Same as desired, so that when we say a thing is good we mean that it isĭesired. (§ 5 ¶ 2)Ī fairly plausible view is that good means the Thus the notion of good is wider and more fundamental than any notion concerned with conduct we use the notion of good in explaining what right conduct is, but we do not use the notion of right conduct in explaining what good is.
Such goods are still goods, even though human conduct can have no reference to them. And our knowledge of goods is confined to the things we have experienced or can imagine but presumably there are many goods of which we human beings have absolutely no knowledge, because they do not come within the very restricted range of our thoughts and feelings. What we ought to do, in fact, is limited by our powers and opportunities, whereas the good is subject to no such limitation. There is no reason to doubt that some of the lost tragedies of Aeschylus were good, but we ought not to try to re-write them, because we should certainly fail. This would merely put ought in place of good as our ultimate undefined notion but as a matter of fact the good is much wider that what we ought to try to produce. It might be thought that good could be defined as the quality of whatever we ought to try to produce. But all such characterizations really presuppose the notions of good and bad, and are therefore useful only as a means of calling up the right ideas, not as logical definitions. When a thing is good, it is fitting that we should feel pleasure in its existence when it is bad, it is fitting that we should feel pain in its existence. If it seems to be in our power to cause a thing to exist or not to exist, we ought to try to make it exist if it is good, and not exist if it is bad. To explain what we mean by Good and Bad, we may say that a thing is good when on its own account it ought to exist, and bad when on its own account it ought not to exist. When people begin to philosophize, they seem to make a point of forgetting everything familiar and ordinary otherwise their acquaintance with redness or any other colour might show them how an idea can be intelligible where definition, in the sense of analysis, is impossible. A second reason, probably more potent, is the common confusion that makes people think they cannot understand an idea unless they can define it-forgetting that ideas are defined by other ideas, which must be already understood if the definition is to convey any meaning. This is perhaps one reason that has led people to think that the notion of good could be analysed into some other notion, such as pleasure or object of desire. In the case of good, the process is more difficult, both because goodness is not perceived by the senses, like redness, and because there is less agreement as to the things that are good than as to the things that are red. Thus the idea of redness is conveyed to their minds,Īlthough it is quite impossible to analyse redness or to find constituents which
That children are taught the names of colours they are shown (say) a red book,Īnd told that that is red and for fear they should think red meansīook, they are shown also a red flower, a red ball, and so on, and told Imagination to the production of the idea which is intended. Probably will, itself contain the idea of good, which would be a fault in aĭefinition, but is harmless when our purpose is merely to stimulate the Pentagon? but in such a characterization as shall call up theĪppropriate idea to the mind of the questioner. When people ask Whatĭo you mean by good? the answer must consist, not in a verbalĭefinition such as could be given if one were asked What do you mean by Simplest concstituents of our more complex ideas, and are therefore incapable ofīeing analysed or built up out of other simpler ideas. These ideas are apparently among those which form the Good and Bad, in the sense in which the words are here intended (which is, I believe, their usual sense), are ideas which everybody, or almostĮverybody, possesses.
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