The Good and the Goods in the Philosophical Tradition and Contemporary Ethics
Abstract
This paper aims to reflect critically upon the definition of good and its modalities, and also upon the erroneous, but widespread idea that the liberal society under no circumstances should do more than barely provide the protection of the goods of nature, which are seen as the goods of the body, the goods of the soul, and the external goods, but as no means should promote the one supreme good, the finis, summum bonum or ultimum bonorum (or, what is the same, the question regarding the foundations of morality). Hence it is necessary to return to a conception of good and the goods similar to the Aristotelian tradition. Indeed, the Nicomachean Ethics does not start with the proclamation that all living things aim to what is naturally good for them, instead it starts saying that moral action tends to some good as its aim.
Keywords
ethics | liberalism | singular goods | supreme good | Ethik | Liberalismus | einzelne Güter | höchstes Gut