Good :

Good is anything that fulfills a need or satisfies a desire. Good can be more than one. Certain
goods such as bodily goods, economic goods, and social goods are means to some higher
goods. In a hierarchy of goods, at the top is the highest good, which is the ultimate end of
human activity.

To G.E. Moore, Good is indefinable because it is a simple notion and has no parts. Only that
which has parts is definable. In Ethics, the word good is used both as an Adjective and as a
Noun.

Duty: Duty is the sense of ought or obligation of an individual to satisfy a claim made upon
him. To Immanuel Kant, an action has no moral worth unless it is done from a sense of duty.
This means actions are right only when they are done for the sake of duty only in so far as
they are performed for the sake of their rightness.
Virtue: Virtue refers to acquired dispositions of mind. It is the habit of controlling and
regulating impulses and instincts by reason and realizing the good of the self as a whole.
To sum up, Good, Duty and Virtue are the three concepts that have bearing on the moral life
of an individual.

The word ‘Good’ is derived from the German word ‘Gut’. It means anything valuable, useful
or serviceable for some end or purpose, therefore desirable. As the term ‘good’ is too wide
signifying anything that is desirable, one may use the expression ‘morally good’ to signify
moral qualities. Hence, in ethics the word ‘good’ is used to express moral qualities.

It should be stated in this connection that the word ‘good’ is used both as an adjective and
also as a noun. Thus when one speaks of ‘material and immaterial goods’, ‘a relative good’
and ‘the absolute or the highest good’ one evidently uses the word ‘good’ as a noun. Good/
used in this way implies ‘an object of desire or pursuit’, ‘anything that is sought’, e.g.,
wealth, health, courage etc.

In Ethics, a distinction is drawn between good as an end and good as a means. If, for instance,
happiness be good, then wealth and health as means of attaining happiness are also good.
Again, if health be a good, then regular exercise, regulation of taking diet, taking of good
medicine are also good as means of securing good health. It will be easy now to understand
the distinction between a relative good and the absolute or the highest good of man. A
‘relative good’ is a kind of good as a means, i.e., it is an object which is desired, not for itself,
but for the sake of an ulterior end or good which, again, may be relative to a still higher end,
and so on. ‘Absolute good’ means “the good which is desired for its own sake, and is not
subordinate to any ulterior good.’’ In short, it is not the concept of good as a means to a
higher good; it is however, the highest good- the ultimate end of human activity. Every
voluntary action is relative to an end or object of desire. And among ends, there is gradation,
culminating in the supreme end or the highest good which is the goal of life.

Thus, the ultimate, absolute or highest good of man is intrinsically good in the sense that the
same is desired for its own sake, and not desired for the sake of anything else. In other words,
absolute good is not a means to attain any higher end or good. The highest good is the
absolute good i.e. the supreme end. The subordinate goods are instrumental goods or relative
goods.
G.E. Moore in his book ‘Principia Ethica’ sharply distinguishes between two questions of
Ethics viz.,(I) What is good, in the sense of ‘that what is good’ and (II) What is good, in the
sense of ‘goodness’. One must be careful not to confuse ‘the good’ or ‘the things that are
good’ with goodness or the property of being good.

The meaning of ‘good’ to G.E.Moore involves the definition of good. According to Moore, a
definition “states what are the parts which invariably compose a certain whole” and in this
sense ‘good’ cannot be defined ‘because it is simple and has no parts.’ It is evident that the
object of definition in Moore’s analysis is not the word ‘good’ but the extra linguistic entity
‘goodness.’ The word ‘Good’ is indefinable because the quality ‘goodness’ is a simple,
unanalysable and non - complex property.

According to Moore, Goodness is a non-natural quality. He says, it is completely wrong to

define ‘good’ in terms of natural quality. Moore argues that to explain the meaning of good
by reference to particular modes of existence or action or supersensible things, which may be
more or less good, is to commit the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’ Hedonists commit this fallacy
because they explain the meaning of ‘good’ by reference to pleasure which is a particular
mode of experience. Pleasure may be more or less good, but it does not enable one to know
what is really meant by good. ‘Good’ must be distinguished from things that are good. It may
be mentioned that Naturalistc fallacy consists in identifying good with some natural property
of what has goodness.

It may be pointed out that when Moore uses the word ‘definition,’ he means ‘analysis.’ If
something is definable then that thing is analysable. If a thing is analysable then the thing
must have certain parts. But one cannot name the parts of ‘good.’ It is so because “good” has
no parts. According to Moore, “good” is a simple notion just as ‘yellow’ is a simple notion.
Just as one cannot explain to anyone who does not already know it, what yellow is, so one
cannot explain by any manner or means what good is. Good denotes a simple and indefinable
quality. Goodness has a unique meaning; it is simply goodness. Definitions are only possible
when the object of notion in question is something complex. One can give definition of a
horse, because a horse has many different properties and qualities, all of which one can
enumerate. But ‘good’ is not complex. It is a ‘simple’ notion composed of no parts, and so
unanalysable. Unanalysable things are indefinable. Hence good is indefinable. Moore says
that if a person is asked the question, ‘how is good to be defined’ - then his answer would be
that it cannot be defined, and that is all that the person would have to say about it.

According to Moore, though goodness is indefinable yet it is possible for one to say which
things are good. Though yellowness is indefinable yet, it is possible for one to say which
things are yellow. Moore tries to offer proof for the indefinability of ‘good’ by means of a
dilemma. Either ‘good’ is indefinable, or it is not indefinable. If it is not, it must be either a
complex word the correct analysis of which defies a common agreement, or the word must
mean nothing at all.

Moore offers a particular argument to establish that ‘good’ is indefinable. This argument is
called the open question argument. If one tries to define good as X, then it is always possible
for one to raise the further question “Is X good”? It means good remains indefinable.

Moore’s argument, however, could not satisfy all moral philosophers, Goodness, according to
Moore, is a simple, unanalysable, non-natural property which in known in some kind of non-
sensuous intuition. But the diffculty is that if anybody says that he does not have any such
unique and simple object before his mind when he thinks of good, then one cannot refute
him. By relying on intuition Moore makes ethical reasoning virtually impossible. Moore’s
view of goodness, therefore, has not satisfied all philosophers.

Duty:
The word ‘duty’ means what is due, i.e., what one is bound to do, or under an obligation to
do. In other words, a duty means what one ought to perform as a moral being.

The term ‘duty’ is sometimes used in a narrower sense to mean simply what is legally
binding or obligatory upon an individual, and an individual is said to do more than his duty if
he does more than what he is legally bound to do. In Ethics, however, the word ‘duty’ is
taken in a wider and higher sense to signify every right act which one ought to perform,
whether determinate or indeterminate, whether legally obligatory or not. Hence, from strictly
moral or ethical point of view, an individual can never be said to do more than his duty.

Duty comes to an individual with a claim; it is a thing laid upon an individual to do whether
he likes it or not. A duty may thus be defined as the obligation of an individual to satisfy a
claim made upon him by the community, or some other individual member or members of
that community, in the name of common good.

If taken in a wide sense, the notion of duty is essentially implied in every system of morality
and every ethical theory.

In Greek Ethics, moral life for the most part is presented as a good to be realised or a type of
virtue or excellence to be attained. A man must be courageous, temperate and just, because in
no other way can be achieved his good or true happiness. So long as the mode of presenting
the moral life prevailed, the element of duty was completely absorbed into, and subordinated
to, the thought of good or achievement.

It was only when, in Stoicism, (a school of thought whose famous maxim is ‘Live according
to Nature’) this good was conceived to be determined by, and to be realized in, obeying a
cosmic law of universal reason that the notion of duty emerged into a new distinctness. It was
when morality came to be regarded mainly in the light of conformity to a law that the notion
of duty became prominent. The Stoics asserted that virtue alone is good and man must be
virtuous not for the sake of pleasure but for the sake of duty.

Kant says that an action has no moral worth unless it is done from a sense of duty. i.e. in the
consciousness of its rightness. To Kant, nothing is absolutely good in this world or out of it
except a good will. A will is good when it is determined by respect for the moral law, or the
consciousness of duty. An act that is done from inclination, say from self-love or even
sympathy, is not moral. What a man does from inclination to-day, he may likewise from
inclination refuse to do to-morrow. The commands of duty do not wait upon man’s
inclination, or strike a bargain with man, the Imperative of duty in Kant’s terminology, is a
Categorical Imperative. The categorical imperative commands categorically, unconditionally,
it does not say: Do this if you would be happy or successful or perfect, but: Do it because it is
your duty to do it. Thus, according to Kant, actions are right only when they are done for the
sake of duty - only in so far as they are performed for the sake of their rightness. ‘Duty for
duty’s sake is the true rule of life-Duty should be performed whatever may happen.

This law or categorical imperative is a universal and necessary law, “a-priori”, inherent in
reason itself. It is present in the commonest man, though he may not be clearly conscious of
it; it governs his moral judgments; it is his standard or criterion of right and wrong.
When the various duties are regarded in an objective way, it is natural to seek for some kind
of classification. Although it is dufficult to find any satisfactory scheme of division, duties
may commonly be classified into three classes.

1.Duties to self or self-regarding duties.

2. Duties to others or other-regarding duties.
3. Duties to God.

Duties to self or self-regarding duties: The term ‘self-regarding duties’ is to be taken in the
sense of duties to oneself. It includes physical, economic, intellectual, aesthetic and moral
duties. Physical duty means self-preservation, care for health and recreation. One should
enjoy sound health which is necessary for moral strength.

Economic duty is to treat wealth which is an economic value, as an indispensable means to

the attainment of higher values. One should earn a decent living by acquiring wealth. But one
should not treat wealth as an end in itself but as a means to attain higher intrinsic values.

Intellectual duty is the cultivation of the intellect and acquiring knowledge. One should not
leave the intellect undeveloped, because the development of intellect is indispensable for the
development of personality.

Aesthetic duty is the cultivation of aesthetic taste by appreciating and creating beauty.

Moral duty is to control one’s instincts, appetites, desires and passions. Self-control and self
regard constitute one’s moral duty. Thus, one should treat intellectual, aesthetic and moral
values as intrinsic values. These are the duties to the self. Duties to others or Other regarding
duties: Other-regarding duties include duties to the family, other persons in society, country
and to humanity. It also includes duties to animals and plants i.e. environment.

Duties to the family mean that one should show love and respect to parents, show love to
one’s children by taking care of their health, education and character. Husband and wife
should love and respect each other to make a good family.

Duties to society include mainly veracity, equity and benevolence. Veracity is truthfulness.
One should speak the truth. Equity means justice and fair dealing. One should respect the
personality of others. One should not interfere with other’s freedom and property, and should
not harm others by thought, word and deed. Benevolence means showing compassion to
others in times of distress. One should do one’s very best to relieve their distress. These are
duties to others in society.

Duties to the country are to cultivate patriotism. One should show love for the country and
should try one’s best to improve its condition and feel glory in its achievements.

Duties to humanity is to show love to all human beings. One should cast off narrow
patriotism, colour prejudice, and racial superiority

Duties to animals include taking care of domestic animals, giving them proper food and
shelter and not being cruel to them.
Duties to plants include taking care of plants by watering them and giving proper
nourishment.
Duties to God: Worshipping God with single minded devotion and dedicating one’s action to
Him. But love for God should be expressed in terms of love for mankind.

The very classification of duties into distinct classes seems to imply that they may be
mutually opposed and may at times come into conflict with one another. And at such times,
we are bound to confused. For example, the duties of benevolence, justice or veracity
(truthfulness). It is our duty to be just, benevolent, truthful, law-abiding, courteous. But there
are occasions when it is felt that to tell the truth will amount to treachery, or lead to murder.
In fact, the various moral principles, such as justice and mercy, benevolence and veracity,
may conflict with one another. Duty to the family may conflict with duty to the state, or duty
to the church (or religious institutions) or duty to God.This may be called conflict of duties.

The ‘ conflict of duties’ arise when the mind is perplexed as to ‘which duty is to be done’ It is
sometimes difficult to resolve such a conflict. One is pulled,so to speak, in opposite
directions by rival claims of different moral principles or rules. This is also called ‘moral
conflict’ or ‘perplexity of conscience’.

It may be stated in this connection that ‘moral conflict’ or ‘perplexity of conscience’ arises
from various sources. It sometimes arises from the influence of passions and inclinations. If a
man or a woman is not inclined to help another, he or she may question the validity of the act.
In many cases, perplexity arises because one is unable to understand “the precise character of
a situation or the true scope and spirit of moral principles’.

How, then, can such cases of perplexity be settled? No definite rules can be laid down with
regard to this. Moral problems should be solved by reference to concrete circumstances.
Under every group of circumstances which forms a field of action there is but one act which
is good and obligatory. As Prof. T.H.Green remarks, “There is no such thing really as a
conflict of duties. A man’s duty under any particular set of circumstances is always one,
though the conditions of the case may be so complicated and obscure as to make it difficult to
decide what the duty really is”. (Prolegomena to Ethics p-355) Rightly understood, a duty is
but one under a definite set of circumstances. One should always honestly try to decide
questions of duty by reference to concrete circumstances.

Whenever there seems to be a conflict of duties one should fall back upon the great
fundamental moral law. The fundamental moral law is ‘Realise the rational self.’ The
particular laws are only fragmentary aspects of this fundamental law. Self-realisation is one’s
supreme duty; hence it is in the light of this that one should find out what course one should
follow when the rules come into conflict.

The Concept of Rights

by Jan Garrett

Slightly Revised: February 19, 2004

Rights and Justice

Rights and justice are not really distinct issues, but the use of the term "rights" emphasizes (at
least at the start) a different dimension from the use of the term "justice." When we
mention justice we are usually concerned with how (according to what pattern) valuable
things (benefits) and their opposites (burdens) are distributed. When we talk about rights, we
think first of all of entities, usually human individuals, who supposedly possess or bear those
rights.

John Rawls' principles of justice concern the distribution of benefits and burdens among
individuals in a society (the liberties, for instance, are benefits while having to pay taxes
would be a burden).

The link between rights and justice is duties. Principles of justice prescribe the ways in which
benefits and burdens should be distributed. At one level, these are duties of public officials,
but they also provide guidelines for laws, which the rest of us have duties to obey. Rights, as
we shall see, can be explained in terms of the duties of others to the right-holder.

Definition of Rights

A right is said to be an entitlement or justified claim to a certain kind of positive and [or?]
negative treatment from others, to assistance from others or non-interference from others.

(Many moral philosophers would put "or" in this definition after "positive," but others, with
whom I agree, would put "and." See below: "the Alleged Distinctions between Negative and
Positive Rights.")

Human and Legal Rights

We can distinguish between moral or human rights and legal rights. Legal rights require for
their justification an existing system of law. Our legal rights are, roughly, what the law says
they are, at least insofar as the law is enforced. Legal rights gain their force first of all
through legislation or decree by a legally authorized authority. (Our focus is going to be on
human or moral rights.)

Those who advocate adoption of laws establishing legal rights often appeal to a notion of
human rights. Laws against theft might appeal to notions of a moral right to own property.
But human or moral rights must gain their validity through some other source other than legal
rights, since we can appeal to human or moral rights to criticize the law or advocate changes
in the law (or legal rights), and we could not do this if moral rights were based upon the law.

Some people base their notion of moral rights upon their notion of what God wants, but of
course there is disagreement about what God wants. Rawls' theory of justice provides a
nonreligious account of moral rights. Soon I'll give another one.

Contractual Rights

Apart from human rights and basic legal rights there are contractual rights. Contractual rights
derive from the practice of promise-keeping. They apply to particular individuals to whom
contractual promises have been made. Contractual rights arise from specific acts of contract
making. They normally come into being when the contract is made, and they reflect the
contractual duty that another party has acquired at the same time. As a result of a contract,
party A has a contractual duty, say, to deliver some good or service to party B, who has a
contractual right to the good or service. (Contractual rights may be upheld by the law, and in
that sense can rest upon legal rights, but it is possible to conceive of contracts made outside
of a legal framework and to rest purely upon moral principles; however, such contracts are
less secure than contracts made within a legal framework, for obvious reasons.)

A Fuller Understanding of Human or Moral Rights

Rights correspond to duties in three ways:

a) individual duties of forbearance (non-interference)

b) institutional duties of assistance
c) individual duties of assistance
Consider the right to property, conceived primarily as the right not to have one's personal
property taken without one's consent. This implies that
a) other individuals have a duty to forbear from taking a person's possessions without his or
her consent.
b) institutions, such as governments, should establish and enforce laws against theft and
should do so in all neighborhoods where theft is a possibility.
c) officials in the government have an individual duty, as officials, to support such laws and
or enforce them.
The individual duties of assistance come into play in several ways: If the government were
lax in this area, citizens might have a positive duty to pressure government to pass an
appropriate law if one were missing or to enforce already existing laws.

Beyond that, individual citizens who are aware of persons with sticky fingers, as it were, have
an obligation, where it could be done at reasonable cost to themselves, to thwart acts of theft.

The Alleged Distinctions Between Negative and Positive Rights

Many authors distinguish between negative rights and positive rights.

Negative rights would correspond to duties of forbearance: if X has a negative right to V,

then other's have a non-interference duty in relation to X's enjoyment of V.

Positive rights would correspond to duties of assistance: if X has a positive right to V, then
others (perhaps government) have a (positive) duty to provide X with V.

It is frequently thought that the right not to be killed, not to be assaulted, not to be raped or
kidnapped, and the right not to have one's property taken without one's consent are negative
rights and not positive rights.

But this may be a mistake. We have seen that the right not to have one's property stolen
corresponds both to negative and to positive duties, and the same would be true of other
rights that people have supposed were purely negative.

The Basis of Rights

There are several, mutually reinforcing ways that one can defend the existence of rights. One
way is inspired by Immanuel Kant. Kant proposes that the essence of morality is captured by
what has been called the Categorical Imperative. In a slight paraphrase, this reads:
 Act only on those rules of action that you could will to be universal laws.

The Categorical Imperative is a rule for testing rules of conduct. It will exclude as immoral
any rule of conduct that implies that one person may do something but another, in relevantly
similar circumstances, may not. In other words, it demands consistency. What's all right for
me is all right for you if our relevant circumstances are similar. If I may throw my toxic
waste into the river to save money for myself, then you may do so likewise. But of course I
would not want you to do that, so it would be wrong for me.

This is relevant to human rights, because we think of human rights as universally applicable
to human beings. And Kant says that what is morally permissible applies to all rational
beings. It is also relevant that this test tends to endorse rules of action that protect our most
basic interests, just the sorts of things that rights protect.

We could not endorse a rule that outlaws a particular religion because, if the rule were
generalized, the religion we favor could be outlawed as well.

A second formulation of the Categorical Imperative is also important: "Always act so as to

treat humanity (rational beings) as an end, never as a means only."

The point is that human beings, understood as beings capable of reasoning about their
choices, are inherently valuable and worthy of respect for this reason. This sets strict limits
upon what we are morally permitted to do to them, at least under normal circumstances.

It can also be used to defend securing for human beings what they need in order to functional
as rational beings.

Brian Orend, a Canadian philosopher, in his Human Rights: Concept and Context, develops
this idea in the direction of human rights as follows: To respect human beings as an end is to
respect their interests in being protected against grievous harm. (Harm is understood as loss
or non-possession of the goods that fulfill vital human needs.)

For a definition of "need" and fuller discussion of the concept and concepts related to or
confused with it, see Needs, Interests, Wants, Motives.

Orend lists five vital needs that, he claims, are common to all human beings. If these needs
were not met at a basic level, we could not function as rational beings. They are

security, subsistence, freedom, equality, and recognition.

It would be interesting to compare this list with Martha Nussbaum's list of basic
capabilities in her account of the things to which human rights entitle us.

Human rights, in a nutshell, are the entitlements we have in these five areas. Orend's
approach helps explain the list of human rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, adopted by the United Nations (including the United States) in the late 1940's. The
list of human rights in the Universal Declaration is much larger than five, but most of those
rights can be derived by further specification from Orend's basic five.
Orend's approach fits well with the idea that you cannot distinguish sharply between negative
rights and positive rights because even the so-called negative rights (for example, the right
not to be killed) are positive in the sense that they call upon institutions to aid potential
victims and bystanders to do what they can, at least if the cost to themselves is absorbable.

What is a “moral ought?”

The is/ought gap doesn’t seem like a problem unless we are dealing with what “morally

ought” to be the case. For example, if you tell a person that it’s morally wrong to put arsenic

in someone else’s food. There’s no consensus about what distinguishes a moral ought from a

nonmoral ought, but there are many common assumptions that we seem to have about

them. For example:

1. We ought not do something if it’s morally wrong.

2. It’s morally wrong to kill people indiscriminately.

3. All things equal, it’s morally right to save people’s lives.

4. If someone does something very morally wrong, like killing people indiscriminately,

then that person should be blamed for the action and should be punished for it.

5. What we morally ought to do overrides our nonmoral obligations.

6. I morally ought to save the life of a small child when doing so is at little cost to

myself, even if I will then fail to meet my friend for lunch on time after promising to

do so.

7. What I morally ought not do isn’t changed by wanting to do it. For example, I morally

ought not to kill people indiscriminately, even if I want to do it.

8. We can be wrong about what we ought to do (or ought not do). A person can think

that killing people indiscriminately isn’t wrong, but that belief would be false.

9. People often argue about what we morally ought to do, and we can disagree about

what we should belief regarding morality.

10. Some moral beliefs are more justified than others. It seems irrational to believe

that it’s never wrong to indiscriminately kill people, and such a belief seems

unjustified. In contrast, the belief that it is wrong to kill people indiscriminately seems

justified.

11. Some actions are good, but they aren’t obligations. For example, it’s good to save a

child from a burning building, but it’s often too dangerous to be morally required of

us.
 12. We should be moral, even if we aren’t motivated by external rewards or punishments.

For example, dying to protect one’s friends from a grizzly bear is sometimes morally

right, even though it leads to the ultimate personal sacrifice.

Ought implies can, in ethics, the principle according to which an agent has
a moral obligation to perform a certain action only if it is possible for him or
her to perform it. In other words, if a certain action is impossible for an
agent to perform, the agent cannot, according to the principle, have a moral
obligation to do so. Attributed to the
German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, the principle of ought
implies can has been regarded as a minimal condition on the plausibility of
any ethical theory: viz, no such theory is justifiable if it implies that agents
have duties to perform actions that they are unable to perform.
The principle has been variously interpreted, and its plausibility may
depend in part on the relevant sense of “can.” The principle may be
plausible, for example, if “can” is understood to refer to what is physically
possible or in keeping with the laws of nature. Thus, arguably, no human
being ever has a moral obligation to jump to the top of a 20-story building at
a single bound. But the principle is less plausible if “can” is understood
more broadly to mean what an agent may do given the means or resources
currently available. In that case, for example, the principle might imply that
people who willfully incur a large debt that they know they will not be able
to repay are not morally obliged to repay it.
The principle of ought implies can should not be confused with Hume’s law
(named for the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume), according to
which “ought” cannot be derived from “is.” In other words, statements that
assert moral obligations do not follow logically solely from statements of
fact or statements about the way the world is.