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Single Idea 5110

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good ]

Full Idea

Goodness is a kind of completion: it is when something becomes as good as it may be that we say that it is complete, because that is when it pre-eminently conforms with its nature. A circle is complete when it is as good a circle as there could be.

Gist of Idea

Goodness is when a thing (such as a circle) is complete, and conforms with its nature

Source

Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 246a12)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'Physics', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [OUP 1996], p.175

A Reaction

This, in turn, is said by Aristotle to result from the telos (purpose) of the thing. This won't eliminate the problem of relativism, unless we say that something cannot have an evil 'nature'. Was the Black Death good, by this definition?

The 19 ideas with the same theme [candidates for what is supremely good]:

3028 The chief good is unity, sometimes seen as prudence, or God, or intellect [Eucleides]
393 Good first, then beauty, then reason, then knowledge, then pleasure [Plato, by PG]
9274 Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray]
5131 Intelligence and sight, and some pleasures and honours, are candidates for being good in themselves [Aristotle]
5135 Goods are external, of the soul, and of the body; those of the soul (such as action) come first [Aristotle]
5110 Goodness is when a thing (such as a circle) is complete, and conforms with its nature [Aristotle]
20843 Final goods: confidence, prudence, freedom, enjoyment and no pain, good spirits, virtue [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
23328 The essences of good and evil are in dispositions to choose [Epictetus]
22755 Like a warming fire, what is good by nature should be good for everyone [Sext.Empiricus]
7821 Pagans produced three hundred definitions of the highest good [Augustine, by Grayling]
12957 The good is the virtuous, the pleasing, or the useful [Leibniz]
8117 Perfection comes through the senses (Beauty), through reason (Truth), and through moral will (Good) [Baumgarten, by Tolstoy]
19450 Reason, love and will are the highest perfections and essence of man - the purpose of his life [Feuerbach]
21747 Goodness is a combination of love and knowledge [Russell]
5925 The three main values are good, right and beauty [Moore,GE, by Ross]
5910 The three intrinsic goods are virtue, knowledge and pleasure [Ross]
5932 The four goods are: virtue, pleasure, just allocation of pleasure, and knowledge [Ross]
22379 The meaning of 'good' and other evaluations must include the object to which they attach [Foot]
18224 Goodness is given either by a psychological state, or the attribution of a property [Korsgaard]