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Single Idea 22489

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good ]

Full Idea

Geach puts 'good' in the class of attributive adjectives, such as 'large' and 'small', contrasting such adjectives with 'predicative' adjectives such as 'red'.

Gist of Idea

'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red'

Source

report of Peter Geach (Good and Evil [1956]) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness Intro

Book Ref

Foot,Philippa: 'Natural Goodness' [OUP 2003], p.2


A Reaction

[In Analysis 17, and 'Theories of Ethics' ed Foot] Thus any object can simply be red, but something can only be large or small 'for a rat' or 'for a car'. Hence nothing is just good, but always a good so-and-so. This is Aristotelian, and Foot loves it.


The 24 ideas with the same theme [goodness as a perfect and eternal idea]:

Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul [Homer, by Plotinus]
The good is beautiful [Plato]
The good involves beauty, proportion and truth [Plato]
Neither intellect nor pleasure are the good, because they are not perfect and self-sufficient [Plato]
The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage [Plato]
Every person, and every activity, aims at the good [Plato]
For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good [Plato, by Taylor,C]
Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world [Plato]
Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible [Plato]
The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right [Plato]
Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits [Plato]
I can form no notion of what the good is [Amphis]
The good is 'that at which all things aim' [Aristotle]
Each category of existence has its own good, so one Good cannot unite them [Aristotle]
There should be one science of the one Good, but there are many overlapping sciences [Aristotle]
Is the good a purpose, a source of movement, or a pure form? [Aristotle]
The good is what is perfect by nature [Diogenes of Babylon, by Blank]
Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it [Sext.Empiricus]
It is always an open question whether anything that is natural is good [Moore,GE]
We can ask of pleasure or beauty whether they are valuable, but not of goodness [Ross]
There are two goods - the absolute good we want, and the reachable opposite of evil [Weil]
The good is a nothingness, and yet real [Weil]
'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red' [Geach, by Foot]
The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good [Derrida]