Good, theories of the

2. Distinctions in goodness

The most obvious distinction in goodness is that between things which are valued as means, or instrumental goods, and things which are valued as ends, or final goods (see Values). This distinction is often confused with the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value. To say that something is intrinsically good is to say that it is good in virtue of what it is – in virtue of its own intrinsic nature; while to say that something is extrinsically good is to say that it is good in virtue of the relations in which it stands to things outside of itself. Means, for instance, are obviously extrinsically valuable, because their goodness springs from the fact that they promote other good things. Ends, by contrast, are often characterized as intrinsically good. In fact, however, it is an open question whether in order to be an end – to be valued or valuable for its own sake – an object must have intrinsic value.

Early twentieth-century moral philosophers debated this question. Empiricists argued that for something to be a final good is just for it to be desired for its own sake; philosophers in the idealist tradition, in contrast, believed that to be a final good is to be the object of a rational will. On both accounts, final goods are extrinsically valuable, deriving their value from the desires or volitions of human beings. But Moore argued that because ‘good’ does not mean ‘desired’ or ‘willed’, it is always an open question whether something desired or willed is good. Final goods, he thought, must therefore be intrinsically valuable. Moore suggested that in order to ascertain whether something is intrinsically good we should use a test of isolation: we consider whether the object has value apart from its relations to other things. He claimed that when we used this method, we would discover that value belongs to complex states of affairs which he called ‘organic unities’, such as a person’s contemplating a beautiful object, or two friends enjoying each other’s company.

One of Moore’s aims in advancing this theory was to oppose hedonism, the view that pleasure is the good (see Hedonism). Yet the theory that final goods must be intrinsically valuable may push one towards hedonism, as we can see by applying Moore’s isolation test. A beautiful painting must surely be a good thing, yet if we imagine it existing in isolation from all viewers who might enjoy it, it seems to be without value. So we may decide that the value belongs instead to an organic unity consisting of someone’s enjoying the beautiful painting. This line of thought led Moore to conclude that human experiences, especially pleasant ones, are an element in most intrinsically valuable organic unities. But the same idea – that a thing’s goodness cannot be completely independent of its relation to human or sensate experiences and concerns – led utilitarians to suppose that pleasure must be the good.

The categories of value which Kant adopted suggest a different way of thinking about the relation between value and human concerns. Kant distinguished unconditional and conditional value, a distinction that resembles the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. According to Kant (1785), a thing has unconditional goodness if we value it under any and all conditions, whereas it is conditionally good if the value we accord it depends on circumstances. The only thing we value unconditionally, he argued, is a good will, and human beings as the possessors of the capacity for good will. Yet the things people desire and care about do have conditional value – they are valuable because they matter to people, who have value. In this way, all values are related to human concerns.

If value must be related to human concerns, then we might think that anything that is good must be good for someone. Goodness for someone is sometimes characterized as ‘subjective’ or ‘agent-relative’ goodness, as opposed to ‘objective’ or ‘agent-neutral’ goodness, which pertains to everyone. If something is subjectively good for me, then I have reason to promote it and care about it; while if something is objectively good, then everyone has reason to promote it and care about it.

Twentieth-century philosophers have debated the question of the relation between these two kinds of goodness. Some think that goodness is inherently subjective, and people have reason to pursue common objects only when their interests happen to coincide. Others think that subjective values always give rise to objective ones, so that if it is (subjectively) good for me to have something, then it is objectively good that I should have it. Still others think that some subjective values – say, the ones associated with needs – give rise to objective ones, while others do not. And finally, at the other extreme, there are philosophers who think that subjective values are derived from objective ones. According to these philosophers, I cannot claim that something is good for me ‘because it makes me happy’, unless I consider my happiness to be, independently of my personal interest in it, an objectively good thing.