Nothing about this explained why the will is good, am I missing something? You went from the will can be good to saying it cannot be determined what makes a will good. Again, I want to know why you believe that a will is good in any sense whatsoever. Why, e.g., can a habit not be good or bad?

E.g., I believe a will is good if it is virtuous; because objective goods are internal to the Teleological structure of the thing in question, morality pertains to the Teleological structure of agency, and so a good person will be any person which is fulfilling the Teleology of a person in a manner where they have excellences of habit which allow them to do so in the most ideal manner. A will, then, is good IFF it is comprised, habitually and deeply psychologically, of those excellences that allow them to realize and preserve those internal, objective goods. Viz., I can achieve the internal goods to being a human, which revolve around eudaimonia (as the chief good), IFF I have a will which habituates towards what allows me to do what a human was designed to do.

I would like some sort of elaboration, if possible, analogously, of what you saying makes the will good. If the answer is that we cannot say, then you have no reason to believe that a will can be good.

We don't need 'true' or objective morality to build a useful system.

To whom? To the slaves? To the masters?

According to you, it isn't actually wrong, e.g., to own slaves. All society is doing, is deciding that they don't like it anymore.

Who mentioned power-related structures?

That is what you are referring to without realizing it:

Collectively we arrive at right and wrong through an intersubjective agreement. In other words cultures arrive at values, from a myriad sources. And we know there will always be outliers. We know that the idea for who counts is a full citizen has varied over time, as culture and values change. In the West, slavery is no longer acceptable, but it is acceptable to exploit and underpay workers to keep the rich person's housework and maintenance done. We no longer criminalise and imprison gay people or trans people. Although some elements of society seem to want to punish them again. Our agreements are not necessarily permanent.

What you are noting is correct, insofar as it outlines how human social structures work, which are inherently power-structures, but the problem is that you gutted out the part where we are actually developing better social structures because they are ethically superior to previous ones. According to you, there is no true moral progress: apparently, abolishing slavery wasn't objectively better.

There are no facts we can access about values

We are talking about moral judgments, not value judgments.

I don't go looking for absolute truth or foundational guarantees in the world because I am not convinced such things exist.

I don't either.

No. I don't think you are following. I don't accept there are objective goods (your term). Society engages in an ongoing conversation about a 'code of conduct' and who counts as a citizen - this evolves and is subject to changes over time. Hence gay people are now citizens (in the West), whereas some years ago they were criminals.

1. Then, you are a moral anti-realist; and no one should take your view seriously; because all you are saying is that what is right or wrong is stance-dependent. So if, e.g., I want to do something you consider wrong, or others consider wrong, then there is absolutely no fact-of-the-matter that makes me wrong: I am just as right as you are (objectively speaking).

2. One can accept that there are objective goods AND that society is a power-related structure. The idea that some people are exhalted as heroes and those very same people criminals by others just highlights that humans are creating laws; and does not negate the fact that humans should be creating laws which abide by facticity. Under your view, those laws are non-factual; because there are no moral facts.

According to your posts, Aquinas says:

Again, no man justly punishes another, except one who is subject to his jurisdiction. Therefore it is not lawful for a man to strike another, unless he have some power over the one whom he strikes. And since the child is subject to the power of the parent, and the slave to the power of his master, a parent can lawfully strike his child, and a master his slave that instruction may be enforced by correction.

And:

It is lawful for anyone to restrain a man for a time from doing some unlawful deed there and then: as when a man prevents another from throwing himself over a precipice, or from striking another.

I am doing some interpretation work here, but here’s the two key points:

1. One cannot reprimand a person which one has no jurisdiction over.
2. One can reprimand a person which is doing something unlawful.

These two principles, which emerged from the two quotes above, are not compatible with each other, at least prima facie, because there could be cases, for principle 2, where a person is doing something unlawful, one must reprimand them (either in the sense of stopping them or punishing them), and one has no legal jurisdiction to do so; which would contradict the first principle.

An easy example is that kidnapping case I gave, where the citizen clearly has no jurisdiction, in any meaningful sense of that word, to reprimand nor have any authority over the perpetrator and yet they clearly have a moral duty to help. This leads me to:

If we want to go the route of justice taken in a general sense, then the good of aid must be due to them in virtue of their relation to the community or God
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I think we could go the route of the community and say that one is acting as a kind of unofficial police officer who has care of the common good

Then we are not restricting ‘duty’ to its strict meaning as it relates to law—unless we are stretching it to the idea of Divine Law—and thereby we must admit that some duties can be relative to other Teleological structures than legal structures. This was my original point, which was negated by Aquinas’ view that one only has duty when relative to strict, legal structures.

The question, then, becomes: “what kinds of teleological structures can support duties?”. Before I dive into that, I want to address a couple other things first:

So the rape victim has a right which we must honor in view of their inclusion within our community. Is a person on the other side of the world a member of our community? Classically the answer is 'no', and to say 'yes' is to stretch the meaning of "community" unduly.

If I were to grant that one such set of moral duties relates to the teleological structure of ‘community’, then it seems to plainly follow that the entire human species, as a whole, is the highest of this type of structure as it relates to humans (or, if we want to add in Divine structures, then it would be the highest relative to human, natural structures). I don’t see how it would be a stretch to do so because the more universal the structure, the less immediate the duties are; and all you seem to be noting is that the universal, human community is much more distant to the citizen than the most localized community of which they are a member. This is true of the entire hierarchy, however, as a separate district from a citizen’s most local community is also very mediate (e.g., a state across the country of the US from a citizen of another state is also proportionally mediate relative to their local county or city).

Perhaps the argument is not that because they are so distant to each other that they are not proper communities but, rather, that there is no legal structure which subsumes each (nation) to each other; and so they are not a proper community. The problem with this is twofold: (1) we already established, by your own point, that legal structures are not the only teleological structures which can support duties (although I haven’t elaborated yet on what other kinds may exist) and (2) (more importantly) there are such legal structures (e.g., NATO, the UN, etc.). With respect to #2, there is no completely universalized legal structure yet, but humanity is obviously working towards it (with universal rights, UN judges, etc.).

We must oppose all the immorality that we can.
We must oppose all the immorality that we should.

I wouldn’t say that one must oppose all the immorality that they can per se: one should oppose all immorality that they can as it relates to their duties. The difference between us, is that I think of duties as relating to many teleological structures, whereas yours seems to be limited to legal structures.

So, what teleological structures can support duties? I would argue: all of them! Just as all teleological structures can and do support objective, internal goods to and for the given structure; so, too, does it house duties which relate to the preservation and realization of the purposes in those structures. E.g., just as there is such a thing as a good lion, there is such a thing as a dutiful lion.

Duty and (objective) goods are inextricably linked and relativistic to the Telos of the given structure. Then, it must be asked, which of these are morally relevant? Surely, e.g., a dutiful lion is not morally relevant, for the lion cannot rationally deliberate (in any meaningful sense). I would say, in short, that the directly morally relevant goods are the goods of moral agency; that is, the objective (and internal) goods to (and for) minds which are capable of rational deliberation as it relates to the Teleological structure immanent to such a mind qua personhood. Indirectly, all other teleological structures are morally relevant only insofar as they relate to this chief structure for persons. E.g., the virtues of the body, such as eating healthy, are morally relevant only insofar as they relate to sustaining the goods that are relative to the nature of a mind qua personhood; and, as such, are virtues that are relevant because they are required for the latter (such as needing to be healthy because one’s body is their temple).

For you, I would ask: how are you distinguishing which teleological structures can support duties and which can’t? Doesn’t, e.g., a chess player have certain chess duties (such as not cheating to win) even though they are not directly morally relevant duties?

Was it our intellectually piercing dialectic, or were they just bored with what they were doing?

Our conversation became so spectacular, that they couldn’t help themselves but join in (;

the goodness or badness of the will is a direct reflection on the worthiness of being content with one’s subjective condition, which is commonly called being happy, which is itself the prime condition for moral integrity

I understand that you are claiming that being worthy of happiness is directly related to having a good will; but I am asking what makes a will good?

The one willing an act in defiance of his principles would post hoc evaluate his will as bad, earning himself the title of immoral.

But what, under your view, makes those principles right? Someone, surely, can will in accordance with their principles, thereby gaining at least a shallow sense of happiness, without willing in accordance with what is right.

No I am not. Cultural relativism is a (family of) moral realist theory(ies) that posits, fundamentally, that objective goods are internal (i.e., relative) to societies or cultures—in terms of norms, values, or/and laws—whereas moral relativism is any moral theory which posits that objective goods are internal (i.e., relative) to something. Cultural relativism is a form of moral relativism; not all moral relativist theories are a form of cultural relativism.

IMHO, although cultural relativism is allegedly a form of moral realism, it reduces to a form of inter-subjectivism or "inter-non-objectivism" and thusly is a form of moral anti-realism (in actuality). It naturally makes sense for a cultural relativist to opt for anti-nationalism, because imposing moral law (or objective goods) that is only valid for one society can't be validly applied to another.

In a vaguer sense, I think people are moving more and more towards cultural relativism and truth relativism; and that's why many people find it upsetting to impose values onto other nations.

This didn't answer my question though: under your view, how does one evaluate what is a good or bad will? And why is the will the only thing that is truly morally relevant, and not habits?

How can we demonstrate that so-called low happiness (the version Aristotle might disapprove of in our interpretation of him) is qualitatively different?

Just look at the species. There are objectively better and worse ways for, e.g., a lion to be happy because we can observe how they are designed and recognize patterns in behavior that lead to deeper happiness for healthy lions. Humans are no different. We have had plenty of history to determine what tends to lead towards happiness and what doesn’t for humans.

Parsing happiness into "the right kind" and "the wrong kind" seems both futile and subjective.

Aristotle doesn’t: he doesn’t use the term ‘happiness’. Eudaimonia is not identical to the english word ‘happiness’. In english, it can refer vaguely to both superficial, hedonic happiness and the deeper, eudaimonic happiness. Aristotle simply says that the best is eudaimonia, which is ‘soul-living-well’, and everyone wants this that are healthy and sane merely in virtue of being an living being. If you don’t want to live well, ceteris paribus, then something’s wrong with you. Likewise, the objective goods to being a good human is such that, and necessarily such that, one fulfills their nature qua a human being; and this is why, necessarily, a human gets that deep sense of fulfillment from things that are in human nature to do (except in rare cases of unhealthy and ill people).

Aristotle himself supported slavery and likely believed it contributed to the "right kind" of happiness/flourishing

And he was wrong about that: so what?

This highlights the issue with attempting to parse happiness in such terms.

No it doesn’t. It highlights that not even philosophers are exempt from the coercion of their historical time period. This happens to every philosopher throughout all history: they make compromises so they don’t get killed or simply believe also themselves (due to how they were raised).

Probably better to just accept that humans act, and whether those actions are good or bad always depends on a contingent context—shaped by culture, language, and experience

I wouldn’t say “always”; but this is by-at-large true; and doesn’t negate Aristotle’s point.

The best we can do is reach an intersubjective agreement on morality and continuously scrutinize our actions to understand where our morality might lead us in an ongoing conversation.

This is self-undermining: if we assume there are objective goods but that, according to you, we cannot parse them properly, then we would be incapable of having an ‘ongoing conversation’ where we ‘scrutinize our actions’ objectively or intersubjectively. All it would be then, is baseless inter-subjective agreement; which is nothing but a moral anti-realist theory which should be disregarded immediately.

We must, in order to do ethics proper, be able to understand, however imperfectly, sufficiently these objective goods.

Like I said before, cultural relativism leads to anti-nationalism; but not all anti-nationalism is due to cultural relativism. I was noting cultural relativism specifically because it is prominent among the masses in the west.

This is a very interesting take, that I would like to explore more.

If one were bound to save every person from fire then they would be bound to do the impossible; but no one is bound to do the impossible; therefore no one is bound to save every person from fire.
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Is a firefighter bound to save every person from fire that he can? No,

I think you are right here: the firefighter’s duty would be to help put out fires and help people vacant the premises—not necessarily to save everyone.

With regard to common citizens, I don't think a moral agent should "oppose all the immorality that they can."

So what about the man that watched that woman get kidnapped? It seems like your view leaves no room for moral obligation to help people outside of the strict, institutionalized sense of duty. In fact, wouldn’t it follow that—not only was the man permitted to just stand there and watch but—he was not permitted to stop it since, according to your Thomistic take, he has no jurisdiction to reprimand a fellow unwilling citizen?

To me, it seems like at least some citizens (like healthy males) have certain duties towards other citizens that are not institutionalized; no different than how if the government were to become too tyrannical, then the people would have the duty to revolt.

Cultural relativism is the view that objective goods are relative to social norms and values; and this line of thinking does usually cause anti-nationalist ideologies. It is also worth mentioning, to your point, that one may be an anti-nationalist for other reasons.

but rather, the method by which any act of will leaves my moral integrity intact.

I see: you just have your own unique view of it...and there's nothing wrong with that (:

How, then, under your view, are you determining moral integrity? For Aristotle, the virtues are tide to our nature as a human being.

But that still leaves me without the worthiness of that kind of happiness, that particular pleasure. I’m happy but I cheated to be that way, so I don’t deserve it. Seemed like a cool thing to do at the time but I regret it now, kinda thing.

Exactly. Aristotle doesn’t call this kind of cheating happiness happiness at all; because the only way one becomes truly fulfilled in life, with the happiness which is deep, is by earning it. Like I noted before, by “worthiness of happiness”, you are necessarily using the term “happiness” to refer to this cheap dopamine kind of happiness and not what Aristotle means by happiness. This is just a semantic disagreement. If you use happiness in Aristotle’s sense, then “worthiness of happiness” is contained in the concept of happiness, being that it is the biproduct of earning it, and so it doesn’t make sense to say this (technically) because it is impossible to be unworthy of such happiness and still be happy. This only makes sense if you are thinking of a hedonic sense of happiness which can happen independently of if one earns it. Eudaimonia is always earned: you cannot luck or cheat your way into it: happiness, in this sense, is always earned.

I want to know what kinda thing it is, to be happy and deserve it. It’s not enough to know what it is not, I want to know what it is. What happiness would I not regret, and by extension, what thing can I do that may not make me happy at all, but I don’t regret having done it?

It is to realize the internal, objective goods to what you are. You will achieve that deep sense of fulfillment—that eudaimonic happiness—not by cheap dopamine; not by cheating; not lucking into it; but by orientating yourself deliberately towards your Telos qua a human being, qua a man, qua a father, etc.

By analogy, think of chess. The internal goods of chess are things like strategic thinking, competition, quick strategizing, etc. as it relates to the game of chess (e.g., moving the pawns, knights, the queen, etc.) to win. A truly good chess player isn’t merely gifted at the skills required in chess—by some accident or predisposition—but also have to put in the work to learn and practice chess to the point that they are good at it. These learned skills (and perhaps innate skills which they may have been predisposed to—like critical thinking for high-IQ individuals—as finely tuned to the specific practice of chess) are internal to the game: only chess players can call themselves as truly obtaining these internal goods. Someone who wins the chess tournament by constantly cheating has not acquired those internal goods even though they have won many matches; and the truly good chess players that they cheated to win have.

The same thing is true of life qua a human being: I can try to cheat my way into happiness—by smoking this, taking this, having sex with her, partying like this, driving that stolen car, etc.—but yet I will be no closer to happiness because I have not acquired the internal goods to being a human being. Think of those peaceful, wise elders: they have acquired happiness. I can gain higher social status, more money, more pleasures, etc. than them, and yet they are the one’s with happiness because they didn’t cheat nor did they try to luck their way into it. They followed the path of their Telos. E.g., I cannot cheat my way into being Just, which is a Virtue which is tied to my nature as having rational capacities (as a mind), and this is why I will not gain an inch closer to happiness by cheating people out of their money (even though I will gain many pleasures and powers from it). The man who earns their living fairly is the one that, all else being equal, is happy.

Now the worthiness comes to the fore, in such case where I do a thing, feel anything but happy about, take no pleasure in the act, but remain happy….read as satisfied, content, undeterred, consistent with my virtues….with myself for the having the fortitude to act for the sake of good in itself.

Not quite. This is very Kantian; but Aristotle is right to point out that it is not about taking no pleasure in the act; it is about taking pleasure in acts that are good; and displeasure in acts that are bad. What you described here is continence; and the pristine virtue here would be temperance. Continence is doing what one knows they should do irregardless of the feelings they have about it (and so, like you point out, the continent man does the right thing even if he has appetites to the contrary); whereas the temperate man doesn’t have contrary appetites in the first place. The temperate man wants to do what is right; the continent man does what is right.

If I were bound to stop all immoral acts then I would be bound to do the impossible (by stopping every immoral act I have knowledge of); but no one is bound to do the impossible; therefore I am not bound to stop all immoral acts.

One may be bound, e.g., to save every person from burning buildings per se—as is the case for firefighters—but yet be incapable of saving everyone in some particular, burning building. I think “duty” is much more complicated than just what one is bound to do in a particular situation pragamatically. The duty to save people from a burning building clearly extends to saving everyone if possible, but if NOT possible then save as many as possible; and even though it extends to everyone, we would not say that a firefighter did not uphold their duty, irregardless, by only saving as many as they could. It seems like you are missing the fact that duty refers to both: the ideal and pragmatic. All you are noting above, is essentially that we are incapable of fulfilling the ideal duty which we have, or however one should properly explain it (but you get the point), when there is a pragmatic aspect to it. The impossibility of upholding what is ideal, does not negate it as such.

In colloquial speech, we would say that I have a moral duty to my family but not to the homeless stranger; but all else being equal people would say I have a moral obligation to help the latter in ideal circumstances. E.g., a filthy rich man, who doesn’t help the homeless man but instead spends it on utterly superficial commodities (like Yachts, women, etc.), even though he could do it with no considerable consequences (to his own wealth), because it is not his duty to help them—that’s the duty of some homelessness governmental agency I suppose. This seems wrong—don’t you think?

I don't know that your idea of "being bound ceteris paribus" is ultimately coherent. Being "bound" implies necessity, whereas "ceteris paribus" implies non-necessity.

I partially agree: prima facie you are right to point out that if one is bound to X, then they must abide by X irregardless of the circumstances; but that’s not quite right. If one is bound to X, then they must abide by X irregardless of the irrelevant circumstances. Circumstances could be a factor in duty, but not all circumstances are. E.g., a firefighter must save all people from burning buildings irregardless of if they feel like it, but they are not violating that duty meaningfully by saving as many as they can if they cannot save everyone.

Put differently, if we want to say that we should oppose the immorality that is within our power and competence to oppose, then we have actually contradicted the thesis that we are bound to oppose all immorality we have knowledge of (at least on the presupposition that we have knowledge of immorality that is beyond our power or competence to oppose).

Yes, I am not arguing that we must oppose immorality that is out of our power to oppose: I am arguing that, all else being equal, a moral agent opposes all immorality that they can.

The bottom line is that change has to come from the inside. The only way to truly change a nation to the better is to inspire better ideals

That is a better way to do it, but an invasion can work too and sometimes is necessary. You are forgetting that every major Western country was built off the violence and subjugation of weaker societies. E.g, the US was originally native american territory. For some reason Westerns seem to forget this, like the West just emerged through peaceful “inspirations”……

My point is not that we need to incessantly impose our values on other societies; but, rather, that it is a necessary last resort sometimes. Likewise, we should be, always, trying to influence other nations to our better values (if we truly believe ours are better, that is).

I would love to see Iran fall, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, etc. Wouldn’t you? Yes, the West has tried before and failed—so what? Try again. Perhaps try your “inspiration” tactics.

It is painfully slow, but it is also rock solid in the long term.

Like what? Are you thinking of peaceful protests—Ghandi’esque style—change? That won’t due, excuse my french, twiddly d**k in Iran…

Most attempts at "installing democracy" have failed miserably

But, still, in principle, we should be trying to install it by whatever means are feasible and reasonable relative to the nation executing it.

What you are talking about when mentioning North Korea is not about installing "better values" and changing their culture to a "better system". You look at their existence as a danger to the world, with their nuclear capabilities and their threats of war.

No, I don’t. Let’s clear away the misconfusion here. Imagine North Korea was the exact as it is now except it had no ability nuke or bomb any other nations. According to your logic here, North Korea shouldn’t be invaded because….it is not about “changing their culture to a ‘better system’ even though they are mass genociding their people?!?

As a swede I could view US politics as barbaric. With its inability to help its own people, the racial violence, the risk of authoritarian power and the risk of its military capability to initiate a new world war when some delusional president takes power.

The US has its own problems for sure, but it isn’t nearly as bad as you make it seem. There’s very little racial violence, and most of it is from liberals on whites (or other perceived non-minorities); the US provides people with a good standard of living with a booming economy; and Trump is not going to do anything worse than Biden has already done.

Should the more balanced democracies

Lmao, is this Sweden you are referring to? Do you think Sweden is better than the US? I hope you aren’t referring to inferior societies like Great Britain.

Should the more balanced democracies within western culture gather together and invade the US

If you genuinely think that the US is that bad, then you should be advocating for those “balanced demoncracies” to influence the US into being better as much as feasibly possible. Is the US bad enough to invade it? That’s going to be relative to how bad you think it is.

For me, I think the US is much better than these “balanced democracies”; and I don’t all of them combined could put a dent in the US—at least not head-on warfare. Maybe they could get the people to revolt for the sake of socialism.

kill its corrupt leaders and corporate "oligarks"

There is definitely a lot of corruption, like any other of these “balanced countries”. I wouldn’t say we should kill them, but rather charge them with the crimes they have committed and actually hold them to the law.

, rip their constitution to pieces and install the better constitutional laws that we have,

Ok, name one constitution that is better than the american one; and elaborate on its main rights that it outlines.

Sweden has strict gun laws that prevent good people from defending themselves and the people from being capable of overthrowing a tyrannical government. Ironically, it has incredibly high gun violence too…..

I would never live in a country that doesn’t have a basic right to bear arms. Never.

In essence, if I invade a nation, killing anything that comes in my way and then try to communicate my message of peace and understanding, of free will and love.

An invasion doesn’t have to look like that; but, sure, there will be immanent resistance—that’s natural. Historically, it is a couple generations later when those sentiments die out. However, in my examples, the issues on those inferior societies are substantial and not trivial. I wouldn’t advocate to invade Sweden even though I don’t think it is a better place to live because it isn’t THAT BAD. Talibanian Afghanistan IS THAT BAD.

You are right that using full force to invade a country will have nasty side effects for a while and may end up biting the whole project in the butt (and, not to mention, may be immoral if the reasons are not solid for doing so); but my point is that invasion is a last resort sometimes just like killing someone to counter a violent offense that is occurring (e.g., an active shooter).

Ok, I am not following then (:

I thought, by your example, worthiness of happiness referred to achieving true fulfillment by being worthy of it (hence why there is no true happiness in the pleasures obtained from stealing a car); and I was merely pointing out that this is eudaimonic happiness.

I shall consider it proved that worthiness of happiness and happiness itself, are very far from….

That's because by "happiness", you are referring to hedonism. The happiness being referred to in enjoying the stolen car is superficial, cheap dopamine. There is no true happiness in that, because it was not earned. Earned happiness, is eudaimonic happiness.

Sorry, I forgot about this.

No worries at all: I did the same thing to @Mww haha.

Why? If I don't have a claim to prevent something, then that something cannot be immoral?

I was assuming that if something is immoral than, ceteris paribus, one would think it should not be done; which, to me, implies some degree of duty merely by acknowledging that. Of course, you are denying the binding of a moral agent to stopping immorality simpliciter; since one may not have a duty, under your view, to stop it even though it is immoral.

If something is happening on the other side of the world, then the duty generally falls to those who live there.
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We are not responsible for everything. That's a fairly important moral and psychological principle, and one that we really struggle with in the West. Your slippery slope concern does not invalidate it.
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Not everything is our responsibility to rectify.

Let me ask you this (to better understand your position): let's imagine you are the head of the police for the entire county (or region) that you live in; you find out that a woman is getting raped 2 inches past the county (or region) line (thusly making it in a different county [or region] than your own jurisdiction); and you find out that the authorities in that county will not do anything about it (perhaps they lack the resources, simply aren't doing their job, etc.). Are you saying that you wouldn't dispatch units to help that woman because, in principle, the raping is happening outside of your country (jurisdiction)?

If so, then please, if you don't mind, elaborate why or how one could justify doing nothing in this situation; and, more generally, how a moral agent is not bound, qua moral agency, to stop immoral acts all else being equal.

I understand that we do not have a duty to invest all our time and energy, even as moral agents, into saving people; but that's because we have a duty to ourselves and others (like family) that are prioritized higher.

So I’m driving along, in this cool-as-hell ‘67 Cobra, hair flyin’, head-bangin’ to some classic Foghat turned up to 11….happy as a pig in an overturned hotel restaurant dumpster.

The car isn’t mine, I stole it.

:lol:

You are confusing hedonic with eudaimonic happiness. It is important to remember that 'eudaimonia' does NOT accurately translate to any english word. Perhaps, it would help in this discussion to refer to it as well-being or flourishing instead?

Red is a property of a thing and redness is a property of red?

Red is a concept; redness is a property. Red is the concept, phenomenally, of that specific color which one has to see to intuit (what it is); and redness is the property of being red.

Property relates to the identity the thing has, whereas quality is an estimation of the property itself

This seems backwards: the object has qualities; and the properties we assign it are the estimations of those qualities.

when analyzing redness we are analyzing red, not redness
…
By extension, then, when analyzing goodness we are analyzing good, not goodnes

Agreed, we are analyzing ‘being good’, ‘to be good’, and what ‘good’ means.

.good in and of itself, not good for this or that, but just plain ol’ good. Period. Full stop. Bare-bones, pure conception representing a fundamental condition upon which a proper moral philosophy follows.

If I followed that correctly, then yes: we mean to investigate, metaethically, what the nature of the concept of ‘good’ is—viz., what it means for something, in principle, to be good.

We’re already in possession of the tools for “ethicizing”. They are codes of conduct, administrative rules, edicts and assorted jurisprudence generally, in the pursuit of what is right. None of which has anything to do with what is good.

Not necessarily. I was talking about how to think about ethics, to build up a theory. It could be that one is a, e.g., moral particularist and denies the legitimacy of rules whatsoever; or they could go to the other extreme and be a deontologist (like Kant); or be neither.

Likewise, they have to do with good, as a concept, insofar as they are considered good principles.

It is good to “ethicize” in accordance with assorted jurisprudence, which reflects one’s treatment of his fellow man, which one can accomplish for no other reason than that’s what everyone else is doing.

Goodness doesn’t refer, in-itself, to human conduct—let alone conduct: that’s morality; and just because other people are doing something, does not make it right nor good to do it.

we may come closer to what makes us tick as subjects rather than what makes us tick as herds

That’s impossible: the concept of ‘good’ is absolute; like any other concept. Just like Truth.

This is not to say that moral absolutism is correct, because that family of theories holds that what can be predicated to be good for one thing, is good for all things; and all we are admitted here is that what it means for something to be good, irregardless of what is good for a thing, has to be the same concept applied to all things. E.g., when I attribute 'healthiness' to the human hand and the ant leg, I must be referring to the same property (otherwise, I should be using a different word to refer to each since they share nothing in common) although by saying the ant's leg is healthy and the human hand is healthy I am not implying that what is being attributed as healthy are the same things for each nor that they could cross-apply to each other.

What happened to tools for “ethicizing”?

I was talking about analyzing ethics.

Are ants being ethical for not crowding each other out of the way when entering the hole to the lair?

There are objective goods and “bads” for ants, yes, but ants are not moral agents; because they do not have the sufficient rational capacities to rationally deliberate. I think you might to conflating metaethics with ethics proper: the former is more of a prerequisite for ethics, although we still count it as a part of the latter. Just because it is good for an ant to be such-and-such a way does not entail that there is anything ethical/moral going on; because morality refers to right and wrong behavior (and not what is good or bad). An analysis of goodness is more broad than an analysis of morality.

Only certain forms of living beings are conditioned by happiness on the one hand

It depends on what you mean by ‘happiness’: I just mean the deep sense of fulfillment that comes with the organism functioning properly and within its proper (natural) roles and practices. Ants have happiness in that sense, because there is such a thing as a bad or good ant relative to what ants are supposed to be doing (which is relative to their nature as a species). A bad ant isn’t going to live as well of a life as a good ant.

The chief good is worthiness for being happy

This seems like the same thing as saying happiness is the chief good in the sense I am using it because one is worthy of happiness, in my view, only when they are fulfilling their Telos; which means worthiness of happiness and being happy are interlinked to the point where one cannot come without the other. By ‘happiness’ here, I mean the eudaimonic sense; which precludes shallow happiness like hedonic happiness.

which reduces to a principle

Why? I don’t understand. Happiness is not reducible to a principle: it is about living a virtuous life; which is about excellences (habits) of character.

there is no other good, as such, in and of itself….hence undefinable….as a good will.

Why? Likewise, I would like to point out that this is not an analysis of goodness itself: you are predicating the will as being good. So this cannot be identical to whatever goodness refers to; instead, you are importing some understanding of what, in principle, it would mean ‘to be good’ and are attributing that to the will.

Sure, one does not need a single, canonical univocal definition of "health" to do medicine or "life" to do biology. But surely biology starts from observing and thinking about living organisms and works backwards to "life," just as the doctor starts with instances of health and illness and works backwards to "health."

This goes back to my point, which I think you may have misunderstood: the identity of a concept and its predication are two wholly separate things. To take your examples, you are absolutely right that we start, e.g., with the particulars of biology and induce/abduce what is healthy from it; but it is not true, to my point, that one can induce/abduce from biology in this manner what the concept of healthiness simpliciter is identical to. I must, in order to determine that such-and-such is healthy, import an understanding of what it means, simpliciter, for something to be healthy (viz., to be biologically functioning properly [according to the Telos {or functions} of the organism]). To your point, I cannot determine that this or that is healthy by purely analyzing the core concept of ‘healthy’ and the property of ‘healthiness’ (for I must analyze the particulars in question to do so—e.g., this is a healthy human hand, a healthy bubonic plague, etc.); but it is necessary to have a concept of it before beginning that inductive/abductive process. Don’t you agree?

Otherwise, it would be blind metaphysics. Viz., imagine you had to determine if a body was ‘goobloobookoop’ without knowing whatsoever the concept referred to. That’s what I take you to do be saying, by saying that we ‘works backwards to [e.g.,] “life”’.

IMHO, this is the classic conflation between asking ‘what can be said to be good?’ and ‘what is goodness?’; e.g., between ‘what can be said to be healthy?’ and ‘what is healthiness?’.

I am not just advocating for the basic analysis of ‘goodness’ though (in the sense of what I just described above); because that is not enough: it is also necessary to determine other meta-ethical concerns (like moral realism vs. anti-realism).

Most people have no trouble identifying all sorts of abhorrent acts as wrong, be they individual acts like running down a toddler for picking one of your crops, or policies like like health insurers "deny, delay, defend" strategy.

That’s because they already have an intuition about what is (morally) good which they are importing for their own apperception; and my point is that if they have never pondered what goodness is, then they are liable to having baseless intuitions. E.g., a Nazi child that were to grow up in Nazi Germany may very well intuit that turning in that jew knowing full well they will be slaughtered is the right thing to do; and, e.g., most post-modernists (these days) don’t even think, when pushed on the subject, that torturing a baby for fun is actually wrong (because they are moral anti-realists)—so are they really intuiting properly morally the situation or are the shadows and remnants of different moral realist theory rippling through their psyche?

Viz., although I may not press someone to give an account of what the concept of good is identical with; I will certainly have them answer the question of moral objectivism before having them ponder any normative ethical thought experiments. That is the biggest one (to me), because who cares if you think pulling the lever, e.g., is wrong if you only believe it is wrong because, e.g., you desire it to be the case?!?

We might think the general principle can be known better in itself than the particulars

I agree that people tend to do better working with the shadows, as Plato would put it, than the Ideas; but they are also equally liable to blind investigations if they skip steps in their analysis of things. E.g., going straight to applied ethics before normative ethics is no different than trying to shoot a cat in a pitch-dark room that might not even be there….

I am going to break it down explicitly clear for you, and if you cannot muster the strength to respond adequately then we are going to have to agree to disagree.

I gave an elaborate and painfully obvious critique of your position:

This was my main point that you keep dismissing without any response: happiness is good is not a description whatsoever of what goodness is. It is not an analysis of the metaphysics of goodness. When you say it “was [a] good enough definition”, that is patently false; because it was not a “definition” in any of the two senses of the term that I used before (or anyone uses).

This is analogous to if there was an OP asking where to begin studying what is red, and your response is to say “analyze red trucks”. One should not begin with an analysis of what can be predicated to be red (like a red truck)—viz., happiness—but rather what does it mean for something, in principle, to be red at all? That’s where begin. — Bob Ross

Your response was to say:

You are still missing the point. I never said happiness is Good. I said, actions which brings happiness is Good. — Corvus

Thereby trying to evade my critique by providing the rejoinder that it was a mischaracterization of your view (because you do not believe happiness is good). I, then, responded with:

So, under your view, it is good to do things that make you happy; but not good to be happy? — Bob Ross

And:

My critique did not presuppose that there is an abstract object of The Good. Predicating happiness as being good is analogous to predicating actions (that produce happiness) as being good. You can just swap the parts where I said “happiness is good” for “actions which bring about happiness are good” in my critique, and it all still stands. — Bob Ross

You, then, responded with:

You seem to be trying to make things more complicated than necessary here. — Corvus

And:

Where did you get the idea? :D Who on earth would deny happiness is good? Happiness is the purpose of life, according to Aristotle. — Corvus

You are impossible to converse with, because you concede nothing (but instead try to ad hoc refactor your position as if it was your original point) and act like the recipient is the one completely misunderstanding the conversation. You tried to circumvent my critique by first challenging the idea that happiness is good and then when that didn’t work completely contradicted yourself and acted like I just completely fabricated the idea that you thought happiness was not good; and your response became ~”your over complicating this”.

There’s no discussion to be had if you are going to continue to stand ten toes down in this kind of way. Either address the critique or don’t; and stop acting like you didn’t originally counter my critique with the denial that happiness is good. It’s on the tapes, as I showed above: anyone can see for themselves.

EDIT:

I don't care if you think happiness is good or not per se: I am just pointing out that you refuse to accept the obvious contradiction that you landing yourself in. It would be very easy for you to just concede this and reword or refactor what you were saying to make it coherent: I am guilty of it too, and many people on this forum know that I refactor my positions all the time. I am not interested in holding you to previous things you have said as if you must stand by them forever: I just can't stand it when people try to act like what obviously just happened didn't happen. E.g., "where did you get that idea?": I don't know, maybe when you literally said it?

It could be the case that you might be injecting too much emotions into the interactions on what supposed to be objective and rational discussions.

Your comments speak for themselves:

You are still missing the point. I never said happiness is Good. I said, actions which brings happiness is Good. — Corvus

That implies happiness is a good thing; which you denied above. — Bob Ross

Where did you get the idea? :D Who on earth would deny happiness is good? Happiness is the purpose of life, according to Aristotle. — Corvus

I apologize Mww, I forgot to respond to this one.

Redness isn’t so much a property as the relative quality of being red.

But that’s what ‘redness’ means: it’s the property of being red. Sure, a property is attributed to things by subjects; and so it is an estimation, to your point, of the quality which the thing has (or has for us in the case of the phenomenal property of redness). However, what use is it to this conversation to note that? I am not following the relevance. When analyzing redness, we would analyze redness (:

You might say attribution requires reason, but you can’t say reason attributes.

I would would say thinking attributes.

Moral judgements being a priori doesn’t make them transcendental. Reason isn’t necessarily transcendental, is only so in the consideration of those ideas the objects of which arising as schema of understanding, contain no possibility of experience.

Can you elaborate more on this part? I didn’t quite follow it. When would a judgment be a prior but not transcendental?

Wouldn’t “given to Nature” indicate something objective?

No, because that which the subject bestows onto Nature is not from nature itself; and bestowing properties to things which are not estimations of whatever qualities those things have themselves is purely subjective. Hence why moral anti-realism is considered the doctrine of projection; and moral realism the doctrine of discovery.

In truth, reality merely presents itself, dictating nothing of its own or of itself

The point, I think, a moral realist would be mentioning is that there are features or qualities of Nature herself, or perhaps reality itself (for non-naturalists), which are of moral relevance and are the truth-bearers for moral propositions. So far, it sounds like in your view reality has no moral properties or qualities itself: we are just projecting what we want or think to be the case, with no objective basis, onto it.

Wonderful. In a place where the main contributing dialectical factor….is metaphysical?

What do you mean?

we know how reason gives us metaphysics but we don’t know how metaphysics gives us brains

Well, I think science tends to engage, secretly but necessarily, in metaphysics. Biology includes some metaphysics, don’t you think? It is the study of the nature of the body afterall….

I do that on purpose, for the simple reason the moral philosophy I favor has it as a condition.

Fair enough; but that’s my point. Shouldn’t we be nudging the OP in the direction of how to build their own theory—to think for themselves ethically—instead of nudging them in the direction of our own positions when the question asked is “how do I determine what is good?”? I would rather see us giving them the tools to ‘ethicize’ then tell them our own ethical theories.

It may not necessarily be true humanity in general gravitates towards instances of personal happiness, but it is certainly persuasive that it does

I don’t disagree that eudaimonic happiness is the chief good for any living being; and it is necessarily so because it is merely the biproduct of the being’s physical constitution working in harmony and unison to do what it was “designed” to. That’s what it means to live well.

If it is good to do things that make you happy, then you are good to be happy
…
Where did you get the idea? :D Who on earth would deny happiness is good?

You did: are you trying to troll me? That’s literally what I responded to, when you said:

I never said happiness is Good. I said, actions which brings happiness is Good

I am growing impatient with how lazy and ridiculous you are being. You say one thing, and then deny it in the very next post.

You seem to be trying to make things more complicated than necessary here.

This explains exactly why your position is so muddied and convoluted. Instead of providing a substantive response, you just noted that you have absolutely no clue what I am saying.

Beginning with the concept of Good seems to be a not good idea in studying Ethics.

This is just a blanket assertion: I already explained that this is exactly what one should do, because analyzing what can be said to be good cannot be done properly without knowing what one means by ‘good’ in the first place. That’s like determining what is red without knowing what ‘red’ is itself. To negate this, you would have to explain how one can, e.g., reliably know what objects are red without knowing what ‘being red’ refers to.

I never said happiness is Good. I said, actions which brings happiness is Good

So, under your view, it is good to do things that make you happy; but not good to be happy?

I thought my point in my previous posts were clear. Good is not an entity. It is property or quality.

My critique did not presuppose that there is an abstract object of The Good. Predicating happiness as being good is analogous to predicating actions (that produce happiness) as being good. You can just swap the parts where I said “happiness is good” for “actions which bring about happiness are good” in my critique, and it all still stands.

Good is not an entity. It is property or quality. There is no such a thing called Good. So Moore was right, it is undefinable.

That is a non-sequiture. Moore is talking about the property of goodness, just like you. Moore is not saying that goodness is undefinable because there is no abstract object for it.

Only human actions are good or not good based on the fact that whether the actions brought happiness to the society

That implies happiness is a good thing; which you denied above.

Until actions are performed, and analysied based on the above criteria, there is no such thing as Good. Good is the quality of some human actions.

“Good” is the concept of, roughly speaking, what ought to be: what you just described is the concept of ‘moral good’.

If you went out for a walk or dropped off by the shop, that is not moral action category

You don’t think that it may be, under certain circumstances, immoral to go out for a walk?

Just was trying to clarify the murky points you raised in this thread.

What murky points?

It is not the main focus of this OP either.

It is, because the OP is asking where to begin in understanding what is good. It is putting the cart before the horse to begin with what can be predicated to be good, when one hasn’t analyzed what goodness is itself. Do you disagree?

I feel that my explanation for Good as the actions which brings happiness to all involved parties meeting at the mid point was good enough definition, if you really insist that one must start from a concept of Good.

This was my main point that you keep dismissing without any response: happiness is good is not a description whatsoever of what goodness is. It is not an analysis of the metaphysics of goodness. When you say it “was [a] good enough definition”, that is patently false; because it was not a “definition” in any of the two senses of the term that I used before (or anyone uses).

This is analogous to if there was an OP asking where to begin studying what is red, and your response is to say “analyze red trucks”. One should not begin with an analysis of what can be predicated to be red (like a red truck)—viz., happiness—but rather what does it mean for something, in principle, to be red at all? That’s where begin.

I am assuming you mean Mark Twain didn't study metaethics, normative ethics, nor applied ethics: in fact, I don't believe they existed as defined areas of ethics back then (given that it came along with Analytic Philosophy). More importantly, I am noting what is necessary to provide a treaties, an analytic proper, in ethics and not what is best for works of (american) literature. What is most convincing to people (politically), is certainly not a robust and rigid analysis of ethics.

You seem to think Moore had started with a concept of Good in PE, which is a misunderstanding of the original text in PE.

No. Moore starts with an analysis of the concept of good: that was my point. You started with an analysis of what can be predicated to be good. That happiness is good does not say anything about what goodness is. That is an issue that you have: saying that goodness is undefinable (because it is absolutely simple) does not exempt you from this problem—you have to still analyze the properties of goodness (which includes analyzing, first and foremost, what the concept of ‘good’ refers to).

Your writing above seems to suggest Good is definable from what Moore had said about Good
…
He was just telling about the nature of Good.

What Moore means by “undefinable” is not that we can’t analyze its properties; afterall, he was a non-naturalist. What he meant is that what exactly ‘good’ simpliciter means cannot be defined properly because it is an absolutely simple concept. We are not in disagreement here; and I am not sure what about what I am saying is leading you to believe that I think we can define the concept of good in this sense of ‘definability’. In a looser sense of ‘definability’, we can: we can analyze the property of goodness and other moral properties themselves, beyond trying to properly define the concept of ‘good’ simpliciter, such as moral realism vs. anti-realism, cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism, naturalism vs. non-naturalism, etc.

How can you define good when it is not definable? It seems to suggest you don't understand what you have been maintaining, and are self negating yourself.

Show me where I ever said that we can “define” good in this sense. Never once. I even referred you to an earlier post I made where I explicitly stated that the concept of good is absolutely simple and cannot be properly defined.

The metaphysics of morality doesn't enhance the journey too much, does it?

I think it does. Normative ethics without metaethics is blind.

CC: @Mww, @Corvus

I didn't do that.

Just picture who you want to be and what kind of environment you want to be in 5 years from now. You're like an arrow shooting through time. Good is whatever is conducive to the arrow's path toward your vision. Evil is whatever makes the arrow deviate down some other path. — frank

I don't have a problem with the fact that you have your own ethical theory (in fact, I would be interested to hear about it), but the problem is that you just nudged them immediately towards your own view instead of explaining to them how to build up their own like this.

That was my only original point with everyone.

To be fair, I sympathize with starting a novice with analyzing existing ethical theories to begin; but that is putting the cart before the horse. It is a real problem that many people have, as exemplified by the fact that everyone so far (that I have noticed) in this thread has immediately bypassed metaethics to suggest their own whole-sale theories. The order of analysis in ethics is metaethics, normative ethics, then applied ethics.

No one, as far as I noticed, stopped to question what goodness is, what it would mean for it to be objective, what it would mean for judgments about it to be cognitive, etc.; No one thought to nudge the OP in the direction of asking what the nature of moral properties are; No one thought to ask them whether or not goodness would be a natural property; etc.

How is it not putting the cart before the horse to talk about this being good, or thinking about if this would be good and how it would be, before the metaphysics of goodness?

I wasn't: I was advocating that everyone is giving the OP an incorrect starting position, which was whatever the responder thought is chiefly good (or good). It is first vital to segregate what the property is from what can be assigned it, what can be said to be good from what goodness even is itself, and that this is the first proper step of getting into (meta)ethics.

This is a classical mistake, and the most common of which (in this thread) was nudging the OP in the direction of happiness.

Likewise, just because one cannot define something, it does not follow that one cannot describe that something to the point of understanding it sufficiently. Just because the concept of good is purely intuition, it does not follow that everyone automatically has a good grasp of what it is.

I reject that good has properties

I was referring to the property of goodness, and not properties of goodness. It is one property, just like redness is the one property of ‘being red’.

Good is an ideal of pure practical reason

This seems to contradict your previous point though: if practical reason is attributing to things ‘good’ or ‘bad’, then it is assigning things the property of goodness and badness. No?

that principle which serves as the ground of determinations of will which satisfy the worthiness of being happy.

Am I understanding correctly, that you, then, view what is good as whatever makes one happy? Again, wouldn’t that entail that, contrary to your first point, happiness is good (which entails it has the property of goodness)?

I agree with Moore, insofar as to define an ideal principle does little justice to it, while at the same time, all moral judgements are a priori in necessary reference to it.
…
Moral philosophy is not transcendental in a Kantian sense.

Then, what do you mean by moral judgments being a priori?

…..Real things, re: reality writ large, belong to Nature, insofar as Nature is their causality, and are given to us for the use of pure theoretical reason in determining how they are to be known;
…..Moral things, re: morality writ large, belong to us, insofar as we are their causality from the use of pure practical reason in determining what they will be, and are given to Nature.

This sounds like you are saying that moral judgments do not express something objective, correct?

Given this obvious and universal dualism, the dual aspect of pure reason itself is justified.

I reject this as a false dichotomy. How reality is can dictate how it ought to be (for me).

That’s the question: what is it that just is this sense and from whence does it arise

I would say biology.

I have maintained from the beginning of this discussion thread that I think Moore was right that good is an absolutely primitive and simple concept. E.g., (although this wasn't addressed to you) this post. I am not saying you need to be aware of all my posts to other people in the thread, but I never suggested to the contrary in my discussion with you. My point was:

That bringing happiness is good is a predication of goodness; and not a definition of what is good. You are putting the cart before the horse: the OP person needs to start at the basics.

I was talking about the concept of good, and of which one must have an understanding of before they can accurately assess what can be predicated to have it. This is a classic mistake that Moore rightly points out: ethics starts not with what is good, but what goodness even refers to---whereas, most people do it in the opposite order (or merely engage in the latter).

Begin at looking what brings happiness.


Why would they do that? They need to first understanding what it means for something to be good, then explore what is good. You are having them skip vital steps here.

(PS: the Nichomachean and Eudemian Ethics are good reads indeed: no disagreement there).

Where the conversation turned into a quest into Moorean ethics, was:

I was talking about the concept of good, and of which one must have an understanding of before they can accurately assess what can be predicated to have it. This is a classic mistake that Moore rightly points out: ethics starts not with what is good, but what goodness even refers to---whereas, most people do it in the opposite order (or merely engage in the latter). — Bob Ross


Where did Moore say that?

I never suggested that the concept of good was definable in the sense that can be adequately defined.

So, going back to the actual point I was making, do you think the OP should start analyzing what is good by looking at what makes them happy (like you originally suggested) or what they think goodness even is in the first place? Do you still want them to put the cart before the horse?

EDIT:

I think what happened is you took my (consistent) approval of Moorean thought on the concept of 'good' as an admission that one shouldn't start out by analyzing what they think goodness is. I don't think that the person in the OP should start out with my idea of goodness, which is very Moorean, but, instead, should begin with their own understanding of it. A person just getting into ethics shouldn't start with other peoples' ethical theories: they should start by building their way up. What you, and most people on this thread did, is nudge the OP in the direction of your own ethical theory; instead of nudging in the direction of how to think about ethics for themselves.

This response makes absolutely zero sense in the face of what I have said.

I already outlined in this post; and of which you didn’t respond at all.

IF you were being charitable, it would be painfully obvious (and, i've checked this by running the set of exchanges by a third party who has no skin in the exchange) that what I have said there is exactly what it says - an example that ab objective Good would need to be circular.

The euthyphro dilemma refers to whether or not God is determines what is good or if what God determines is good because it is good: this has nothing to do with my position, nor anything I have said.

You seem to think that the euthyphro dilemma refers to objective goodness being circular (or needing to be circularly defined): it doesn’t.

I will say it one last time: my definition is not circular, and I agree with Moore that it cannot be defined properly.

The problem with our conversation is that you birthed it out of half-assedly wedging yourself into my conversation with someone else. Again, your first quote in this exchange was an abysmal attempt at engaging in conversation.

It seems to be the case, that your reading the original text was not very through or accurate.

How do you know? You've never read it lmao.

I thought it was not a waste of time at all, because it helped someone to correct his misunderstanding on Moore. :D

Nothing was corrected about what I said: I refer you back to my response. I have maintained the same position throughout this discussion, and you are merely confused about Moore and my claims (as they relate thereto) because you haven't read him.

EDIT: I also refer you to your original post that I was responding to <here>.

Warnock was a professor of Philosophy, and the book is a good introduction to modern Ethics. I don't think you need to read The PE, in order to understand Moore, unless you are specializing in his Ethics.

:lol:

It is good that you admit your misunderstanding Moore, and your claim was wrong. :cool:

:roll: I find it interesting that the person who has never read Moore, who doesn't see a need to, thinks they are understand Moore better than someone who actually has.

This conversation is a waste of my time.

I didn’t ask about goodness, and I’m not interested in meta-ethics.

Perhaps I misread, then: I thought you asked about what is good—no? Goodness is just the property of being good.

It seems to me you’re advocating somewhat of what you claim Moore is refuting

I am just advocating that a person who wants to begin understanding what is good must start with analyzing what they think the concept of good is; then what can be said to be good. That’s it. I don’t think the person in the OP should start with our understanding of what we think goodness refers to.

There is no legitimate warrant for determining how good a thing is, re: its goodness, without an a priori sense of good itself. Just as you can’t say of a thing its beauty without that to which its beauty relates.
…
Clock’s ticking, Bob.
(Grin)

Well, this just opened up a can of worms (;

Now we inevitably begin discussing transcendental idealism again haha. The question you raise, is an interesting, Kantian one—viz., if we cannot know how the things-in-themselves are, then how can we know what is in-itself good?

In short, I think this falls prey the same issue that transcendental idealism has with its in-itself vs. “for-us” distinction: by ‘in-itself’, I take Kant to really be meaning (whether he likes it or not) how a thing exists independently of any experience of it; and there’s another common meaning for ‘in-itself’, which is just the nature of a thing (and this can be based off of conditional knowledge of it). I find no reason to believe that I cannot have indirect knowledge of reality as it were in-itself in the second sense of that term.

So, for me, I would say that we have a sense of what it beautiful just as much as what is good (and just as much as what is a car) by our conditional knowledge of the world around us. All we need in order to grasp what is good (conditionally), is the intellect. That is, I guess, the “a priori sense of good itself”—although I am certainly not referring to exactly what you meant here (since you probably meant a faculty of some sort that is special for grasping morality). Or are you thinking that by concept of good, I am referring to an a priori concept of good?

EDIT:

It is also worth mentioning that moral non-naturalists will nod their approval your way on this one; and say that we do have some sort of extra sense for morality that allows us to sense the supersensible or that God gives us divine revelation.

I have responded to this as presented in several of your posts in this thread. Not the bare quote which I used to represent it. That bare quote would, one would think, cast you back to your entire position

No, one would not think that AmadeusD; because for anyone who actually read my posts, I took a Moorean position on the nature of goodness which is not circular. Again, you just quoted me out of context when I was talking about how goodness is objective.

Your notion of 'objective good' is circular. I have made that much clear about my position, whether you agree with it or not.

All you said was this:

This is tautological. This is unhelpful. This is not an answer to any of the questions. What's good is *insert definition* is the correct form of this statement. Everyone has their own. And that's absolutely fine. — AmadeusD

All you did is address that, when taken literally, “what is good is good” is tautological and doesn’t give a real definition. You absolutely did not address anything about my idea that goodness is objective. Now you are just trying to ad hoc rationalize your laziness.

AmadeusD, I try to be charitable; but on this one I can’t...it’s too painfully obvious what you did. You read a tiny snippet, which had nothing substantial to do with the post in which it was, that said “what is good is good” and assumed I was trying to define goodness as goodness.

It could be objective and circular, as Euthyphro shows is almost certainly the case, if an objective good were to obtain.

The Euthyphro Dilemma is about God and God’s relation to any objective goodness to demonstrate that God can’t really be the standard for it; and does not provide any reason to believe that an objective morality cannot exist.

Where did Moore say that? From my memory, Moore said it is impossible to define what good is, and one must start from what one ought to do from the knowledge of what morally good actions are, rather than asking what good is. (Ethics since 1900, by M. Warnock)

My understanding of the Principia Ethica, when I read it a while ago, was that his whole critique was, first and foremost, that ethics hitherto had not even thought to question what the concept of good even is and, instead, skipped over it to a discussion of what can be predicated to have it. This is not to say that Moore, upon conducting (what he considered to be) the necessary investigation into the nature of goodness (as opposed to what The Good is—what can be said to be chiefly good), concluded that we can define it accurately. In fact, you are absolutely right that he considered it an absolutely simple and primitive concept; and I am inclined to agree with him on that point.

If it is from the actual reference from the original texts and academic commentaries on these points, you should indicate the source of the reference with your claims.

“Ethics since 1900” was not written by Moore. If you want to understand Moore, then you need to read The Principia Ethica:

But our question ‘What is good?’ may have still another meaning. We may, in the third place, mean to ask, not what thing or things are good, but how ‘good’ is to be defined. This is an enquiry which belongs only to Ethics, not to Casuistry; and this is the enquiry which will occupy us first.

-- (Principia Ethica, Ch. 1, Section 5)

I said what brings happiness to all parties involved is good. So it was an inferred definition of Good.

Even if I grant your point, my point still stands:

And your response to them was to suggest starting with analyzing happiness; when that is clearly not a good starting point for metaethics. — Bob Ross

The OP is asking where to start to understand what is good, and I am merely pointing out that you are trying to have them start with Aristotelian ethics (at best); and starting with an already existing, robust theory is not the proper way to start. One needs to start by studying what the nature of goodness is: that is the beginning of metaethics.

It is not possible to define what good is, according to Moore.

That’s all fine: the OP is about where should a person start. Do you think they should just skip over asking themselves “is good definable?”? Do you just want them to skip that step?!?

I don't disagree with that: I think we learn about all concepts through experience; but that doesn't mean that we can skip steps and put the horse before the cart.

My answer of what the concept of good is, is found in this post:

For example, I would say that Moore was right that the concept of good and bad are absolutely primitive and simple—like being, value, time, space, etc.—as opposed to derivative and complex concepts—like a car, a cat, a bat, etc.—and thusly are knowable through only pure intuition. I would say that the concept of good—which can only be described inaccurately through synonyms, analogies, metaphors, etc.—refers to that which should be; that which should be sought after; that which is best (or better); etc. — Bob Ross