The Objective Relativity of Goodness: A Rapprochement between Peter Geach and Thomas Aquinas
Peter Geach claims in Good and Evil that there can never be "just good or bad, there is only being a good or bad so-and-so" and thereby denies that goodness can ever be used in a non-relative sense. Although his rejection of absolute goodness might initially seem to be a startling and mist...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
[2018]
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| In: |
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Year: 2018, Volume: 92, Pages: 285-300 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Peter Geach claims in Good and Evil that there can never be "just good or bad, there is only being a good or bad so-and-so" and thereby denies that goodness can ever be used in a non-relative sense. Although his rejection of absolute goodness might initially seem to be a startling and mistaken departure from the Thomistic understanding, I argue that an examination of Thomas’s texts reveal a strong agreement between them, one grounded in a common rejection of univocal goodness. For both, "good" is relative to the nature of a being. To defend the relativity of goodness, I consider two objections: first, that relativizing goodness leads to subjectivism. Second, that divine goodness is absolute and non-relative. In answering these objections, I show that in both Thomas’s medieval and Geach’s modern accounts "good" is an analogical perfection relative to a nature. In this way, then, goodness is objectively relative. |
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| ISSN: | 2153-7925 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Catholic Philosophical Association, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5840/acpq2020917212 |