An average person may have beliefs like “pizza is good, but seafood is bad”, “Israel is good, but Palestine is bad” [...] Some of these seem to be moral beliefs, others seem to be factual beliefs, and others seem to be personal preferences. But we are happy using the word “good” for all of them, and it doesn’t feel like we’re using the same word in several different ways, the way it does when we use “right” to mean both “correct” and “opposite of left”.
To be annoying, “good” does have different uses. The opposite of moral “good” is “evil” the opposite of quality “good” is “poor” and the opposite of correctness “good” is “incorrect”. These opposites can all use the word “bad” but they mean completely different things.
If I say murder is bad I mean murder is evil. If I say that pizza is bad I mean that pizza is of poor quality. If I say a result was bad I mean that the result was incorrect.
I can not remember if there is a word that splits the moral “good” and quality “good” apart.
This has nothing to do with the majority of your post or the points made another than to say that “Boo, murder!” means something different than “Boo, that pizza!” Trying to lump them all together is certainly plausible, but I think the distinctions are useful. If they only happen to be useful in a framework built on emotivism, fair enough.
I can not remember if there is a word that splits the moral “good” and quality “good” apart.
No, there’s isn’t. Depending on context, you can use ‘righteous’ but it doesn’t quite mean the same thing.
For what it’s worth, some ethicists such as myself make no distinction between ‘moral’ good and ‘quality’ good—utilitarians (especially economists) basically don’t either, most of the time. Sidgwick defines ethics as “the study of what one has most reason to do or want”, and that can apply equally well to ‘buying good vs. bad chairs’ and ‘making good vs bad decisions’
This reminds me of a Peter Geach quote:
“The moral philosophers known as Objectivists would admit all that I have said as regards the ordinary uses of the terms good and bad; but they allege that there is an essentially different, predicative use of the terms in such utterances as pleasure is good and preferring inclination to duty is bad, and that this use alone is of philosophical importance. The ordinary uses of good and bad are for Objectivists just a complex tangle of ambiguities. I read an article once by an Objectivist exposing these ambiguities and the baneful effects they have on philosophers not forewarned of them. One philosopher who was so misled was Aristotle; Aristotle, indeed, did not talk English, but by a remarkable coincidence ἀγαθός had ambiguities quite parallel to those of good. Such coincidences are, of course, possible; puns are sometimes translatable. But it is also possible that the uses of ἀγαθός and good run parallel because they express one and the same concept; that this is a philosophically important concept, in which Aristotle did well to be interested; and that the apparent dissolution of this concept into a mass of ambiguities results from trying to assimilate it to the concepts expressed by ordinary predicative adjectives.”
To be annoying, but “good” does have different uses. The opposite of moral “good” is “evil” the opposite of quality “good” is “poor” and the opposite of correctness “good” is “incorrect”. These opposites can all use the word “bad” but they mean completely different things.
He knows that. He’s pointing out the flaws with that model.
But we are happy using the word “good” for all of them, and it doesn’t feel like we’re using the same word in several different ways, the way it does when we use “right” to mean both “correct” and “opposite of left”. It feels like they’re all just the same thing.
This is from his article. Speaking for myself, when I use the word “good” I use it in several different ways in much the same way I do when I use the word “right”.
I think the point was that we do use the word in multiple ways, but those ways don’t feel as different as the separate meanings of “right.” The concepts are similar enough that people conflate them. If you never do this, that’s awesome, but the post posits that many people do, and I agree with it.
To be annoying, “good” does have different uses. The opposite of moral “good” is “evil” the opposite of quality “good” is “poor” and the opposite of correctness “good” is “incorrect”. These opposites can all use the word “bad” but they mean completely different things.
If I say murder is bad I mean murder is evil.
If I say that pizza is bad I mean that pizza is of poor quality.
If I say a result was bad I mean that the result was incorrect.
I can not remember if there is a word that splits the moral “good” and quality “good” apart.
This has nothing to do with the majority of your post or the points made another than to say that “Boo, murder!” means something different than “Boo, that pizza!” Trying to lump them all together is certainly plausible, but I think the distinctions are useful. If they only happen to be useful in a framework built on emotivism, fair enough.
No, there’s isn’t. Depending on context, you can use ‘righteous’ but it doesn’t quite mean the same thing.
For what it’s worth, some ethicists such as myself make no distinction between ‘moral’ good and ‘quality’ good—utilitarians (especially economists) basically don’t either, most of the time. Sidgwick defines ethics as “the study of what one has most reason to do or want”, and that can apply equally well to ‘buying good vs. bad chairs’ and ‘making good vs bad decisions’
This reminds me of a Peter Geach quote: “The moral philosophers known as Objectivists would admit all that I have said as regards the ordinary uses of the terms good and bad; but they allege that there is an essentially different, predicative use of the terms in such utterances as pleasure is good and preferring inclination to duty is bad, and that this use alone is of philosophical importance. The ordinary uses of good and bad are for Objectivists just a complex tangle of ambiguities. I read an article once by an Objectivist exposing these ambiguities and the baneful effects they have on philosophers not forewarned of them. One philosopher who was so misled was Aristotle; Aristotle, indeed, did not talk English, but by a remarkable coincidence ἀγαθός had ambiguities quite parallel to those of good. Such coincidences are, of course, possible; puns are sometimes translatable. But it is also possible that the uses of ἀγαθός and good run parallel because they express one and the same concept; that this is a philosophically important concept, in which Aristotle did well to be interested; and that the apparent dissolution of this concept into a mass of ambiguities results from trying to assimilate it to the concepts expressed by ordinary predicative adjectives.”
He knows that. He’s pointing out the flaws with that model.
This is from his article. Speaking for myself, when I use the word “good” I use it in several different ways in much the same way I do when I use the word “right”.
I think the point was that we do use the word in multiple ways, but those ways don’t feel as different as the separate meanings of “right.” The concepts are similar enough that people conflate them. If you never do this, that’s awesome, but the post posits that many people do, and I agree with it.