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Single Idea 5135

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

Full Idea

Goods have been classified (by Plato) under three heads, as external, or of the soul, or of the body; of these we say that goods of the soul are good in the strictest and fullest sense, and we rank actions as goods of the soul.

Gist of Idea

Goods are external, of the soul, and of the body; those of the soul (such as action) come first

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1098b13)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.78

A Reaction

Aristotle is famous (or notorious) for allowing external goods in his theory, but it is important that he always makes them subordinate to the central goods. Wealth and glamour could never compensate for vice.

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]