What is the Order Among the Varieties of Goodness? a Question Posed by von Wright; and a Conjecture Made by Aristotle

Philosophy

Volumn 84, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 175-200

  Wiggins, David ^a  

^a NEW COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 84976583557     PISSN: 00318191     EISSN: 1469817X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0031819109000308     Document Type: Article

References (27)

1. Paul Ziff, Semantic Analysis (Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1960), chapter 6.
2. This last is the so-called ‘buck-passing’ theory. See Thomas Scanlon, What We Owe To Each Other (Harvard University Press, 1998), 95–100.
3. Or so I should claim. See Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, (Harvard University Press and Penguin Press, 2006), chapters 11 and 12. See also 176-7.
4. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963.
5. See page 35 of the intellectual autobiography that he wrote for The Philosophy of Georg Henrik von Wright, edited by P. A. Schilpp and L. E. Hahn (Open Court, 1989).
6. See “Good and evil”, Analysis 17 (1956), 33–42.
7. At page 19, von Wright points to a difference that he marks by distinguishing “x is as a K good”, which implies that x is indeed a K, from “x is good as a K”, which only implies that (whether or not x is a K) x “can be used to advantage in the way Ks are normally used or performs well enough in the way characteristic of Ks”. A knife with a solid heavy handle can be good as a hammer even though, not being a hammer at all, it is not a good hammer. Not everything which is good for some purpose also belongs to some kind which is essentially associated with that purpose. Will not every theory need then to distinguish instrumental and useful goodness? In further explanation of that distinction, see Varieties 43-4: Even a poor knife can, under circumstances, be useful. It is useful whenever the use of this knife is a good thing. But this usefulness of the knife does not necessarily mean that it is a good knife …[Consider] the difference in meaning between the phrases “be good for a purpose” and “serve a purpose well”. To say [the former] ordinarily means that it can be used to serve the purpose. If [at time t] we are in pursuit of the purpose in question, then this thing is useful [at t], a good thing to have at [t]. But …instrumental goodness [of a knife] is typically an excellence or …a rank and grade, whereas usefulness [at this or that juncture] is not.
8. On these sentences, see Heda Segvic, “Aristotle on the Varieties of Goodness”, Apeiron 37 (2004), 151–176. See also
9. Christopher Shields, Order in multiplicity: homonymy in the philosophy of Aristotle (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1999). For discussions I have myself attempted of them, see
10. “On sentence sense, word sense and difference of word sense”, in D. Steinberg and L. Jacobovits, Semantics: an interdisciplinary reader (Cambridge University Press, 1971). See also 249-253 of my
11. “Replies”, in Essays for David Wiggins: Identity, Truth and Value, eds. Sabina Lovibond and Stephen Williams (Blackwell, 1996), 249. And see equally Stephen Williamsʼns essay. Aristotleʼns theory of focal meaning was clarified and made fully available to 20th century philosophy by
12. G. E. L. Owen. See his Logic, Science and Dialectic (London: Duckworth, 1986), especially Essay 10 (dating from 1957).
13. With this contrast come tangled issues. See Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (Oxford University Press, 2001), chapters 5 and 6. See also
14. Peter Hacker made this second suggestion to me.
15. On these, see G. E. L. Owen “Aristotelian Pleasures” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 72, 1971-2, 135–152.
16. It is not to be denied that some pleasures of this sort do make reference to the goodness of a being, but not all do. For a case where there is a connection of sorts, see David Hume, Enquiry into the Principles of Morals VI.1, Selby-Bigge, 243–244: “… the view [i.e. spectacle] of [happiness], whether in its causes or effects like sunshine or the prospect of well-cultivated plains …, communicates a secret joy and satisfaction” (italics added).
17. Here I abandon altogether von Wrightʼns approach to good/bad act and good/bad intention. For the difficulties of his approach, see Philippa Footʼns review of Varieties in The Philosophical Review 74 (1965), 240–244. See also
18. Lars Hertzberg “Georg Henrik von Wright on Goodness and Justice”, in “Georg Henrik von Wright: In Memoriam”, Acta Philosophica Fennica (2006).
19. In so far as Aristotleʼns own conception of a good (agathos or spoudaios) person (anthropos) fails to close the question – that issue does not concern us here – there are then at least two different ways for it to be open, the way it is open for us (see section 17) and the way it ought to seem open for Aristotle. In these connections see P. Glassen ‘A Fallacy in Aristotleʼns Argument about the Good,’ Phil. Quarterly 7 (1957), 319–322.
20. I make a similar proposal for the linkage holding between the different senses of the adjective “just”. See Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, (Harvard University Press and Penguin Press, 2006), 285–290, with note 16.
21. See my Twelve Lectures, chapters 3, 8, 9 and my Lindley Lecture, “Solidarity and the Root of the Ethical” (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Philosophy Department, 2008).
22. For her explanation of the import and importance of this sentence, I am indebted to Heda Segvic, 155.
23. Compare Bernard Williams “Must a concern for the environment be centred on human beings?” Making Sense of Humanity (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 243;
24. David Wiggins, “Nature, respect for nature, and the human scale of values”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 100 (1999-2000), section V. (The proper text of this address is given only in the Societyʼns own bound Proceedings, published in 2000. The text in the Societyʼns autumn 1999 instalment is not the published text.) On cognate matters, see also my
25. “Sufficient reason: a principle in diverse guises, both ancient and modern,” Acta Philosophica Fennica, 61 (1996), 119–132.
26. For comments and suggestions I owe a particular debt to Peter Hacker, and further debts to Roger Crisp (and his article “Goodness and Reason: Accentuating the Negative”, Mind 117 (2008))
27. Stephen Williams, Roger Scruton and Asa Wickforss. This paper derives from an address to the Memorial colloquium for Georg Henrik von Wright, Abo, Finland (2006) and the S. V. Keeling lecture in Ancient philosophy at University College, London (2007).