Thereby trying to evade my critique by providing the rejoinder that it was a mischaracterization of your view (because you do not believe happiness is good). I, then, responded with: — Bob Ross

This sounds incredibly obtuse and irrelevant. My point was defining good wouldn't make one morally good, or more morally sensitive person. Rather, being able to reason what morally good actions are in the real life situations, which brings happiness to all parties would be more practical way to be morally apt person.

You are talking about something totally different in some other planet, from what I am talking about.

But that’s what ‘redness’ means: it’s the property of being red. — Bob Ross

So a property of a property? Red is a property of a thing and redness is a property of red? Usually, a property facilitates establishment of consistent identity of an appearance, so that it can be said of any thing perceived as having that property, it is a particular thing. Must we then concede red is only so, inasmuch as it has this property of redness, all the while the thing we actually perceive as being red, retains its identity without regard to its redness?

That may be fine, but the problem lies in the negation, in that we can still say of a red thing it is that thing even if it has relative redness, but we cannot say of a thing it is that thing if it isn’t red.

Sure, a property is attributed to things by subjects; and so it is an estimation, to your point, of the quality which the thing has….. — Bob Ross

Property attributed by subjects to things, yes. The quality a thing has because of it, no. Property relates to the identity the thing has, whereas quality is an estimation of the property itself. This reflects the error of calling redness a property of red, when it is actually the quality of it, leaving red itself alone, to be the property of the thing.

I am not following the relevance. When analyzing redness, we would analyze redness — Bob Ross

The relevance follows from, originally, the concept under discussion was “good”, but has since been replaced by “red”, which doesn’t matter much, in that adding “-ness” to either one has the same implication. The real point resides in this: when analyzing redness we are analyzing red, not redness.

By extension, then, when analyzing goodness we are analyzing good, not goodness. And the comment addressing biology as the inappropriate science for analyzing good, resides in the “-ness” qualifier, which implies relative degrees, and herein lies the authority of metaphysics proper, insofar as for any relative degree there must be an extreme, which is EXACTLY what we’re looking for, in the negative sense…..good in and of itself, not good for this or that, but just plain ol’ good. Period. Full stop. Bare-bones, pure conception representing a fundamental condition upon which a proper moral philosophy follows.
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I would rather see us giving them the tools to ‘ethicize’ then tell them our own ethical theories. — Bob Ross

We’re already in possession of the tools for “ethicizing”. They are codes of conduct, administrative rules, edicts and assorted jurisprudence generally, in the pursuit of what is right. None of which has anything to do with what is good.

…..the question asked is “how do I determine what is good?”? — Bob Ross

Which is the whole point…..that is the wrong question to ask. It is good to “ethicize” in accordance with assorted jurisprudence, which reflects one’s treatment of his fellow man, which one can accomplish for no other reason than that’s what everyone else is doing.

When asked what good is, as indicated above, good in and of itself, not good for this or that end, not good in reflection of treatment of fellow men, we may come closer to what makes us tick as subjects rather than what makes us tick as herds. Which reduces to….a reflection on how man treats himself in accordance to his own personal code, for which he and he alone is the law-giver.
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I don’t disagree that eudaimonic happiness is the chief good for any living being — Bob Ross

Hmmm….for any living being? What happened to tools for “ethicizing”? Are ants being ethical for not crowding each other out of the way when entering the hole to the lair? I’ve seen one guy punch other guy in the face for trying to get through the same door at the same time.

Only certain forms of living beings are conditioned by happiness on the one hand, and it isn’t the chief good on the other. The chief good is worthiness for being happy, which reduces to a principle..….that by which his worthiness of being happy, directly relates to the good of his will.

So in this roundabout way, arises the premise: there is no other good, as such, in and of itself….hence undefinable….as a good will. That which doesn't do for the good of something else, but does because it is good to do. And that by which “living well” does not necessarily comport with being happy.
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I apologize Mww, I forgot to respond to this one. — Bob Ross

No need; I get that a lot.

To be fair, I sympathize with starting a novice with analyzing existing ethical theories to begin; but that is putting the cart before the horse. It is a real problem that many people have, as exemplified by the fact that everyone so far (that I have noticed) in this thread has immediately bypassed metaethics to suggest their own whole-sale theories. The order of analysis in ethics is metaethics, normative ethics, then applied ethics.

Is that the proper order? Seems to me we know concrete events better than general principles. They are what are "best known to us." Most people have no trouble identifying all sorts of abhorrent acts as wrong, be they individual acts like running down a toddler for picking one of your crops, or policies like like health insurers "deny, delay, defend" strategy.

Likewise, just because one cannot define something, it does not follow that one cannot describe that something to the point of understanding it sufficiently. Just because the concept of good is purely intuition, it does not follow that everyone automatically has a good grasp of what it is.

Sure, one does not need a single, canonical univocal definition of "health" to do medicine or "life" to do biology. But surely biology starts from observing and thinking about living organisms and works backwards to "life," just as the doctor starts with instances of health and illness and works backwards to "health."

Would we ask a doctor to define health by starting with whether or not it is "non-natura,l" or might they start from pointing out the obvious difference between a man and a corpse?

We might think the general principle can be known better in itself than the particulars, because the particulars involve a tremendous amount of variation. That is, it is easier to explain why it is "wrong to cheat" then it is to track down all the casual consequences that flow from any one instance of cheating. I would claim though that we know this through, at least in part, by abstracting from the particulars to see what is common to them. Yet that doesn't mean we start from the most general.

For one, defining "non-natural" seems very difficult because there are many different, extremely broad definitions of "natural." Plus, goodness certainly seems to relate to everyday, natural things.

This is analogous to if there was an OP asking where to begin studying what is red, and your response is to say “analyze red trucks”. One should not begin with an analysis of what can be predicated to be red (like a red truck)—viz., happiness—but rather what does it mean for something, in principle, to be red at all? That’s where begin. — Bob Ross


Your response was to say:

You are still missing the point. I never said happiness is Good. I said, actions which brings happiness is Good. — Corvus


Thereby trying to evade my critique by providing the rejoinder that it was a mischaracterization of your view (because you do not believe happiness is good). I, then, responded with: — Bob Ross

This is not true. This is your distortion on my point. I wrote about "happiness is not good, but what brings happiness is good". That doesn't mean happiness is not good quality of mind. It means happiness is NOT IDENTICAL TO good. Happiness and good are not the same thing. Happiness is a mental state and Good is a moral value which can cause happiness.

I am not sure if you were confused between happiness and Good, or your writing was intentional distortion on my points.

For the concept of Red, you don't learn the concept of Red by analysing what red means. You learn what red means by looking and seeing the red objects. So here is another gross misunderstanding on your part.

Just like the concept of red, you don't learn what the concept of Good is by analysing it. You learn the concept of Good, by seeing the good acts of humans in the moral situations.

I think I already wrote in my previous post somewhere. I looked into many philosophers in history for their idea of moral good. They are different, and there is not much content in the description what moral good is.

For example, Spinoza said moral good is pleasure, evil is pain. And Kant must have said something different, so did Leibniz etc etc. I was not quite sure why you insisted on starting defining Good in building someone's moral code. That doesn't sound like making sense at all. Even if the OP's title is about How to define Moral Good, you should have said moral good is undefinable, like Moore said 100 years ago.

Sure, one does not need a single, canonical univocal definition of "health" to do medicine or "life" to do biology. But surely biology starts from observing and thinking about living organisms and works backwards to "life," just as the doctor starts with instances of health and illness and works backwards to "health."

This goes back to my point, which I think you may have misunderstood: the identity of a concept and its predication are two wholly separate things. To take your examples, you are absolutely right that we start, e.g., with the particulars of biology and induce/abduce what is healthy from it; but it is not true, to my point, that one can induce/abduce from biology in this manner what the concept of healthiness simpliciter is identical to. I must, in order to determine that such-and-such is healthy, import an understanding of what it means, simpliciter, for something to be healthy (viz., to be biologically functioning properly [according to the Telos {or functions} of the organism]). To your point, I cannot determine that this or that is healthy by purely analyzing the core concept of ‘healthy’ and the property of ‘healthiness’ (for I must analyze the particulars in question to do so—e.g., this is a healthy human hand, a healthy bubonic plague, etc.); but it is necessary to have a concept of it before beginning that inductive/abductive process. Don’t you agree?

Otherwise, it would be blind metaphysics. Viz., imagine you had to determine if a body was ‘goobloobookoop’ without knowing whatsoever the concept referred to. That’s what I take you to do be saying, by saying that we ‘works backwards to [e.g.,] “life”’.

IMHO, this is the classic conflation between asking ‘what can be said to be good?’ and ‘what is goodness?’; e.g., between ‘what can be said to be healthy?’ and ‘what is healthiness?’.

I am not just advocating for the basic analysis of ‘goodness’ though (in the sense of what I just described above); because that is not enough: it is also necessary to determine other meta-ethical concerns (like moral realism vs. anti-realism).

Most people have no trouble identifying all sorts of abhorrent acts as wrong, be they individual acts like running down a toddler for picking one of your crops, or policies like like health insurers "deny, delay, defend" strategy.

That’s because they already have an intuition about what is (morally) good which they are importing for their own apperception; and my point is that if they have never pondered what goodness is, then they are liable to having baseless intuitions. E.g., a Nazi child that were to grow up in Nazi Germany may very well intuit that turning in that jew knowing full well they will be slaughtered is the right thing to do; and, e.g., most post-modernists (these days) don’t even think, when pushed on the subject, that torturing a baby for fun is actually wrong (because they are moral anti-realists)—so are they really intuiting properly morally the situation or are the shadows and remnants of different moral realist theory rippling through their psyche?

Viz., although I may not press someone to give an account of what the concept of good is identical with; I will certainly have them answer the question of moral objectivism before having them ponder any normative ethical thought experiments. That is the biggest one (to me), because who cares if you think pulling the lever, e.g., is wrong if you only believe it is wrong because, e.g., you desire it to be the case?!?

We might think the general principle can be known better in itself than the particulars

I agree that people tend to do better working with the shadows, as Plato would put it, than the Ideas; but they are also equally liable to blind investigations if they skip steps in their analysis of things. E.g., going straight to applied ethics before normative ethics is no different than trying to shoot a cat in a pitch-dark room that might not even be there….

Red is a property of a thing and redness is a property of red?

Red is a concept; redness is a property. Red is the concept, phenomenally, of that specific color which one has to see to intuit (what it is); and redness is the property of being red.

Property relates to the identity the thing has, whereas quality is an estimation of the property itself

This seems backwards: the object has qualities; and the properties we assign it are the estimations of those qualities.

when analyzing redness we are analyzing red, not redness
…
By extension, then, when analyzing goodness we are analyzing good, not goodnes

Agreed, we are analyzing ‘being good’, ‘to be good’, and what ‘good’ means.

.good in and of itself, not good for this or that, but just plain ol’ good. Period. Full stop. Bare-bones, pure conception representing a fundamental condition upon which a proper moral philosophy follows.

If I followed that correctly, then yes: we mean to investigate, metaethically, what the nature of the concept of ‘good’ is—viz., what it means for something, in principle, to be good.

We’re already in possession of the tools for “ethicizing”. They are codes of conduct, administrative rules, edicts and assorted jurisprudence generally, in the pursuit of what is right. None of which has anything to do with what is good.

Not necessarily. I was talking about how to think about ethics, to build up a theory. It could be that one is a, e.g., moral particularist and denies the legitimacy of rules whatsoever; or they could go to the other extreme and be a deontologist (like Kant); or be neither.

Likewise, they have to do with good, as a concept, insofar as they are considered good principles.

It is good to “ethicize” in accordance with assorted jurisprudence, which reflects one’s treatment of his fellow man, which one can accomplish for no other reason than that’s what everyone else is doing.

Goodness doesn’t refer, in-itself, to human conduct—let alone conduct: that’s morality; and just because other people are doing something, does not make it right nor good to do it.

we may come closer to what makes us tick as subjects rather than what makes us tick as herds

That’s impossible: the concept of ‘good’ is absolute; like any other concept. Just like Truth.

This is not to say that moral absolutism is correct, because that family of theories holds that what can be predicated to be good for one thing, is good for all things; and all we are admitted here is that what it means for something to be good, irregardless of what is good for a thing, has to be the same concept applied to all things. E.g., when I attribute 'healthiness' to the human hand and the ant leg, I must be referring to the same property (otherwise, I should be using a different word to refer to each since they share nothing in common) although by saying the ant's leg is healthy and the human hand is healthy I am not implying that what is being attributed as healthy are the same things for each nor that they could cross-apply to each other.

What happened to tools for “ethicizing”?

I was talking about analyzing ethics.

Are ants being ethical for not crowding each other out of the way when entering the hole to the lair?

There are objective goods and “bads” for ants, yes, but ants are not moral agents; because they do not have the sufficient rational capacities to rationally deliberate. I think you might to conflating metaethics with ethics proper: the former is more of a prerequisite for ethics, although we still count it as a part of the latter. Just because it is good for an ant to be such-and-such a way does not entail that there is anything ethical/moral going on; because morality refers to right and wrong behavior (and not what is good or bad). An analysis of goodness is more broad than an analysis of morality.

Only certain forms of living beings are conditioned by happiness on the one hand

It depends on what you mean by ‘happiness’: I just mean the deep sense of fulfillment that comes with the organism functioning properly and within its proper (natural) roles and practices. Ants have happiness in that sense, because there is such a thing as a bad or good ant relative to what ants are supposed to be doing (which is relative to their nature as a species). A bad ant isn’t going to live as well of a life as a good ant.

The chief good is worthiness for being happy

This seems like the same thing as saying happiness is the chief good in the sense I am using it because one is worthy of happiness, in my view, only when they are fulfilling their Telos; which means worthiness of happiness and being happy are interlinked to the point where one cannot come without the other. By ‘happiness’ here, I mean the eudaimonic sense; which precludes shallow happiness like hedonic happiness.

which reduces to a principle

Why? I don’t understand. Happiness is not reducible to a principle: it is about living a virtuous life; which is about excellences (habits) of character.

there is no other good, as such, in and of itself….hence undefinable….as a good will.

Why? Likewise, I would like to point out that this is not an analysis of goodness itself: you are predicating the will as being good. So this cannot be identical to whatever goodness refers to; instead, you are importing some understanding of what, in principle, it would mean ‘to be good’ and are attributing that to the will.

…..worthiness of happiness and being happy are interlinked to the point where one cannot come without the other. — Bob Ross

So I’m driving along, in this cool-as-hell ‘67 Cobra, hair flyin’, head-bangin’ to some classic Foghat turned up to 11….happy as a pig in an overturned hotel restaurant dumpster.

The car isn’t mine, I stole it.

And with that…..(Sigh)
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You are welcome to your philosophical inclinations, as anyone is, but obviously they are very far from mine. Not that that’s a problem for either of us, only that there’s little chance of meeting in the middle.

So I’m driving along, in this cool-as-hell ‘67 Cobra, hair flyin’, head-bangin’ to some classic Foghat turned up to 11….happy as a pig in an overturned hotel restaurant dumpster.

The car isn’t mine, I stole it.

:lol:

You are confusing hedonic with eudaimonic happiness. It is important to remember that 'eudaimonia' does NOT accurately translate to any english word. Perhaps, it would help in this discussion to refer to it as well-being or flourishing instead?

You are confusing hedonic with eudaimonic happiness. — Bob Ross

When I quote you, then immediately respond relative to that quote, then you respond to my response with something suggesting my confusion, I wonder if you’ve missed the point of my response.

Different renditions of happiness aside, we are Western moderns after all, I shall consider it proved that worthiness of happiness and happiness itself, are very far from….

….interlinked to the point where one cannot come without the other. — Bob Ross

….and sufficiently so, that it serves as the form of a rule rather than an example of an exception to it.

So if I have given the inkling of a rule, is it something you understand well enough to form an opinion? Or, tell me how it shouldn’t be a rule in the first place?

Ok, I am not following then (:

I thought, by your example, worthiness of happiness referred to achieving true fulfillment by being worthy of it (hence why there is no true happiness in the pleasures obtained from stealing a car); and I was merely pointing out that this is eudaimonic happiness.

I shall consider it proved that worthiness of happiness and happiness itself, are very far from….

That's because by "happiness", you are referring to hedonism. The happiness being referred to in enjoying the stolen car is superficial, cheap dopamine. There is no true happiness in that, because it was not earned. Earned happiness, is eudaimonic happiness.

The happiness being referred to in enjoying the stolen car is superficial, cheap dopamine. There is no true happiness in that…. — Bob Ross

Cool. Point was pretty easy to make, truth be told. The point of superficial happiness, mere pleasure as it were, highlights a thing that makes that feeling possible, so we call it a good thing, even if it only good for that one thing…..making me love driving in a particular fashion.

But that still leaves me without the worthiness of that kind of happiness, that particular pleasure. I’m happy but I cheated to be that way, so I don’t deserve it. Seemed like a cool thing to do at the time but I regret it now, kinda thing.

I want to know what kinda thing it is, to be happy and deserve it. It’s not enough to know what it is not, I want to know what it is. What happiness would I not regret, and by extension, what thing can I do that may not make me happy at all, but I don’t regret having done it? Now the worthiness comes to the fore, in such case where I do a thing, feel anything but happy about, take no pleasure in the act, but remain happy….read as satisfied, content, undeterred, consistent with my virtues….with myself for the having the fortitude to act for the sake of good in itself.

Herein lay the ideal, re: the transcendental good in Kant, and a form of Nicomachean Ethics in Aristotle, combined with the pure practical reason as the means for determining those principles under which acts in accordance with those principles, are possible as volitions of the will. So says one moral philosophy amidst a veritable plethora of them.

But that still leaves me without the worthiness of that kind of happiness, that particular pleasure. I’m happy but I cheated to be that way, so I don’t deserve it. Seemed like a cool thing to do at the time but I regret it now, kinda thing.

Exactly. Aristotle doesn’t call this kind of cheating happiness happiness at all; because the only way one becomes truly fulfilled in life, with the happiness which is deep, is by earning it. Like I noted before, by “worthiness of happiness”, you are necessarily using the term “happiness” to refer to this cheap dopamine kind of happiness and not what Aristotle means by happiness. This is just a semantic disagreement. If you use happiness in Aristotle’s sense, then “worthiness of happiness” is contained in the concept of happiness, being that it is the biproduct of earning it, and so it doesn’t make sense to say this (technically) because it is impossible to be unworthy of such happiness and still be happy. This only makes sense if you are thinking of a hedonic sense of happiness which can happen independently of if one earns it. Eudaimonia is always earned: you cannot luck or cheat your way into it: happiness, in this sense, is always earned.

I want to know what kinda thing it is, to be happy and deserve it. It’s not enough to know what it is not, I want to know what it is. What happiness would I not regret, and by extension, what thing can I do that may not make me happy at all, but I don’t regret having done it?

It is to realize the internal, objective goods to what you are. You will achieve that deep sense of fulfillment—that eudaimonic happiness—not by cheap dopamine; not by cheating; not lucking into it; but by orientating yourself deliberately towards your Telos qua a human being, qua a man, qua a father, etc.

By analogy, think of chess. The internal goods of chess are things like strategic thinking, competition, quick strategizing, etc. as it relates to the game of chess (e.g., moving the pawns, knights, the queen, etc.) to win. A truly good chess player isn’t merely gifted at the skills required in chess—by some accident or predisposition—but also have to put in the work to learn and practice chess to the point that they are good at it. These learned skills (and perhaps innate skills which they may have been predisposed to—like critical thinking for high-IQ individuals—as finely tuned to the specific practice of chess) are internal to the game: only chess players can call themselves as truly obtaining these internal goods. Someone who wins the chess tournament by constantly cheating has not acquired those internal goods even though they have won many matches; and the truly good chess players that they cheated to win have.

The same thing is true of life qua a human being: I can try to cheat my way into happiness—by smoking this, taking this, having sex with her, partying like this, driving that stolen car, etc.—but yet I will be no closer to happiness because I have not acquired the internal goods to being a human being. Think of those peaceful, wise elders: they have acquired happiness. I can gain higher social status, more money, more pleasures, etc. than them, and yet they are the one’s with happiness because they didn’t cheat nor did they try to luck their way into it. They followed the path of their Telos. E.g., I cannot cheat my way into being Just, which is a Virtue which is tied to my nature as having rational capacities (as a mind), and this is why I will not gain an inch closer to happiness by cheating people out of their money (even though I will gain many pleasures and powers from it). The man who earns their living fairly is the one that, all else being equal, is happy.

Now the worthiness comes to the fore, in such case where I do a thing, feel anything but happy about, take no pleasure in the act, but remain happy….read as satisfied, content, undeterred, consistent with my virtues….with myself for the having the fortitude to act for the sake of good in itself.

Not quite. This is very Kantian; but Aristotle is right to point out that it is not about taking no pleasure in the act; it is about taking pleasure in acts that are good; and displeasure in acts that are bad. What you described here is continence; and the pristine virtue here would be temperance. Continence is doing what one knows they should do irregardless of the feelings they have about it (and so, like you point out, the continent man does the right thing even if he has appetites to the contrary); whereas the temperate man doesn’t have contrary appetites in the first place. The temperate man wants to do what is right; the continent man does what is right.

I’m happy but I cheated to be that way….
— Mww

Aristotle doesn’t call this kind of cheating happiness happiness at all — Bob Ross

No he doesn’t, but there isn’t any doubt that I am happy. If I actually feel happy in the sense of pure pleasure, seems kinda silly for someone else to say I’m not really. To be consistent along those lines, that someone else would also have to say I didn’t really steal the car, insofar as the theft of the car is the necessary condition for the feeling. It’s absurd to say I didn’t steal the car, therefore the inconsistency is given.

I get the point.
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Aristotle is right to point out that it is not about taking no pleasure in the act; it is about taking pleasure in acts that are good; and displeasure in acts that are bad. — Bob Ross

Perhaps, but being…..you know, a Western modern…..I find it more the wiser, to point out the advantage in discerning, not so much whether an act dispenses pleasure or pain, but rather, the method by which any act of will leaves my moral integrity intact.

Why is it always one kind of hurt for the guy who owns the car, but a very different kind of hurt for me in the theft of it? Something as mediocre as displeasure isn’t going to make the explanatory cut.

but rather, the method by which any act of will leaves my moral integrity intact.

I see: you just have your own unique view of it...and there's nothing wrong with that (:

How, then, under your view, are you determining moral integrity? For Aristotle, the virtues are tide to our nature as a human being.

Exactly. Aristotle doesn’t call this kind of cheating happiness happiness at all; because the only way one becomes truly fulfilled in life, with the happiness which is deep, is by earning it. Like I noted before, by “worthiness of happiness”, you are necessarily using the term “happiness” to refer to this cheap dopamine kind of happiness and not what Aristotle means by happiness. — Bob Ross

Whenever I hear this argument, I find it underwhelming. Parsing happiness into "the right kind" and "the wrong kind" seems both futile and subjective. How can we demonstrate that so-called low happiness (the version Aristotle might disapprove of in our interpretation of him) is qualitatively different? We can’t, not really. Instead, we’re forced to return to behavior and evaluate it, not by the happiness or flourishing it supposedly provides, but by the act itself—which introduces a whole new set of problems.

Aristotle himself supported slavery and likely believed it contributed to the "right kind" of happiness/flourishing. This highlights the issue with attempting to parse happiness in such terms.

Probably better to just accept that humans act, and whether those actions are good or bad always depends on a contingent context—shaped by culture, language, and experience. The best we can do is reach an intersubjective agreement on morality and continuously scrutinize our actions to understand where our morality might lead us in an ongoing conversation.

So I’m driving along, in this cool-as-hell ‘67 Cobra, hair flyin’, head-bangin’ to some classic Foghat turned up to 11….happy as a pig in an overturned hotel restaurant dumpster. — Mww

Aristotle would call this pleasure.

To judge from the lives that men lead, most men, and men of the most vulgar type, seem (not without some reason) to identify the good, or happiness, with pleasure; which is the reason why they love the life of enjoyment. For there are, we may say, three prominent types of life-that just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative life. Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts, but they get some reason for their view from the fact that many of those in high places share the tastes of Sardanapallus. — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.v, tr. W. D. Ross

(This is quite similar to the discussion @Count Timothy von Icarus and @J are having elsewhere.)

Whenever I hear this argument, I find it underwhelming. Parsing happiness into "the right kind" and "the wrong kind" seems both futile and subjective. — Tom Storm

Actually the idea that some pleasures are intense but empty strikes me as a unanimous idea in both ethics and psychology. I think it would be hard to find an author on ethics or psychology who does not admit this. In fact, if one denies this idea, then ethics as a science looks to be unnecessary.

For example, why do we prohibit cocaine as a society? Because it is a base pleasure that deprives individuals and groups of deeper fulfillment.

You are welcome to your philosophical inclinations, as anyone is, but obviously they are very far from mine. Not that that’s a problem for either of us, only that there’s little chance of meeting in the middle.

The ubiquitous "bourgeoisie metaphysics" rears it's head again!

But Mww, if someone like St. Augustine, Boethius, or Plato are right, then it is your problem. It is your problem because you are depriving yourself of what is truly best and settling for inferior, counterfeit goods instead of the real deal.

And, we might presume that in your example, it is also the problem of the person whose car you stole :rofl: . But even on a more benign example, a person's friends and family, their employers, employees, and clients, their potentia friends and clients, students, mentees, etc., the state and the organizations of which they are or might be a member—these all suffer when we fail to live up to our potential and do what is truly best because they miss out on what we could be to them. So it's everyone's problem in some sense.

Imagine a world where everyone is their best, most virtuous, strongest, courageous, generous, wisest, enlightened, and self-actualized selves.

For example, why do we prohibit cocaine as a society? Because it is a base pleasure that deprives individuals and groups of deeper fulfillment. — Leontiskos

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the pleasure cocaine can provide. Many people I've known use it a few times a year with great satisfaction and wellbeing. Addiction to coke however is a problem. But so is an addiction to hard work. So is an addition to alcohol, which can also be used responsibly, with great happiness and pleasure.

Actually the idea that some pleasures are intense but empty strikes me as a unanimous idea in both ethics and psychology. — Leontiskos

My point is that it's the action we judge, not the pleasure derived from it. I would hold that the pleasure experienced by a person who collects stolen artworks is likely identical to the pleasure experienced by one who buys art through Sotheby's. The issue at stake is should they derive pleasure from a crime? Not whether the feeling of pleasure arrived at is of a qualitative differnce. I am not convinced by the idea of an 'empty' pleasures.

My point is that it's the action we judge, not the pleasure derived from it. — Tom Storm

My point is that the prohibition of cocaine (or methamphetamine or whatever you like) has everything to do with the drug use, and that the pleasure is an integral part of that drug use. Your idea that the prohibition of cocaine has nothing to do with the pleasure cocaine provides is what is implausible. If cocaine didn't provide pleasure we wouldn't ban it, because no one would use it.

Your idea that the prohibition of cocaine has nothing to do with the pleasure cocaine provides is what is implausible. — Leontiskos

I didn't address the prohibition of cocaine, I addressed the pleasure it provides and the notion of pleasure itself. In the US there used to be prohibition of alcohol too. Not any more. Presumably alcohol hasn't changed, while social policy has. Prohibition is irrelevant to my argument.

Let's move away from substances to take the excitement out of this idea.

My point is that it's the action we judge, not the pleasure or satisfaction derived from it. I would hold that the pleasure experienced by a person who collects stolen artworks is likely identical to the pleasure experienced by one who buys art through Sotheby's. The issue at stake is should they derive pleasure from a crime? — Tom Storm

I think this is large subject. Most importantly, what is good: pure good or intelligent good? Is it good to have pleasure or it's good to have pleasure after work.

And what I mean by a large subject is:

What is a good car?
What is a good plane?
What is good food?
Infinite.

Isn't it the case that good cannot be defined in morality? Only the human actions are good, neutral or evil. But good itself is a word for property of the actions.

…..virtues are tide to our nature…. — Bob Ross

I don’t know that my moral integrity remains intact until there’s a call for its exhibition. The best I can do until then, is come up with a way in which it ought to work, given any case I am inclined to actively address. And the way itself, is to check the checker; for any act of will, check for its accordance with a principle. The quote I used, re: “tide”, merely demonstrates that people generally are not, or at least seldom, inclined to enforce such subjective legislation.

Through metaphysical reductionism, from volitions in accordance with principles results the good as the ideal of pure practical reason, which answers the question, how do you define good. Although not a proper definition……also wasn’t ever a proper question anyway but oh well, right?….. it becomes clear, under certain theoretical conditions, why there isn’t going to be one, and furthermore, why there’s no need for it.

wasn’t ever a proper question anyway but oh well, right?….. it becomes clear, under certain theoretical conditions, why there isn’t going to be one, and furthermore, why there’s no need for it. — Mww

:up:

How can we demonstrate that so-called low happiness (the version Aristotle might disapprove of in our interpretation of him) is qualitatively different?

Just look at the species. There are objectively better and worse ways for, e.g., a lion to be happy because we can observe how they are designed and recognize patterns in behavior that lead to deeper happiness for healthy lions. Humans are no different. We have had plenty of history to determine what tends to lead towards happiness and what doesn’t for humans.

Parsing happiness into "the right kind" and "the wrong kind" seems both futile and subjective.

Aristotle doesn’t: he doesn’t use the term ‘happiness’. Eudaimonia is not identical to the english word ‘happiness’. In english, it can refer vaguely to both superficial, hedonic happiness and the deeper, eudaimonic happiness. Aristotle simply says that the best is eudaimonia, which is ‘soul-living-well’, and everyone wants this that are healthy and sane merely in virtue of being an living being. If you don’t want to live well, ceteris paribus, then something’s wrong with you. Likewise, the objective goods to being a good human is such that, and necessarily such that, one fulfills their nature qua a human being; and this is why, necessarily, a human gets that deep sense of fulfillment from things that are in human nature to do (except in rare cases of unhealthy and ill people).

Aristotle himself supported slavery and likely believed it contributed to the "right kind" of happiness/flourishing

And he was wrong about that: so what?

This highlights the issue with attempting to parse happiness in such terms.

No it doesn’t. It highlights that not even philosophers are exempt from the coercion of their historical time period. This happens to every philosopher throughout all history: they make compromises so they don’t get killed or simply believe also themselves (due to how they were raised).

Probably better to just accept that humans act, and whether those actions are good or bad always depends on a contingent context—shaped by culture, language, and experience

I wouldn’t say “always”; but this is by-at-large true; and doesn’t negate Aristotle’s point.

The best we can do is reach an intersubjective agreement on morality and continuously scrutinize our actions to understand where our morality might lead us in an ongoing conversation.

This is self-undermining: if we assume there are objective goods but that, according to you, we cannot parse them properly, then we would be incapable of having an ‘ongoing conversation’ where we ‘scrutinize our actions’ objectively or intersubjectively. All it would be then, is baseless inter-subjective agreement; which is nothing but a moral anti-realist theory which should be disregarded immediately.

We must, in order to do ethics proper, be able to understand, however imperfectly, sufficiently these objective goods.

This didn't answer my question though: under your view, how does one evaluate what is a good or bad will? And why is the will the only thing that is truly morally relevant, and not habits?

This is quite similar to the discussion (…) elsewhere…. — Leontiskos

I’m aware; I left a scant two cents there a few days ago.
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Aristotle would call this pleasure. — Leontiskos

True enough. and I understand the symbiosis on the one hand and the conceptual evolution on the other.
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….you are depriving yourself of what is truly best… — Count Timothy von Icarus

From the perspective of a case-by-case basis, have I not determined by myself the best for myself, in granting his personal philosophy irrespective of my possible disagreement with it, and, asking for his opinion of mine, irrespective of whether or not I think he’s understood it? Doesn’t this demonstrate that, at the very least, I am aware of how arrive at such determinations in this case, which would then serve as sufficient reason for consciousness of how to arrive at them in any case?
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Imagine a world where everyone is their best….. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You mean like one of these “possible worlds” the postmodern analytical mindset deems so relevant? Dunno about all that pathological nonsense, except I’ll wager that world wouldn’t be inhabited by the humans commonly understood as such, by themselves.

So it is that, the circumventing of my own deprivation does nothing to show “St. Augustine, Boethius, or Plato are right”, which is indeed possible, but only that I am, which is apodeitically certain. And from that point of view….the only one that really matters….there is the ideal of good from pure practical reason.

How’s that for bourgeoisie metaphysics? Consign it to the flames?

….good itself is a word for property of the actions. — Corvus

I might expand to say that a word represents a property of actions, good is a word that represents a property of actions, quality is a property of actions, therefore good is a word that represents the quality of actions.

Does that expansion diminish your point? Hopefully not too much anyway, cuz I agree with your major point.

I might expand to say that a word represents a property of actions, good is a word that represents a property of actions, quality is a property of actions, therefore good is a word that represents the quality of actions. — Mww

We have agreement there.

Does that expansion diminish your point? Hopefully not too much anyway, cuz I agree with your major point. — Mww

It seems to supplement my point with more accuracy.