Good Simpliciter Research Articles

Responsible Knowing in Partnering

How partners encounter each other plays a role in whether they will be able to sustain their interaction. How partners go about maintaining their interaction reveals features of their epistemological system, particularly with respect to factors like what they know, what they take to be relevant to the interpretation, and what they value. In this way, the value system (what partners want) and the epistemological system (what partners know) intersect. By focusing on the role of reasoning and understanding, I believe we stand to gain a clearer picture of how expectations about interactions inform the dynamics between partners. This, in turn, affords a picture of what partners can actually achieve in and through their connection. I am particularly interested in considering what features of interaction are necessary for maximizing the affordances of the partnership. I say this not as a utilitarian interested in maximizing good simpliciter, but as a social epistemologist thinking about the contingent goods that are present in relation (e.g. care). The epistemic picture assumes that there are things that are knowable in dancing together, while the ethical picture assumes that partners are responsible for the things they ought to know.

The Grounding Problem of Equal Respect

In this paper, I explore three theories of value to illuminate how nontheistic and theistic accounts may differ in grounding human dignity: neo- Aristotelian ethical naturalism, Kantian constructivism, and a theistic account of good simpliciter. The theistic account of good simpliciter that I offer adapts Robert Adams’s notion of the transcendent Good as the Excellent. In this account, I explain how Adams’ thesis that goodness is a property consisting in a sort of resemblance to God may be understood in a new way, using ideas drawn from contemporary mathematics and quantum mechanics. On my account, we must value human beings neither because such valuing would be beneficial or necessary for human flourishing nor because it is a logical outcome of anything we care to value. Rather it is because we recognize the property of self-similarity in all of us, which may be understood as a resemblance to God as good simpliciter.

Good people are not like good knives

AbstractIs anything good simpliciter? And can things count as ‘good’ independent of the context in which ‘good’ is used? Traditionally, a number of meta‐ethicists have given positive answers. But more recently, some philosophers have used observations based on natural language to argue that things can only count as ‘good’ relative to ends and contextual thresholds. I will use work from contemporary linguistics to argue that ‘good’ is ambiguous, and that it has a moral disambiguation that attributes a fixed degree of goodness. This implies that things can count as ‘good’ simpliciter, independent of context. Not only does this result provide support for the traditional view, but it also vindicates some aspects of the more recent view.

Thomson on Goodness

Judith Jarvis Thomson has written extensively on what is usually (though she does not seem much to care for the word) known as ‘metaethics’. Notably in the Thomson half of Harman and Thomson’s 1996 Moral Knowledge and Moral Objectivity, the 1997 Journal of Philosophy paper “The Right and the Good”, and her Tanner Lectures in Goodness and Advice published in 2003. Thomson thinks there is no such thing as being good simpliciter. There is only what she sometimes talks of as being good in a way or being good in some respect. A thing can be good at stuff, good at football or baking or whatever. This critical note analyses what is at stake in Thomson's approach. Keywords: Metaethics, Judith Thomson, Consequentialism, Moral good

Aristotle’s Criticism of the Platonic Idea of the Good in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, Aristotle directs his criticism not only against the Platonic Idea of the Good but also against the notion of a universal Good. In this paper, I also examine some of the most interesting aspects of his criticism of the Platonic Good and the universal Good in Eudemian Ethics 1.8. In the EN, after using a series of disputable ontological arguments, Aristotle’s criticism culminates in a strong ethical or rather practical and, simultaneously, epistemological argument, from which a dialectical postulatum emerges. This argument aims to show that we have to discover the dialectical stages or grades which constitute the relation between the ultimate End, i.e., the Good simpliciter or the absolute Good, and the relational goods till the last prakton good in which each specific praxis ends. According to the present reading, Aristotle sets out to establish a kind of Dialectic of the ends (Dialektikē tōn telōn) or Dialectic of the goods (Dialektikē tōn agathōn), which puts emphasis on the descent to the specific good, which is appropriate to and cognate with each individual, be that a person, praxis, science or craft. It is also suggested that this might be relevant to Aristotle’s tendency to establish a separation of phronēsis, i.e., practical wisdom, from sophia, i.e., wisdom, in the Nicomachean Ethics.

Aristotle’s Criticism of the Platonic Idea of the Good in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, Aristotle directs his criticism not only against the Platonic Idea of the Good but also against the notion of a universal Good. In this paper, I also examine some of the most interesting aspects of his criticism of the Platonic Good and the universal Good in Eudemian Ethics 1.8. In the EN, after using a series of disputable ontological arguments, Aristotle’s criticism culminates in a strong ethical or rather practical and, simultaneously, epistemological argument, from which a dialectical postulatum emerges. This argument aims to show that we have to discover the dialectical stages or grades which constitute the relation between the ultimate End, i.e., the Good simpliciter or the absolute Good, and the relational goods till the last prakton good in which each specific praxis ends. According to the present reading, Aristotle sets out to establish a kind of Dialectic of the ends (Dialektikē tōn telōn) or Dialectic of the goods (Dialektikē tōn agathōn), which puts emphasis on the descent to the specific good, which is appropriate to and cognate with each individual, be that a person, praxis, science or craft. It is also suggested that this might be relevant to Aristotle’s tendency to establish a separation of phronēsis, i.e., practical wisdom, from sophia, i.e., wisdom, in the Nicomachean Ethics.

In defence of good simpliciter

Many including Judith Jarvis Thomson, Philippa Foot, Peter Geach, Richard Kraut, and Paul Ziff have argued for good simpliciter skepticism. According to good simpliciter skepticism, we should hold that there is no concept of being good simpliciter or that there is no property of being good simpliciter. I first show that prima facie we should not accept either form of good simpliciter skepticism. I then show that all of the arguments that good simpliciter skeptics have proposed for their view fail to show that we have good reason to accept good simpliciter skepticism. So, I show that we do not have good reason to accept good simpliciter skepticism.

On Susan Wolf’s “Good-for-Nothings”

According to welfarism about value, something is good simpliciter just in case it is good for some being or beings. In her recent Presidential Address to the American Philosophical Association, “Good-For-Nothings”, Susan Wolf argues against welfarism by appeal to great works of art, literature, music, and philosophy. Wolf provides three main arguments against this view, which I call The Superfluity Argument, The Explanation of Benefit Argument, and The Welfarist’s Mistake. In this paper, I reconstruct these arguments and explain where, in my view, each goes wrong.

Reasons as the Unity Among the Varieties of Goodness

AbstractOur concepts of good simpliciter, good for, and good as a particular kind of thing must share some common element. I argue that all three types of goodness can be analysed in terms of the reasons that there are for a certain sets of agents to have pro‐attitudes. To this end I provide new and compelling accounts of good for and goodness of a kind in terms of reasons for pro‐attitudes that are more explanatorily illuminating than competing accounts and that evade the objections that undermine previous accounts of good for and goodness of a kind in terms of reasons.

Well-being and Prudential Value

When we talk about well-being we often also talk about what is a person. The fact that we use the term suggests that there is a kind of here. Philosophers tend to call this value to distinguish it from of other kinds, such as aesthetic or moral value. Surprisingly little attention is given in the philosophical literature to the relationship between prudential and well-being. Often, they are simply regarded as synonyms (in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for example [Crisp 2008]). In this paper I shall argue that it is useful to make a distinction between these two separate, but closely related, notions and that a recognition of this distinction, and an increased focus upon prudential in certain circumstances, would be beneficial in the context of public policy. The Distinction When we say that a person has a high level of well-being, we tend to mean that his life is going well for him overall. In some cases a judgment about well-being may concern a person's whole life, but it is more usual to talk about somebody's well-being at a particular time. Sometimes we talk about specific kinds of well-being, such as psychological or social well-being. In these cases we are concerned with how well a person's life is going in a particular respect, rather than on the whole. Nevertheless, a judgment about someone's level of psychological or social well-being is still a judgment about how well his life is going overall in that respect. By contrast, when we talk about prudential value, we do necessarily make any overall evaluation of a person's life. We may, of course, talk about the prudential of a person's life itself--whether it is a good life for that person. But lives are by no means the only things that we evaluate in this way. We talk about all sorts of things, including objects, people, events, and states of affairs as being good or for people. When we talk about something's being good for a person, we mean that this thing makes, or tends to make, that person's life go better for her. But making such a judgment does imply any judgment about how well her life is going overall. Indeed, the judgment that something is good for some person is entirely consistent with a judgment that the person's life is going badly overall. Thus, for example, when a condemned man eats his favorite meal on the eve of his execution, it is plausible that in some small way his enjoyment of the meal is good for him: it makes his life go a little bit better for him than it would have gone otherwise. Nevertheless, this is consistent with the fact that overall his life is going very badly indeed. We might say that the meal has positive prudential for him, but that his level of well-being is very low. We can sum up the distinction by saying that well-being is what someone has if her life is going well for her; whereas something has prudential for someone if it contributes to making her life go well. Some Points about Prudential Value Prudential is a kind of alongside other kinds, such as aesthetic value. It has a particular property that helps distinguish it from other kinds of value. Prudential is always relative to a person or other welfare subject: something that has this kind of is good for someone (or something). Other kinds of aren't usually seen as having this kind of relativity: things are good simpliciter, good for someone (although there are philosophical views that hold that certain kinds of may be relative in a different way: to a certain cultural context or sensibility). Prudential also has certain properties that it shares with some other kinds of value. It can be positive or negative: things can be good for someone or for someone. Bad, in this context, does mean merely not very good, but is the opposite of good: bad is to as concave is to convex, as big is to small. …

Meta‐Ethical Realism with Good of a Kind

AbstractThere is a difference between an object's being good simpliciter and an object's being good of its kind, and the vast majority of philosophers have supposed that it is the former variety of goodness that is relevant to ethics. I argue that one may be a meta‐ethical realist while employing the notion of good of a kind to the exclusion of good simpliciter; I call such a view kindism. I distinguish between two varieties of kindism, explicate the details of one of those varieties, and defend (that variety of) kindism against possible objections.

Plotinus's Ethics of Disinterested Interest

Plotinus' recognises the possibility of conflict between self-referential aims and the good of the kosmos. His solution resembles closely one attributed sometimes to the Stoics. The inner reformation Plotinus proposes will yield a detached understanding of the whole universe. This view is accompanied by a realisation that one's happiness lies in functioning as a part of the whole and in contributing to the perfection of the universe. Other-regard cannot, therefore, be seen as altogether missing from neoplatonic ethics. What gives Plotinus' ethics an agent-centred spin is its emphasis on how this state can be attained. Promoting the self's true well-being by an inward turn is the only means to an understanding of what is good simpliciter.

The Theory of Democracy

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EmToRs: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: Sheed & Ward, Inc., New York City VoL. Ill JULY, 1941 No.3 THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY PREFA'l:ORY NoTE W E propose to make a philosophical analysi!'l of democracy . We cannot ignore the fact that this analysis is coincident with a world-wide war which has Cvernment is not only a certain grade of political goodness already accomplished , but both a stage in the progressive realization of the ideal common good, and accordingly a less or more efficient means toward the ultimate end, the happiness of every person who is a member of the human community. e. The three factors (in terms of which the specific forms of good government are differentially constituted) are three separable and cumulative elements of political justice. (I) The political community is an organized multitude of men living together in the unity of peace. THE THEORY OF DE]dOCRACY 417 (2) The state, or political community, is not the only organized multitude of men living together in the unity of peace. (a) Communities can be distinguished according to their causes, final and efficient, and thus we distinguish between the Church, as a supernatural community, and all other societies as natural. (b) Among natural communities, there are two further principles of distinction: first, according as the end of association is the human good simpliciter, or a human good secundum quid, and thus, the family, the village, and the state, are distinguished from all economic or technical corporations; second, according as the association for the sake of the human good simpliciter is more or less self-sufficient and more or less adequate to the realization of the end, and thus the state is distinguished from family and village as perfect from imperfect communities. (3) Justice is the efficient principle of order in any community of men, and as such justice is a source of that unity of peace without which no community exists. (4) (a) The peaceful organization of any multitude of men requires government, and the distinction of rulers and ruled. (b) The types of government are distinguished according to the natures of the persons associated and the conditions of their association: thus, domestic and tribal, or village, governments are distinguished from political government, i. e., the type of government appropriate to states, or political communities, in which the multitude includes men of unrelated families. (c) Political justice is the principle of order in political communities, and as such is constitutive of government as the organization of its members according to relations of ruler a,nd ruled. (d) As a principle of order, political justice is both final and efficient, since the end by and for which a form of government exists is always a just order. Government is good in proportion as it is just, and one form of political government is better than another in proportion as it is more just. Since there are separable 418 M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL and cumulative elements of political justice, one government is better than another by virtue of possessing an element of justice not possessed by its inferior. f. The three elements of political justice can be distinguished in the following manner. (1) The first is discovered by answering the question, How is de facto political power exercised by those who possess it, regardless of how they have come to possess it? The first principle of justice is that political power be exercised for the sake of preserving the existing good of the community. This principle applies to any member of the community who acts politically, but primarily, of course, to those who exercise ruling power, and only secondarily, of course, to those who exercise whatever power they possess as men who are being ruled. By this criterion, injustice consists, on the part of the rulers, in the exercise of power for their own sake; and similarly, on the part of the ruled, injustice consists in disobedience to just rule, in order to satisfy private interests at the expense of the common good. (9l) The second is discovered by answering the question, How...