Chapter 7: Goodness

Encountering Philosophy: Free Intro to Philosophy

Travis Joseph Rodgers

What is Good?

When we believe or say that something is good, what do we mean? What is goodness, and what sorts of things are good? There are four major types of responses to these questions. Three of them find at least some degree of support among philosophers. These three include a non-realist position (nothing is really good), naturalism (goodness is a natural property) or non-naturalism (goodness is not a natural property). Before delving into these three, we’ll begin with an answer common among students in a first philosophy class.

Goodness is Subjective

You might think that people disagree about what’s good. You might also think that this shows that what is good is subjective. Yet too often when people talk this way, they’re giving examples of good things, not explaining goodness. Consider: Celeborn says that wine is good, while Eomer says that horses are good. But neither of these speakers means “to be wine” is “to be good.” They likely mean that wine is among the good things and horses are among the good things. So, they are not yet disagreeing.

Even if Celeborn says that horses are not good, that still may not mean that the two are disagreeing. If Celeborn says that horses are not good for him and Eomer says that horses are good for him, that’s not a disagreement. But before we travel too far down this path, consider what a disagreement about good things would not do.

A disagreement doesn’t mean everyone is right. Perhaps Celeborn is wrong. Maybe wine is not good, not even for him. Is it possible that Celeborn is wrong? Surely, he could have good evidence that he likes wine and that it causes certain desirable benefits for him. But is that what goodness is? Pleasure? If so, both men could agree that pleasure is good. It’s just that they get pleasure from different things. If this sounds plausible, consider Naturalism about Goodness.

Naturalism

According to Naturalism, goodness is identical to some natural property. A common candidate is pleasure. The reason why Celeborn says wine is good is because he likes it; it causes him pleasure. The same goes for Eomer. What makes both these things good is that they cause pleasure in an individual. On this account, if wine brings pleasure to Celeborn, then it is good for him. Up to a point, of course. Then it’s too much. And if doing some things to and with horses brings pleasure to Eomer, then horses are, to that extent, good.

What we have done in moving from “Goodness is subjective” to “Goodness is pleasure” is we have shifted to an objective statement. Whether something actually causes pleasure is a fact. Celeborn might hope that the wine is good, but if it makes him miserable, it’s not good on this view. Celeborn might believe that all wine is good, but then he tastes some swill and realizes his error. So, on this view, our beliefs about what things are good are corrigible. They can be corrected in light of experimentation and evidence. Not all claims of goodness are true just because someone likes the thing.

While there are rivals to the view that “good” just means “pleasant,” two things are worth saying about this view. First, it’s rather common. It’s so common that Epicureans and some Utilitarians seem to accept the view. It even has a name: hedonism. On this view, pleasure is the only thing that is good in itself, and anything else that is good is good because it brings about pleasure. Second, like all species of naturalism, hedonism may be open to a powerful counterexample, called the Open Question Argument.

Non-Naturalism

G.E. Moore suggested that for any natural property offered as an analysis of good, we can do two things. First, we can ask whether the thing (X) possessing the natural property (Y) really is good. This question will make sense. Second, it is a question whose answer is not settled. So, wine may be pleasant. But is it good? According to Moore, these facts suggest that good is not synonymous with any natural property. If it’s not, what is good?

Non-Naturalists tend to see goodness as a simple property. Consider a complex property by comparison. “Bachelor” is famously analyzed into the parts: unmarried and male. This suggests that male and unmarried are building blocks from which “bachelor” is constructed. But some properties can no longer be broken down. Moore suggests “good” is one of those concepts. Admittedly, this does make good rather mysterious. All unexplainable things are a bit mysterious. But perhaps their “job” is to explain other things.

Non-Realism

Perhaps there is nothing to this goodness talk. Perhaps when we say that something is good, that’s akin to cheering. When we cheer for something, we need not be making a judgment. We may just be expressing emotion. What emotion? Perhaps joy. But expressing joy need not be a claim at all, much less a claim about whether the thing I’m observing is good. On this view, our moral “claims” aren’t true because they’re not even claims. A claim is a statement that something is related to something else in some way. But if “Democracy is good” is really just a cheer (Yay, democracy!), that’s not subscribing any property to it.

Or perhaps our moral claims are never true. Error Theorists tend to hold that “good” is a property, but it’s a property nothing has. It’s not that “good” is a contradiction, like a squircle would be. A squircle is a square circle. But that’s impossible given the definition of square and circle. Good need not be impossible. There’s just nothing in the world that is good. Of course, this still calls out for an account of what we mean when we say something has that property.