Good (philosophy)

“ Moral relations now have their status, in that being's consciousness. So far as he feels anything to be good, he makes it good. It {191} is good, for him; and being good for him, is absolutely good, for he is the sole creator of values in that universe, and outside of his opinion things have no moral character at all. ”

“ Philosophy proceeds to show that this takes place only in appearance; that vice is never unpunished nor virtue unrewarded. From this Philosophy passes, into a discussíon in reward to the nature of providence and fate, and shows that every fortune is good. ”

“ He sees, indeed, somewhat better than most men what the question always is,—not a question of this good or that good simply taken, but of the two total universes with which these goods respectively belong. ”

“ As to moral philosophy, they have the same disputes among them as we have here. They examine what are properly good, both for the body and the mind; and whether any outward thing can be called truly good, or if that term belong only to the endowments of the soul. ”

“ For moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different: and divers men, differ not only in their judgment, on the senses of what is pleasant, and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight; ”

“ What kind of man, then, is it that nature has commenced? and what is the office and task of wisdom? What is it that ought to be finished and completed by her? If there is nothing to be made further in man, except some kind of motion of the mind, that is to say, reason, then it follows, that the ultimate object is to mould the life according to virtue. For the perfection of reason is virtue. If there is nothing but body, then the chief goods must be good health, freedom from pain, beauty, and so on. The question at this moment is about the chief good of man. ”

“ Since everything which is demanded is by that fact a good, must not the guiding principle for ethical philosophy (since all demands conjointly cannot be satisfied in this poor world) be simply to satisfy at all times as many demands as we can? ”

“ All persons are just, through Justice — wise, through Wisdom — good, through Goodness or the Good — beautiful, through Beauty or the Beautiful. Now Justice, Wisdom, Goodness, Beauty or the Beautiful, must each be something. ”

“ And it is obvious that the question what things are ‘ideal’ in this sense is one which must be answered before we can pretend to settle what is the Absolute or the Human Good. It is with the Ideal, in this third sense, that this chapter will be principally concerned. Its main object is to arrive at some positive answer to the fundamental question of Ethics—the question: ‘What things are goods or ends in themselves?’ To this question we have hitherto obtained only a negative answer: the answer that pleasure is certainly not the sole good. ”

“ Appreciation of truth and interest in knowing is treated as a value, but not truth itself to which subjectivity is denied. The method I have adopted of treating this fundamental point may perhaps be made clearer by a simple illustration. Let us take any particular moral judgment, for example, "A [a conscious individual] is good." The assertion implies that A is the habitual doer of desirable actions, or is benevolently disposed towards the valuer, Society at large, or God, according to the valuer's idea of goodness. ”

“ But, as a matter of fact, I cannot avoid thinking that there are wholes, containing something positively evil and ugly, which are, nevertheless, great positive goods on the whole. Indeed, it appears to be to this class that those instances of virtue, which contain anything intrinsically good, chiefly belong. It need not, of course, be denied that there is sometimes included in a virtuous disposition more or less of those unmixed goods which were first discussed—that is to say, a real love of what is good or beautiful. ”

“ Hence what is true is good, what is useful is good, what is fair is good, what is right is good; and the true, the useful, the fair, and the right are intertwined and circle about man like a noble sisterhood, to waken him to life, and to urge him toward God, the supreme good, whose being is power, wisdom, love without limit. The degree of goodness in all things is measured by their approach to this absolute Being. Hence the greater our strength, wisdom, and love, the greater our good, the richer and more perfect our life. ”

“ Is it to seek happiness, or to seek virtue and knowledge?—Attend, and I will show you that in finding one, you shall find the three. To be happy, we must be virtuous; and when we are virtuous, we are wise. Let us then begin: and first, let us for awhile hush our passions into slumber, forget our prejudices, and cast away our vanity and our pride. Thus patient and modest, let us come to the feet of Philosophy; let us say to her, ‘Behold us, scholars and children, gifted by nature with faculties, affections, and passions.—Teach us their use, and their guidance. ”

“ The good for them was not an infinite process of idle distinction. Their interest is practical, and they do and must understand by the good (which they call a means) some means to an end in itself; which latter they assume, and unconsciously fix in whatever is agreeable to themselves. If we said to them, for example, ‘Virtue is a means, and so is everything besides, and a means to everything else besides. Virtue is a means to pleasure, pain, health, disease, wealth, poverty, and is a good, because a means; and so also with pain, poverty, &c. They are all good, because all means. ”

“ Nature not only bears it, but challenges it, for there is nothing with her preferable, nothing which she desires more than credit and reputation, and praise, and honor, and glory. I choose here to describe this one thing under many names, and I have used many that you may have the clearer idea of it; for what I mean to say is, that whatever is desirable of itself, proceeding from virtue, or placed in virtue, and commendable on its own account (which I would rather agree to call the only good than deny it to be the chief good) is what men should prefer above all things. ”

“ When we recognize that actions which we call good and bad are so called because of their causal relation to pain and pleasure, the belief must arise in us, that the worth of qualities of character depends on the promise they contain of future action. The most important power for the happiness or misery of humanity is the character of human beings. Hence the morally good, excellence of character, is to be regarded as preëminently Good. ”

“ Let us suppose, in the first place, that it is meant to hold everywhere.
Then (1) we are taking for granted that nothing is good in itself; that only the means to something else are good; that ‘good,’ in a word, = ‘good for,’ and good for something else. ”

“ Its modern forms have been greatly varied, but they all153 agree in founding the morally good in utility. That which experience shows to be useful, as promotive of personal or social interests and happiness, becomes thereby right, or the norm of moral choices and conduct. The theory, in all its modifications, is a "goods" theory,51 interpreting obligation as simply the behest to conform life to the attainment of the various forms of good, even the chief, as happiness or enjoyment, provided for in man's nature and condition. ”

“ True principles of justice, true types of beauty, all moral relations between man and man, all ideas of order, these are engraved on his understanding; he sees the right place for everything and the causes which drive it from that place; he sees what may do good, and what hinders it. Without having felt the passions of mankind, he knows the illusions they produce and their mode of action. ”

“ The relation which ethical judgments assert to hold universally between 'goodness' and other things are of two kinds: a thing may be asserted either to be good itself or to be causally related to something else which is itself good—to be 'good as a means.' 21 16. ”

“ The inducements to virtue are, in his view, our humane sentiments, on the one hand, and our self-love, or prudence, on the other; the two classes of motives conspiring to promote both our own good and the good of mankind. ”

“ By its close resemblance to the judgment of the true and the beautiful, the judgment of the good has shown us the affinities of ethics, metaphysics, and æsthetics.
The good, so essentially united to the true, is distinguished from it in that it is practical truth. The good is obligatory. These two ideas are inseparable, but not identical. For obligation rests on the good,—in this intimate alliance, from the good obligation borrows its universal and absolute character. ”

“ And can we similarly discover any characteristic which belongs in common to absolutely all “good” things, and which does not belong to any thing except what is a good? Or again, can we discover any single reason, applicable to all right actions equally, which is, in every case, the reason why an action is right, when it is right? And can we, similarly, discover any reason which is the reason why a thing is good, when it is good, and which also gives us the reason why any one thing is better than another, when it is better? ”

“ As all beautiful and all true things refer themselves, these to a Unity which is absolute TRUTH, and those to a Unity which is absolute BEAUTY, so all the moral principles centre in a single principle, which is THE GOOD. Thus we arrive at the conception of THE GOOD in itself, the ABSOLUTE Good, superior to all particular duties, and determinate in those duties. ”

“ The highest moral goodness we found was an attribute of character, in so far as it issued in acts done for the sake of their goodness, not for the sake of any pleasure or any satisfaction of desire which they bring to the agent. But it is impossible that an action should be done for the sake of its goodness, unless it has been previously contemplated as good for some other reason than that which consists in its being done for the sake of its goodness. ”

“ Here, therefore, we have instances of virtue, the exercise of which really contains something that is good in itself. And, in general, we may say that wherever a virtue does consist in a disposition to have certain motives, the exercise of that virtue may be intrinsically good; although the degree of its goodness may vary indefinitely according to the precise nature of the motives and their objects. In so far, then, as Christianity tends to emphasize the importance of motives, of the 'inward' disposition with which a right action is done, we may say that it has done a service to Ethics. ”

“ But when a human being is the active instrument of generating or diffusing happiness, the principle through which it is most effectually instrumental to that purpose, is called virtue. And benevolence, or the desire to be the author of good, united with justice, or an apprehension of the manner in which that good is to be done, constitutes virtue. ”

“ And the vices are ignorance of those things of which the virtues are the knowledge.
LV. Good, looked at in a general way, is some advantage, with the more particular distinction, being partly what is actually useful, partly what is not contrary to utility. On which account virtue itself, and the good which partakes of virtue are spoken of in a threefold view of the subject. First, as to what kind of good it is, and from what it ensues; as, for instance, in an action done according to virtue. Secondly, as to the agent, in the case of a good man who partakes of virtue.... ”

“ The problem is to combine the absolute value of that Goodness which, as we say, 'saves the soul' with the relative values of the various good things that soothe or beautify life. For, if there is any value at all—I will not say in health and happiness, but in art, poetry, knowledge, refinement, public esteem, or human affection, and if their claims do clash, as in common opinion they sometimes do, with the demands of absolute sanctity, how is the balance to be struck? ”

“ For when, by a comparison of the reason, the mind ascends from those things which are according to reason, then it arrives at a notion of good. And this good we are speaking of, we both feel to be and call good, not because of any addition made to it, nor from its growth, nor from comparing it with other things, but because of its own proper power. ”

“ Thus a man may be "good," and his character may be "good," and yet neither are "good" in this fundamental sense, in which goodness is a characteristic which a thing would possess, if it existed quite alone. ”

“ What is commonly, in a popular sense, called reason, and is so much recommended in moral discourses, is nothing but a general and calm passion which takes a comprehensive and a distant view of its object, and actuates the will, without exciting any sensible emotion. A man, we say, is diligent in his profession from reason; that is, from a calm desire of riches and fortune. A man adheres to justice from reason; that is, from a calm regard to public good, or to a character with himself and others. ”

“ We shall, therefore, be prepared to find that virtue has as little claim to be considered the sole or chief good as pleasure; more especially after seeing that, so far as definition goes, to call a thing a virtue is merely to declare that it is a means to good. ”