Absolute Goodness: In Defence of the Useless and Immoral

Abstract

Kraut defines absolute goodness as follows: for something to be absolutely good is for its goodness to be unrelated to the needs or interests of any individual. Let’s allow goodness to apply broadly to objects, states of affairs and events (including actions). (Although for Kraut the goodness of objects will be derivative on the goodness of elements of an individual’s life.) Treat x as a variable ranging over these categories. Then, to say that x is absolutely good in this sense is to say that a world containing x is better than a world in which x is absent, whether or not x contributes, in that world, to the satisfaction of anyone’s needs or interests. (In what follows I will occasionally refer to ‘needs and interests’ with the collective noun ‘ends’.) For example, to say that the Bamiyan Buddhas are absolutely good is to claim that a world in which all sentient life has been extinguished but in which the Buddhas exist is better than a world in which the statues were destroyed along with everything else. Call this the Moorean claim. The opposite of absolute value is relative value. Note that the phrase ‘relative value’ is deployed here as a term of art. It does not imply that what is relatively valuable is so only by contrast to something of lesser value, or only valuable for some people and not others. Rather, to say that x is relatively valuable is to say that its value is a product of the contribution that it makes to the realization of the ends of some given individual. Furthermore, the distinction between absolute and relative