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Single Idea 22754
[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
]
Full Idea
Asserting that the good is 'the useful', or 'what is choiceworthy for its own sake', or 'that which contributes to happiness', does not teach us what good is but states its accidental property.
Gist of Idea
Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it
Source
Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.35)
Book Ref
Sextus Empiricus: 'Against the Physicists/Against the Ethicists', ed/tr. Bury,R.G. [Harvard Loeb 1997], p.403
A Reaction
This seems to be a pretty accurate statement of Moore's famous Open Question argument. I read it in an Aristotelian way - that that quest is always for the essential nature of the thing itself, not for its role or function or use.
Related Idea
Idea 11057
It is always an open question whether anything that is natural is good [Moore,GE]
The
24 ideas
with the same theme
[goodness as a perfect and eternal idea]:
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21819
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Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul
[Homer, by Plotinus]
|
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295
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The good is beautiful
[Plato]
|
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391
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The good involves beauty, proportion and truth
[Plato]
|
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392
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Neither intellect nor pleasure are the good, because they are not perfect and self-sufficient
[Plato]
|
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2137
|
The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage
[Plato]
|
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4007
|
For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good
[Plato, by Taylor,C]
|
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2139
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Every person, and every activity, aims at the good
[Plato]
|
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2143
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Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world
[Plato]
|
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2144
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Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible
[Plato]
|
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2147
|
The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right
[Plato]
|
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2164
|
Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits
[Plato]
|
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3032
|
I can form no notion of what the good is
[Amphis]
|
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20
|
The good is 'that at which all things aim'
[Aristotle]
|
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5128
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Each category of existence has its own good, so one Good cannot unite them
[Aristotle]
|
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5129
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There should be one science of the one Good, but there are many overlapping sciences
[Aristotle]
|
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629
|
Is the good a purpose, a source of movement, or a pure form?
[Aristotle]
|
|
5999
|
The good is what is perfect by nature
[Diogenes of Babylon, by Blank]
|
|
22754
|
Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
|
11057
|
It is always an open question whether anything that is natural is good
[Moore,GE]
|
|
5921
|
We can ask of pleasure or beauty whether they are valuable, but not of goodness
[Ross]
|
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23808
|
There are two goods - the absolute good we want, and the reachable opposite of evil
[Weil]
|
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23833
|
The good is a nothingness, and yet real
[Weil]
|
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22489
|
'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red'
[Geach, by Foot]
|
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21891
|
The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good
[Derrida]
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