We’re in trouble when it comes to making decisions. According to the Jesuit psychologist Michael O’Sullivan, this is what we do:
Nothing. Our first choice. We make choices when we have no other choice
Act hastily
Procrastinate
The criteria we use:
Other people’s opinions. (Especially partners, parents, family members, friends.)
Cliches (e.g., “I want to make a difference”)
A gut feeling
A muddled analysis concluding that people’s opinions, cliches, and your gut feeling are actually quite reasonable
A bad situation. “From whence cometh my help?” said the psalmist. From the Ignatian tradition of course. The hardworking staff here at An Ignatian POV has combed that tradition and found something to help cut through this thicket of woe. It’s the idea of “the greater good.” When choosing among two or more plausible courses of action, prefer the one that seems to accomplish the greater good.
Ignatius mentions “the greater good “ and “the universal good” dozens of times in his writings. It’s in the Constitutions; it’s what Society is supposed to strive for when discerning alternative courses of action.
The greater good was the principle Ignatius used in 1553 when he had to decide what to do about a Jesuit named Andrea Galvanello. Ignatius had temporarily assigned Galvanello to serve a parish in the town of Morbegno in northern Italy. Galvanello turned out to be a pastoral rock star. The people loved him. They begged Ignatius to assign him to Morbegno permanently. But Ignatius refused. He reassigned Galvanello, explaining to the people of Morbegno that he did so in order to accomplish “a greater good.”
One problem with using “the greater good” as a criterion is immediately obvious: it doesn’t sound good to people invested in the lesser option. “I’m taking your priest away because I think he can do more good somewhere else” – I’m sure the good people of Morbegno were offended to hear that. It’s the kind of thing that makes enemies, causes lasting resentments. But Ignatius had to make a tough choice, and what good is a principle for decision making if it doesn’t help you make a tough choice?
There are situations when “the greater good” seems like the wrong question to ask. Bad situations, times of retrenchment. Sales are down, funding has run out, key people have left, the powers that be have decreed a 40 percent budget cut. Your job is to keep the lights on however you can. Here, though, you could turn the principle inside out; if you can’t strive for the greater good, you can resolve to do the least harm.
Sometimes striving for the greater good isn’t your job. Mother Teresa was regularly hounded by critics who thought she should pay more attention to bringing about social reform in India. Not in my job description, she said. The Sisters of Charity are here to take care of destitute dying people, not to do politics.
If you want “the more universal good” to guide a collective decision, you need buy-in; people have to agree this is the goal. That’s not easy. People have their own agendas. Change stirs up anxiety about money., status, and power. The organization itself has an agenda. But it’s not hard to see how a desire to do “the greater good” can bring order to the discussion. Some arguments have less weight. The objection that “this isn’t the way we do things around here” sounds a bit hollow. You can’t just say, “I prefer this,” and let it go at that. You have to explain why you prefer it and show how it brings everyone closer to the greater good.
“The greater good” can expose cognitive bias. The easier choice for Ignatius would have been to leave Fr. Galvanello right where he was, and no doubt he could have made a convincing argument to do just that. But a desire to do the greater good would raise tough questions. Might that not be avoiding a tough decision (status quo bias in the rubric of social psychology)? Might it not be giving in to what others want (social influence bias)? Might not your rationale to do nothing be self-serving (confirmation bias)?
I experienced the clarity of the greater good a few years ago when I was deciding whether to take on a new type of volunteer work. I had been invited to join a new, untested program to tutor recent immigrants with very little facility in English. I’d never done anything like that. The agency hadn’t had much experience with it either. I would have to stop working in another program, a very successful one, that I very much enjoyed. I didn’t really want to do the new thing. But I gradually warmed up to the idea. A friend suggested that I consider the Ignatian principle of seeking the greater good. I did. It seemed that the new program might accomplish this, so I signed on.
(Footnote: It didn’t turn out the way I hoped. There was a long delay before the agency found a learner for me to work with. Then the day before our first meeting, my learner got a new job and had to quit the program. There was another long delay before another learner was found and then the pandemic came along and the program was suspended. I was reminded that discernment is about making the best decision you can at the time, not about predicting the future.)
“The greater good” is useful because it can have an objective meaning. If something is greater, other things are lesser.
It’s not always obvious which choice serves “the greater good.” People will have different ideas about what the greater good is, how to measure it, how to pursue it. The greater good isn’t the only criterion for decision-making. But it is a principle with deep Ignatian roots. Ignatius liked it. It’s part of the Ignatian way of proceeding.
Well said.