Single Idea 12957

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

Full Idea

The good is divided into the virtuous, the pleasing, and the useful. ..The good is either pleasing or useful; and virtue itself consists of a pleasure of the mind.

Gist of Idea

The good is the virtuous, the pleasing, or the useful

Source

Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.20)

Book Reference

Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.162


A Reaction

I presume that the useful could be reduced to the pleasing. It strikes me as quite bizarre to define virtue as merely a pleasure of the mind. Aristotle says true virtue must also please the mind, but that is a different idea.