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This section deals with evidence on the nature of the good. For related ideas, see
also the sections on Ethics and Values.
A moral and rational life is the human ideal, according to Plato and Aristotle
Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins (both professors of philosophy, Univ. of Texas at Austin), A
Short History of Philosophy, 1996, p. 58-59
“People, of course, act for all sorts of purposes, but their ultimate purpose, the purpose of human life, is by
no means to be understood as simply what particular people of even whole societies of people think they
want. Here the Socratic project comes back into view, to show people that many of the things they want are
ultimately not worth wanting, at least not as such. There is a purpose to human life, according to Aristotle,
and not surprisingly it is just that purpose that was promoted by Socrates: to realize one’s capacities as a
rational animal, to live a virtuous life in accordance with reason.”
Morality is enlightened pursuit of good desires
Morris R. Cohen (1880-1947; prof. of philosophy, Univ. of Chicago) and Ernest Nagel (American logical
empiricist philosopher, 1901-1985), An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method, 1934, p. 366
“The fact that people generally desire something does not prove that they should do so, for by following
their desires they may bring on themselves an evil even greater than that of struggling in vain to get what
they want — the evil of getting it and experiencing regret and disappointment, if not worse calamities. What
people ought to desire is what they would desire if they were enlightened and knew both what they really
wanted and what natural means would bring it about. Morality is thus wisdom applied to the conduct of life,
and yields rules which we would follow if we thought out all the implications of our choices and knew in
advance their consequences.”
Moral doubt arises only when we are comparing two potential goods
Sidney Hook (1902-1989; American philosopher and prof. at New York Univ.), in Morals and Values, ed. by
Marcus G. Singer, 1977, p. 303
“Every genuine experience of moral doubt and perplexity in which we ask, ‘What should I do?’ takes place
in a situation where good conflicts with good. If we already know what is evil the moral inquiry is over, or
it never really begins. ‘The worse or evil,’ says Dewey, ‘is the rejected good,’ but until we reject it, the
situation is one in which apparent good opposes apparent good.”
Duty is concerned with fulfilling obligations; it is different from the good
Sidney Hook (1902-1989; American philosopher and prof. at New York Univ.), in Morals and Values, ed. by
Marcus G. Singer, 1977, p. 304
“There is a conflict not only between the good and the good but between the good and the right, where the
good is a generic term for all the values in a situation and the right for all the obligations. The concepts of
good and right are irreducible to each other in ordinary use. We are often convinced we must fulfill a certain
duty even when we are far from convinced to the same degree that the action or rule it exemplifies will
achieve the greatest good. The ‘good’ is related to the relative satisfaction of an interest; ‘the right’ to the
fulfillment of a binding demand or rule of the community.”
We call things “good” when we desire them, regardless of whether they are truly good
Mortimer J. Adler (director, Institute for Philosophical Research), Ten Philosophical Mistakes, 1985, p. 116
“It was Spinoza, at the beginning of modern times, who advanced the view that whatever anyone desires
appears good to that individual as a consequence of his desiring it. Whatever in fact we desire we call good.
Prager’s LD Vault: Good · Revised June 2009 · © 2009 John R. Prager
Good, Spinoza maintained, is nothing but the name attached to whatever objects we happen to desire. We
deem them good because we desire them, not the other way around — desiring them because they are in fact
good.”
If “good” cannot be accurately defined, then we cannot make moral judgments
Mortimer J. Adler (director, Institute for Philosophical Research), Ten Philosophical Mistakes, 1985, p. 127
“If all goods were merely apparent, having the aspect of the good only because this or that individual
happens to want them, we could not avoid the relativism and subjectivism that would reduce moral
judgments to mere opinion. Having no hold on truth about what is right and wrong, we would be left
exposed to the harsh doctrine that might makes right.”
Socrates teaches that evil occurs only through error, not malice
Stephen R. L. Clark (prof. of philosophy, Univ. of Liverpool), “Ancient Philosophy” in The Oxford History of
Western Philosophy, ed. by Anthony Kenny, 1994, p. 20
“The idea most closely tied to the historical Socrates is the Socratic paradox that no one does wrong
willingly; to act at all is to do what one thinks is good, or thinks will have a better effect than any known
alternative. If one none the less does ill, it must be through ignorance. It follows that ‘wrongdoers’ need
only be taught their error, and that no one should be spared that teaching. To avoid punishment for one’s
wrongdoing is like avoiding necessary medicine, or willfully preferring error.”
There is inevitable conflict between what is good and what is right
Sidney Hook (1902-1989; American philosopher and prof. at New York Univ.), in Morals and Values, ed. by
Marcus G. Singer, 1977, p. 304-305
“Many have been the attempts made to escape the antinomies between the right and the good by defining
the good as the object of the right or the right merely as the means to the good. All have failed. To act upon
the right no matter what its consequences for human weal or woe seems inhuman, at times insane. The thirst
for righteousness has too often been an angry thirst satisfied if at all by long draughts of blood. On the other
hand, the attempt to do good by any means, no matter how unjust, is subhuman and usually irrational.”
“Good” is distinguished from “right”
Christine M. Korsgaard (Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University), “The Sources of Normativity,” from
The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Delivered at Cambridge University, November 16 and 17, 1992, p.
88; Online: www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/documents/korsgaard94.pdf, accessed May 1, 2008
“In the same way, the most general normative concepts, the right and the good, are names for problems —
for the normative problems that spring from our reflective nature. ‘Good’ names the problem of what we are
to strive for, aim for, and care about in our lives. ‘Right’ names the more specific problem of what we are to
do. The ‘thinness’ of these terms, to use Bernard Williams’s language, comes from the fact that they are
only concepts, names for whatever it is that solves the problems in question.”
Division between ‘right’ and ‘good’ separates absolutism and consequentialism
Lilly-Marlene Russow (Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Purdue University), “Ethical theory and
the moral status of animals,” The Hastings Center Report, May-June 1990, p. S4
“The distinction between ‘right’ and ‘good’ suggests that the two concepts are to some extent
incommensurable, even though a moderate theory should have some way of balancing the two. That is, in a
strict deontological theory one cannot justify an action that would otherwise be wrong simply on the ground
that it produces more good consequences than harmful ones. The rightness or wrongness of an action forms
a barrier that cannot be breached by an appeal to consequences. If torture is wrong, we cannot justify
torturing a terrorist merely because we can achieve considerable good by extracting information in this
manner. For this reason, deontological theories often take the form of a rights-based account of moral
obligation.”
The ancients did not address issues of right and wrong
Prager’s LD Vault: Good · Revised June 2009 · © 2009 John R. Prager
Richard Taylor (prof. emeritus of philosophy, Univ. of Rochester), “Joseph Fletcher’s Situation Ethics Once
Again,” Free Inquiry, Fall 1995, p. 48
“Indeed the idea of moral right and wrong, as we think of them, were quite unknown to the philosophers of
Antiquity. One finds no hint of them in Aristotle’s ethical writings, for example. Instead, the Greeks
thought of ethics as connected with virtue, and the virtues were always thought of as qualities of people, not
actions.”
Goodness is so fundamental and simple a notion that it cannot be defined
G.E. Moore (1873-1958; prof. of philosophy, Cambridge Univ.), in Great Traditions in Ethics, 3rd edition,
edited by E.M. Albert, T.C. Denise, and S.P. Peterfreund, 1975, p. 312
“My point is that ‘good’ is a simple notion, just as ‘yellow’ is a simple notion; that, just as you cannot, by
any manner of means, explain to any one who does not know it, what yellow is, so you cannot explain what
good is. Definitions of the kind I was asking for, definitions which describe the real nature of the object or
notion denoted by a word, are which do not merely tell us what the word is used to mean, are only possible
when the object or notion in question is something complex. You can give a definition of a horse, because a
horse has many different properties and qualities, all of which you can enumerate. But when you have
enumerated them all, when you have reduced a horse to its simplest terms, then you can no longer define
those terms.”
Even evil ultimately serves the purposes of Good
Ralph Waldo Emerson (American transcendentalist philosopher, essayist, and poet, 1803-1882),
“Considerations by the Way” in Essays: The Conduct of Life, 1860, reprinted in The Works of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Black’s Readers Service: 1928, p. 397
“In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad
is sometimes a better. ‘Tis the oppressions of William the Norman, savage forest-laws, and crushing
despotism, that made possible the inspirations of Magna Charta under John. Edward I. wanted money,
armies, castles, and as much as he could get. It was necessary to call the people together by shorter, swifter
ways, — and the House of Commons arose. To obtain subsidies, he paid in privileges. In the twenty-fourth
year of his reign, he decreed, ‘that no tax should be levied without consent of Lords and Commons;’ —
which is the basis of the English Constitution. Plutarch affirms that the cruel wars which followed the
march of Alexander, introduced the civility, language, and arts of Greece into the savage East; introduced
marriage; built seventy cities; and united hostile nations under one government. The barbarians who broke
up the Roman empire did not arrive a day too soon. Schiller says, the Thirty Years’ War made Germany a
nation. Rough, selfish despots serve men immensely, as Henry VIII. in the contest with the Pope; as the
infatuations no less than the wisdom of Cromwell; as the ferocity of the Russian czars; as the fanaticism of
the French regicides of 1789. The frost which kills the harvest of a year, saves the harvests of a century, by
destroying the weevil or the locust. Wars, fires, plagues, break up immovable routine, clear the ground of
rotten races and dens of distemper, and open a fair field to new men. There is a tendency in things to right
themselves, and the war or revolution or bankruptcy that shatters a rotten system, allows things to take a
new and natural order. The sharpest evils are bent into that periodicity which makes the errors of planets,
and the fevers and distempers of men, self-limiting.”
Prager’s LD Vault: Good · Revised June 2009 · © 2009 John R. Prager