The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue | Page 3

Good have no relation to any real fact.
(2) That we have easy and simple criteria of Good--such as (a) an infallible instinct, (b) the course of Nature, (c) current conventions, (d) pleasure.
(3) That all Reality is good, and all Evil is mere 'appearance.'
And it has been suggested that our experience is, or may be made, a progressive discovery of Good.
In the following Book the question of the content of Good is approached.
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BOOK II.
This Book comprises an attempt to examine some kinds of Good, to point out their defects and limitations, and to suggest the character of a Good which we might hold to be perfect--here referred to as 'The Good.'
The attitude adopted is tentative, for it is based on the position, at which we are supposed to have arrived, that the experience of any one person, or set of persons, about Good is limited and imperfect, and that therefore in any attempt to describe what it is that we hold to be good, to compare Goods among one another, and to suggest an absolute Good, we can only hope, at best, to arrive at some approximation to truth.
I. This attitude is explained at the outset, and certain preliminary points are then discussed. These are:
(1) Can any Good be an end for us unless it is conceived to be an object of consciousness? The negative answer is suggested.
(2) In pursuing Good, for whom do we pursue it? It is suggested that the Good we pursue is
(a) That of future generations. Some difficulties in this view are brought out; and it is hinted that what we really pursue is the Good of 'the Whole,' though it is not easy to see what we mean by that.
(b) That of 'the species.' But this view too is seen to be involved in difficulty.
II. The difficulty is left unsolved, and the conversation passes on to an examination of some of our activities from the point of view of Good. In this examination a double object is kept in view: (1) to bring out the characteristics and defects of each kind of Good; (2) to suggest a Good which might be conceived to be free from defects, such a Good being referred to as 'The Good.'
(1) It is first suggested that all activities are good, if pursued in the proper order and proportion; and that what seems bad in each, viewed in isolation, is seen to be good in a general survey of them all. This view, it is argued, is too extravagant to be tenable.
(2) It is suggested that Good consists in ethical activity. To this it is objected that ethical actions are always means to an end, and that it is this end that must be conceived to be really good.
(3) The activity of the senses in their direct contact with physical objects is discussed. This is admitted to be a kind of Good; but such Good, it is maintained, is defective, not only because it is precarious, but because it depends upon objects of which it is not the essence to produce that Good, but which, on the contrary, just as much and as often produce Evil.
(4) This leads to a discussion of Art. In Art, it seems, we are brought into relation with objects of which it may be said:
(a) That they have, by their essence, that Good which is called Beauty.
(b) That, in a certain sense, they may be said to be eternal.
(c) That, though complex, they are such that their parts are necessarily connected, in the sense that each is essential to the total Beauty.
On the other hand, the Good of Art suffers from the defects:
(a) That outside and independent of Art there is the 'real world,' so that this Good is only a partial one.
(b) That Art is a creation of man, whereas we seem to demand, for a thing that shall be perfectly good, that it shall be so of its own nature, without our intervention.
(5) It is suggested that perhaps we may find the Good we seek in knowledge. This raises the difficulty that various views are held as to the nature of knowledge. Of these, two are discussed:
(a) the view that knowledge is 'the description and summing up in brief formul?, of the routine of our perceptions.' It is questioned whether there is really much Good in such an activity. And it is argued that, whatever Good it may have, it cannot be the Good, seeing that knowledge may be, and frequently is, knowledge of Bad.
(b) the view that knowledge consists in the perception of 'necessary connections,' Viewed from the standpoint of Good, this seems to be open to the same objection as (a). But, further, it is argued that the perpetual contemplation of necessary relations among ideas does not satisfy our