-point scale. They are supposed to be off the charts, outstanding, excellent. We are called to be noble.

We can gain insight into noble action by reflecting on the basic experience of knowing that our work is part of something larger and more meaningful. Whether it is work in a family, or work in a modern place of employment, if it feels meaningful, it is because we find purpose in subordination to a larger purpose shared by others. And we do not feel our work is meaningful if we fail to experience our efforts as part of a larger project shared with others: if we are an isolated and replaceable cog; if we do not feel trusted or respected; if, instead of feeling like a valued member of a community, we feel taken for granted by family members, exploited by coworkers, or neglected in an inhumane bureaucracy.

This is true even in the case of factory work. The innovation of the assembly line was a remarkable development of modern industrial work. Yet it was also experienced as alienating and dehumanizing. An assembly line can make the production of a complicated item more efficient, but the more complicated the product, the harder it is for any one person to understand his one discrete task as part of a more important whole. …

For the past several decades, some of the most important improvements in factory production have been attempts to restore a sense of common purpose to factory workers — for instance, by having workers act in teams responsible for more of the overall production. Each worker finds it easier to understand how individual tasks serve a larger project and has experience of the collaboration necessary to complete the job. Such an arrangement ennobles the work. Not surprisingly, management experts find that this kind of teamwork increases not only worker satisfaction, but quality and productivity as well.
 
If productivity management can see the value of common purpose for manufacturing, surely we can see the value of common purpose for a well-lived life. A noble life is lived for a high purpose. A common purpose does not belong to one individual, alone, but is shared by many. Although the notion is often misunderstood, this is what is meant by the notion of the common good.

Excerpted from A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction, by Christopher O. Blum and Joshua P. Hochschild 
(Sophia Institute Press, 2017), pp. 52-53.

CHRISTOPHER O. BLUM 
is provost of the Augustine Institute and 
director of its Graduate School of Theology. 

JOSHUA P. HOCHSCHILD 
is a professor and director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program (PPE) at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, MD.