Chapter 8: What is the true nature of the good.
God is beneficent, but the good also is beneficent. It is natural therefore that the true nature of the good should be in the same region as the true nature of God.
What then is the nature of God? Is it flesh? God forbid. Land? God forbid. Fame? God forbid. It is intelligence, knowledge, right reason. In these then and nowhere else seek the true nature of the good.
Do you look for it in a plant? No. Or in an irrational creature? No. If then you seek it in what is rational why do you seek it elsewhere than in what distinguishes it from irrational things? Plants have not the faculty of dealing with impressions; therefore you do not predicate “good” of them.
The good then demands power to deal with impressions. Is that all it demands? If that be all, you must say that other animals also are capable of good and of happiness and unhappiness.
God is beneficent, but the good also is beneficent. It is natural therefore that the true nature of the good should be in the same region as the true nature of God.
What then is the nature of God? Is it flesh? God forbid. Land? God forbid. Fame? God forbid. It is intelligence, knowledge, right reason. In these then and nowhere else seek the true nature of the good.
Do you look for it in a plant? No. Or in an irrational creature? No. If then you seek it in what is rational why do you seek it elsewhere than in what distinguishes it from irrational things? Plants have not the faculty of dealing with impressions; therefore you do not predicate “good” of them.
The good then demands power to deal with impressions. Is that all it demands? If that be all, you must say that other animals also are capable of good and of happiness and unhappiness.
But you do not say so and you are right, for whatever power they may have to deal with impressions, they have not the power to understand how they do so, and with good reason, for they are subservient to others, and are not of primary importance.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.8
They tell me that philosophers think too much, even as I object that most people think too little, though I suspect that we should rather be speaking in terms of quality rather than quantity. Consciousness, after all, isn’t something we turn on or off, and the discipline of sound judgment is a matter of precision, not of intensity.
Consider, for example, how we constantly refer to the notion of something as being “good” or “bad”, to the point where all of our daily choices entirely depend upon such a distinction, and yet we are hard pressed to define these terms with any clarity, even in the crudest manner. To speak of what “helps” or “hurts” is avoiding the deeper question of identifying the aim of our very nature, and reducing benefit to the mere satisfaction of subjective desires drifts away into an unintelligible relativism.
I am forever grateful for my training in Thomism, however obscure and dusty it might appear, because it concisely relates any properties, such truth, unity, beauty, and goodness, directly back to the root of being. And what better way is there to consider any being than through God, the one thing that IS without any conditions? This is anathema to so much modern thinking, while it is at the foundation of classical thinking.
So, if I wish to grasp the good within anything, let me examine the good that stands behind everything. Go to the source. And from what we can know about the perfection of the Divine, it reveals itself as the power of absolute understanding, of which our human reason is but a finite effect. What is good for us is what participates in the goodness of God.
We are terribly mistaken when we seek out a value in what is lesser, without consulting the measure of what is greater. If anything worthy can be found in pleasure, or property, or renown, it only receives its excellence through the direction of knowledge, and it only possesses meaning by being imbued with intelligent purpose.
A stone, a tree, and a horse have distinct forms of existence, and yet their natures do not command an awareness of the causes, a capacity to explain the reasons why. It is by means of a mind that one being can contain within itself the identity of other beings, and it can thereby cooperate knowingly and freely in the design of the whole. The very concepts of “good” or “bad” can only be present where the power of judgment is first present, able to intentionally rule itself in harmony with other creatures.
A stone shares in existence, but no more. A tree shares in life, but no more. A horse shares in sensation, but no more. As much as they have their rightful places, a man shares in thought, by which the impressions are interpreted. It is in this sense that our goodness lies in reason.
They tell me that philosophers think too much, even as I object that most people think too little, though I suspect that we should rather be speaking in terms of quality rather than quantity. Consciousness, after all, isn’t something we turn on or off, and the discipline of sound judgment is a matter of precision, not of intensity.
Consider, for example, how we constantly refer to the notion of something as being “good” or “bad”, to the point where all of our daily choices entirely depend upon such a distinction, and yet we are hard pressed to define these terms with any clarity, even in the crudest manner. To speak of what “helps” or “hurts” is avoiding the deeper question of identifying the aim of our very nature, and reducing benefit to the mere satisfaction of subjective desires drifts away into an unintelligible relativism.
I am forever grateful for my training in Thomism, however obscure and dusty it might appear, because it concisely relates any properties, such truth, unity, beauty, and goodness, directly back to the root of being. And what better way is there to consider any being than through God, the one thing that IS without any conditions? This is anathema to so much modern thinking, while it is at the foundation of classical thinking.
So, if I wish to grasp the good within anything, let me examine the good that stands behind everything. Go to the source. And from what we can know about the perfection of the Divine, it reveals itself as the power of absolute understanding, of which our human reason is but a finite effect. What is good for us is what participates in the goodness of God.
We are terribly mistaken when we seek out a value in what is lesser, without consulting the measure of what is greater. If anything worthy can be found in pleasure, or property, or renown, it only receives its excellence through the direction of knowledge, and it only possesses meaning by being imbued with intelligent purpose.
A stone, a tree, and a horse have distinct forms of existence, and yet their natures do not command an awareness of the causes, a capacity to explain the reasons why. It is by means of a mind that one being can contain within itself the identity of other beings, and it can thereby cooperate knowingly and freely in the design of the whole. The very concepts of “good” or “bad” can only be present where the power of judgment is first present, able to intentionally rule itself in harmony with other creatures.
A stone shares in existence, but no more. A tree shares in life, but no more. A horse shares in sensation, but no more. As much as they have their rightful places, a man shares in thought, by which the impressions are interpreted. It is in this sense that our goodness lies in reason.
—Reflection written in 7/2001
IMAGE: René-Antoine Houasse, Minerva and the Triumph of Jupiter (1706)
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