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Full Idea
We call good and evil the things that please and displease us; and so we call goodness and badness, the qualities of powers whereby they do it.
Gist of Idea
Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them
Source
Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.7.3), quoted by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2
Book Ref
Tuck,Richard: 'Hobbes: a very short introduction' [OUP 2002], p.62
A Reaction
It is pointed out by Tuck that this is just like his treatment of colour terms (values as secondary qualities). I would have thought it was obvious that I could say 'x pleases me, although I disapprove of it' (e.g. black humour).
| 7396 | Hobbes created English-language philosophy [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 7408 | It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 7410 | Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 7409 | Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights' [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 7411 | The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature [Hobbes] |
| 16688 | Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses [Hobbes] |
| 16638 | The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them [Hobbes] |
| 7405 | Experience can't prove universal truths [Hobbes] |
| 7407 | Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them [Hobbes] |