In Defense of my Definition of Goodness
In my work The Nature of Desire, I introduced my definition of “goodness”, and because of discussion with others who are skeptical of it being true, I feel I must write an article to clear up a few things.
You can read “The Nature of Desire” here:
Common and Possible Criticisms of my Definition
The Definition Succumbs to the Barren Tautology Argument
The notion that the definition falls to the BTA shows both a lack of comprehension of the BTA and my definition, for the BTA implies that if I were to describe something good to be equal to X-ness then it would just mean no different than saying X things are X or good things are good. I hold no contention with this reasoning, and I would say that it holds under most circumstances, however, it does not apply for the very reason that my definition does not promote action in any manner.
Let’s take a look at the argument*:
P1) For any X, if good meant X, then “X is good” would be a barren tautology.
P2) If “X is good” is a barren tautology it would not promote action or provide reason for X-ness(pleasure, happiness etc.)
P3) Either “X is good” does not promote action or good does not mean X.
P4) Any X in “X is good” will promote action.
C) There is no X that means good.
My definition does not promote action at all! If we take a look at the definition, it being:
∃H ↔ (∃x ∈ S) ∧ (∃x ∈ D)
There exists what is good/just/moral if and only if there exists the element x in the state of affairs and there exists the element x in the desired/ideal ends
It describes good as the state of the same things existing in both as some goal in the mind and as some object in the outside world(say if there is a red ball, and then there is some aim existing somewhere for this red ball to exist, then there would exist the state of “good”), it doesn’t cement what particularly exists which makes it impossible for it to promote action in any manner since there is nothing concrete to promote action towards!
Moore’s Open Question
Another argument brought up against my definition is Moore’s Open Question Argument. Moore’s OQA is similar to the BTA in that it focuses on goodness being defined by X-ness. It follows the framework of asking a question about some X(whether it be pleasure, God, or acting in accordance with a maxim that can be willed into universal law) on the grounds of if it were good or not. If it would result in it being an open question, meaning it could be answered many different ways, then it would not be synonymous with good and therefore would not be able to be defined by X.
Let’s take a look at the argument**:
P1) For any X, “is X good?” will be an open question.
P2) If “is X, good?” is an open question then no X is synonymous with good.
P3) Good is not synonymous with any predicate X.
P4) The meaning of a predicate is the property it stands for.
C) Good is not a property.
The argument pertains to the identity of “good”, if good is analytically equivalent to X-ness then it would be a closed question to ask if X were good and would therefore be a trivial tautology, but if it were not to be analytically equivalent to X-ness then it would be an open question and the answer of saying “X is good” would be an informative and synthetic statement. The goal of the argument is to cement that this notion of “good” is an unanalyzable object; meaning it cannot be deconstructed as say the word “bachelor” can be broken up into “unmarried man”. Thus the notion of “good” would be similar to “yellow” in that it is unanalyzable as well, and since “yellow” describing yellow can only be done by referring to its referring property(i.e.. the color of egg yolks, ripe lemons or the sun), but the issue is that “good” has no natural referring property, so it must be a non-natural property.
Properties like yellowness, dampness, hardness, are all perceived by sense which would make them natural properties, but goodness is not as established by the OQA, and therefore must be some other type of property. However, this begs the question as the first premise assumes that the statement “X is good” is an open question with no justification for it. The premise is just stated and assumed to be true, so it can not justify “good” to not be described by X-ness. The OQA is just Moore betting on someone to be able to define goodness by X.
Pitfalls of the “inherent motivation” of moral properties
There are those who believe that when “goodness” is ascribed to some action then that quality of goodness would be motivating by itself. This does have merit if we were to examine some regular conversation where Person 1 could communicate to Person 2 that he or she believes some action A is good, and other actions were to be bad. Person 2 would likely be motivated to act on A if convinced to believe that A is good. This would seemingly be no different than discussing if the sky were to be blue, if Person 1 were to communicate to Person 2 that he or she believes the sky was to be blue, and not any other color, then Person 2 if convinced would also believe the sky to be blue. There can also be natural disagreement with stating some act to be good same as there could be some disagreement on any descriptive claim of the world. But there arises an issue, does it not seem odd that some quality of “goodness” has some inherent motivation, yet no other descriptive feature of the world were to have this same inherent motivation? How could some supposedly descriptive claim about some present phenomena motivate? Those who affirm the view that there is some quality of “goodness” are flawed in their conception of it, and for two reasons: There is a fundamental difference between beliefs and desires that moral realists overlook, and that believing some X to be good is motivating but not in the same way as these moral realists suppose.
The Difference between Beliefs and Desires
There is a significant fundamental difference between beliefs and desires regarding their “direction of fit”. This idea originated from Elizabeth Anscombe in her work “Intention”(1957), while she did not use the phrase “direction of fit”(John Searle had introduced it). The idea essentially states that beliefs have a “mind-to-world” direction of fit, meaning that the world is a state of affairs such that some P is true, whereas desires have a “world-to-mind” direction of fit, meaning that it doesn’t hold that world is necessarily a state of affairs such that some P is true, but that it states the aim for the world to be a state of affairs such that P is true. I would build off this idea and affirm this argument
P1) If the quality of being “good” would motivate one to act in favor of it and not in favor of an other then it would imply a world-to-mind direction of fit
P2) The moral property of being “good” would motivate one to act in favor of it and not other acts
C1) The moral property of being “good” would imply a world-to-mind direction of fit. (From P1 and P2)
P3) If the Moral Realist believes that some X is good then they would necessarily have to believe for there to be some quality within goodness that implies a world-to-mind direction of fit.
P4) Because moral realism is predicated on a moral judgment’s truth to be mind-independent, the Moral Realist does not believe there to be any quality within goodness that implies a world-to-mind direction of fit
C2) The position of Moral Realism is contradictory. (from P3 and P4)
Goodness Assumes an Implicit Desire
If I were to believe exercise to be “good” then it seems I would be motivated to exercise. This is the debate between those who hold that there needs to be only belief and those who hold there must be a desire accompanying a belief for it to motivate. I would claim that for any judgment of some act to be “good” then there would be some implicit desire from which this judgment arises. I would claim this for the reason because the actions we are motivated to do can only arise from the will to change the current state of affairs, and this would necessarily come from desire which has a “world-to-mind” direction of fit. When we say things are good it may feel as if it were intuitive; however, all these intuitions that we have are derived from the context of our current state of affairs and wants. It may seem simply intuitive that exercise is “good” for you, but in reality, that judgment of exercise being “good” is taken within the context of maintaining one’s body; furthermore, when taking the context into account, we can reduce the context to the end, so exercise would therefore be held by the person to be “good” in accordance to the end of maintaining one’s body which follows the form of my definition of goodness.
*BTA argument formulation is from the Carneades.org YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GI1KsjBQYs
**OQA argument formulation is from the same video as the BTA argument formulation
