When (and how) something (or someone) is "good."

[prof]

Many serious students of Ethics and Morality have wondered: When (and how) is something (or someone) “good”?

We call a situation good if it fulfills a purpose. We call a thing good if it exemplifies (the meaning of) its concept. [The assumption here is that each item falls under a concept. This is reasonable to assume.]

“Good” in general is too vague. If I just utter the word “good” without being specific, then “good” could mean anything - it could be a thoughtless expression, an emotional attitude, an assent, equivalent to “yes.”

When”good” is applied to an individual, who plays a role, such, for example, janitor, clerk, parent, postman, tailor, waitress, etc., then a good one is one who does his/her duty, one who fulfills the requirements of the job.

A “good action” is an action that (Systemically) proceeds from sound reasons; (Extrinsically) has outcomes that meet with approval and gets something worthwhile done; (Intrinsically) shows respect for others and reflects living out one’s principled beliefs on the part of the one performing the action. It it meets those three criteria, we are justified in speaking of it as “a good action.”

Here I shall quote a passage from my booklet, A UNIFIED THEORY OF ETHICS, pp. 19-21.

What makes anything ‘good’? Take a car, for example. You have a picture in your mind as to what features a car could have; and if this car has all those qualities- you’d likely call it a good one. So a ‘good car’ has everything a car is supposed to have. Of course, everyone might have a different picture with different qualities in mind, but the basic idea is that what makes anything good is for it to be ‘all there’ under the name you put on it.

Now that we know what the word “good” means, we can ask the question about what makes a good person. {I am well aware that persons are not cars, and that different criteria apply. Cars are extrinsic values, while persons are intrinsic values -- in Robert S. Hartman's sense (not Moore’s, nor Dewey's.)

Who is a good person? Well, it would be someone who is ‘all there.’ A good person would have all the attributes that a person ought to have. That person, it is fair to say, would have moral value, would avoid selfishness. Let’s describe such a person and see if you would call such an individual ‘good.’

That person is one who educates himself, or herself, to do what is truly in his self-interest and who is able to see that “selfishness” is something distinctly different than “self-interest.” Allow me to explain. Wisdom is knowing others and enlightenment is knowing yourself [The point to notice is that ethics is not just ‘a matter of opinion,’ and ‘totally subjective,’ as some would try to tell you. It can be objective (inter-subjectively verifiable) and universal.]


As Dr. Stephen Pinker - in an article entitled "The New Science of Moral Sense" - says, “In many areas of life two parties are objectively better off if they both act in a non-selfish way than if each of them acts selfishly. You and I are both better off if we share our surpluses, rescue each other’s children in danger, and refrain from shooting at each other, compared with hoarding our surpluses while they rot, letting the other’s child drown while we file our nails, or feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys.”

“Granted, I might be a bit better off if I acted selfishly at your expense and you played the sucker, but the same is true for you with me, so if each of us tried for these advantages, we’d both end up worse off. Any neutral observer, and you and I if we could talk it over rationally, would have to conclude that the state we should aim for is the one in which we both are unselfish.”

It’s in the nature of things that if we educate ourselves enough we come to develop this insight about our true self-interest. We reach this understanding.

We learn, in that essay, that if your beliefs are evolving in a more compassionate, more empathic, more inclusive direction, to that degree you are moral. Your views regarding how to enhance the group(s) to which you belong, as well as how to conduct yourself when you think no one is watching; or, say, how you would behave if you were invisible, Those views comprise what the theory refers to as your ‘self-ideals. When such ideals match your actual behavior, your conduct, you are moral, and if they fully match, you are authentic, a real person (in contrast with a phony.)

Comments? Questions? Suggestions?

[The Voice of Time]

You cannot judge the goodness of anything by abstracting it from the whole of the world. Things are good because of their relations to the rest of the world, not for the fulfilment of any given set of requirements.

[duszek]

Is an SUV good ?

An American mother will say yes, because she feels safe driving it. And it is fun to drive it so it improves her mood.

An environmentalist will say no.

Who decides about what criteria a car should fulfill ? The people by a majority vote ?

[prof]

Is an SUV good ?

An American mother will say yes, because she feels safe driving it. And it is fun to drive it so it improves her mood.

An environmentalist will say no.

Who decides about what criteria a car should fulfill ? The people by a majority vote ?

Hi, duszek

Thank you for a good question !

Who decides what criteria a car should fulfill?

Each judge who names the thing, places it under a concept, and thereby associates the thing with a meaning of the word used to designate it. So your answer is: each individual.

An environmentalist would say: "This is a good SUV, and - as everyone ought to know - thus is bad for our environment."

The mother had her reasons for her value judgment; but she left out a vital factor [it's a gas-guzzling polluter], so her reasoning wasn't so good, after all, due to "sins of omission." ....and emission. As a result of her ignorance, she will pay a price in several ways. She will breathe fouler air. She will shell out more for gas. Etc. IMHO the harm outweighs the benefits.

When one's reasoning is confused one may be complying with the definition of "irrational" -- or at least, "non-rational."

To see that something is good, and to judge: "It is good that it is good" is how we value scientists define the term: approval.

So with regard to your question: I approve of it. With regard to SUVs with gas-tanks and motors that use gasoline, I disapprove.

When we want to buy or sell a painting by a Master Artist, we consult an expert in the field, such as a museum curator is supposed to be.

What does that person know that we don't? He or she has more-advanced knowledge of pigments, colors, canvases, artists' styles, techniques that forgers use, etc. It ought to be the same with cars, or anything else. We should go to the one with superior knowledge of a specialty or a field, and get a 'second opinion' or even a third one - before buying a big-ticket item ...to make sure we aren't getting gypped, and to get the best deal.


If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

[Bill Wiltrack]

.







.................................................................







Anything good is more conscious than something that would be considered bad, which would be less conscious.



I appreciate your valiant effort in the face of a monumental task.






.

[The Voice of Time]

Anyone else smells naturalistic fallacy here?

[prof]

.

Anything good is more conscious than something that would be considered bad, which would be less conscious.

I appreciate your valiant effort in the face of a monumental task.
.

And I appreciate your appreciation.

I agree that those who find the good are on a higher level of consciousness than those who do not.

[Diogenes]

Anyone else smells natural fallacy here?

Nope. The natural fallacy would be if Prof approved of something simply because it was "good" (i.e. exemplifies its nature).

The SUV example should have clued you into this; Prof's hypothetical environmentalist notes that the SUV is "good" (meaning, it is an exemplary instantiation of the general concept "SUV") and that the very fact that it is a good SUV makes it an evil (due to its contributions to climate change, etc).

The naturalistic fallacy would be to assume that because the SUV is good, it is therefore worthy of our approval.

[duszek]

Should we not always ask what a thing is good FOR ?

An SUV could be good for the driver´s psyche. I knew one person who said: it is fun to drive.

So if an SUV has therapeutic effects on some people perhaps we should weigh them against the demage to the environment ?

[duszek]

I sometimes practice a sort of therapy by trying to figure out what a wrong done to me could be good for:

I have to deal with mean sadists and this ... makes me stronger and more resilient in the long run. More able to survive. More happy and appreciative when I meet really nice people.

Could it be that everything can be good for one thing and bad for another thing at the same time ?

[Arising_uk]

Anyone else smells natural fallacy here?

Nope. The natural fallacy would be if Prof approved of something simply because it was "good" (i.e. exemplifies its nature).

I think VOT was probably referring to Bill Wiltracks post. Although that may have be closer to the fallacious "appeal to nature" rather than the "naturalistic fallacy".

[homegrown]

Might I suggest to the O.P. that morality and therefore ethics are the consequence of a moral sensibility that's innate to the human beings evolved within a social context, but which has no ideal expression. Therefore what is good is what you think is good. I think this answers the question 'Is an SUV good?' It's better than a mini metro if you're taking your kids to school - while from an environmental perspective...! We could all have SUV's if they were powered by hydrogen! Maybe what's good is what's true!

[Arising_uk]

...

As Dr. Stephen Pinker - in an article entitled "The New Science of Moral Sense" - says, “In many areas of life two parties are objectively better off if they both act in a non-selfish way than if each of them acts selfishly. You and I are both better off if we share our surpluses, rescue each other’s children in danger, and refrain from shooting at each other, compared with hoarding our surpluses while they rot, letting the other’s child drown while we file our nails, or feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys.”

“Granted, I might be a bit better off if I acted selfishly at your expense and you played the sucker, but the same is true for you with me, so if each of us tried for these advantages, we’d both end up worse off. Any neutral observer, and you and I if we could talk it over rationally, would have to conclude that the state we should aim for is the one in which we both are unselfish.”

A view that Peter Danielsons' book on Artificial Morality nicely backs-up, although he does say that we shouldn't really extrapolate from his experiments.
http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A ... edir_esc=y

[homegrown]

Well, A_UK, precisely my point about original thought. Isn't this just tit for tat?

[artisticsolution]

Is an SUV good ?

An American mother will say yes, because she feels safe driving it. And it is fun to drive it so it improves her mood.

An environmentalist will say no.

Who decides about what criteria a car should fulfill ? The people by a majority vote ?

Hi, duszek

Thank you for a good question !

Who decides what criteria a car should fulfill?

Each judge who names the thing, places it under a concept, and thereby associates the thing with a meaning of the word used to designate it. So your answer is: each individual.

An environmentalist would say: "This is a good SUV, and - as everyone ought to know - thus is bad for our environment."

The mother had her reasons for her value judgment; but she left out a vital factor [it's a gas-guzzling polluter], so her reasoning wasn't so good, after all, due to "sins of omission." ....and emission. As a result of her ignorance, she will pay a price in several ways. She will breathe fouler air. She will shell out more for gas. Etc. IMHO the harm outweighs the benefits.

When one's reasoning is confused one may be complying with the definition of "irrational" -- or at least, "non-rational."

To see that something is good, and to judge: "It is good that it is good" is how we value scientists define the term: approval.

So with regard to your question: I approve of it. With regard to SUVs with gas-tanks and motors that use gasoline, I disapprove.

When we want to buy or sell a painting by a Master Artist, we consult an expert in the field, such as a museum curator is supposed to be.

What does that person know that we don't? He or she has more-advanced knowledge of pigments, colors, canvases, artists' styles, techniques that forgers use, etc. It ought to be the same with cars, or anything else. We should go to the one with superior knowledge of a specialty or a field, and get a 'second opinion' or even a third one - before buying a big-ticket item ...to make sure we aren't getting gypped, and to get the best deal.


If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

Hi Prof....interesting question and interesting reply. I always find it curious when people jump to blaming women...particularly mothers.....for using something that has been invented, manufactured and distributed mostly by men.

I have never heard an environmentalist blame the inventor of the SUV...only the driver....and then to single out of all the drivers of SUV's...mothers...well it always cracks me up. I never did understand the mentality...."well sure...I invented it...but you didn't have to use it!"