You see a man dash over to help an elderly woman cross the street. He carries her grocery bags for her, fends off an impatient driver, and wishes the woman well before crossing back. You realize the man was not even walking in the same direction as the woman; he went out of his way to assist her.
A husband who witnesses this turns to his wife with visible awe. “Wow! What a good man!” He exclaims.
“Ah, yes,” the lady who was watching from the corner coffee shop thinks aloud, “the goodness of unselfishness.”
A child on the opposite side of the intersection looks up at his mother and asks with an inquisitive expression, “Mommy, is it good to help old women cross the street?” The mother smiles. “Yes, it sure is,” she responds.
We often use the word “good,” to describe people, virtues, and actions. When we call something “good,” we categorize that thing according to a standard of goodness. If it meets the standard, it is good. If it fails to meet the standard, it is not good. Most of us can find ways to communicate our standards of goodness, but, as I hope to show using the above scenario as a case study, there is a naïve way in which we sometimes conceptualize the good. The phrase “too much of a good thing” reveals this naïveté.
Take the husband who calls the person of the man “good.” This statement likely expresses what most people who saw the man’s actions were thinking at the time. It makes perfect sense to us that the husband would say this. But the entirety of what the husband knows about the man is encapsulated in the single experience of seeing the man help the old woman cross the street. This certainly seems like insufficient information to accurately judge a person as “good.” For all the husband knows, the man could be all sorts of terrible things. It seems obvious he doesn’t mean the man is always good. Similarly, it seems clear the husband doesn’t mean the man is good most of the time. In fact, the husband likely doesn’t even mean helping an old woman cross the street automatically makes the man good for any other period of time than the present moment. For instance, what if the husband learns the man molests children every Thursday? This information certainly would prevent the husband from describing the man as “good” even though the man helped the old woman cross the street.
So what does the husband really mean when he calls the man “good”? He seems to mean something like, “That man’s virtue of unselfishness is good.” So, if the man himself isn’t what the husband is really describing as “good,” is it the virtue the man is demonstrating?
This brings us to the lady in the coffee shop who uses different words to express this same sentiment. At some level, it makes perfect sense to us that she would say what she did. The man certainly seems unselfish. He sacrifices his time and his energy for the sake of helping someone else. It’s difficult to imagine a situation in which everyday unselfishness is better represented. But, when the lady says unselfishness (or self sacrifice for others’ sake) is “good,” does she mean all instantiations of unselfishness are good? It seems obvious she doesn’t mean it’s always good to sacrifice your time/energy/resources for others’ benefit. For instance, if you only have a few hours left to meet a hard deadline on an important project and you’re scrambling to finish it, it doesn’t seem like the lady would consider it good for you to put a pause on your work to help your friend tend his garden. This would be too unselfish, too self-sacrificial. The lady would probably not call that good. There seems to be a parameter which separates certain instantiations of “good unselfishness” from those of “not good unselfishness.”
So what does the lady really mean when she describes the man’s virtue as “good”? She seems to mean something like, “Helping an old woman cross the street is a good action because it demonstrates an appropriate amount of unselfish virtue.” So if the man himself isn’t what is being described as “good” and if the virtue of unselfishness itself isn’t what is being described as “good,” is it the action the man is performing?
Enter: child. The child asks his mother whether the action of helping an old woman cross the street is good to which his mother replies that it is. But certainly the action of helping an old woman cross the street isn’t always good. What if the man pickpockets the old woman while he helps her across? Learning such information would certainly prevent the mother from describing the man’s action of helping the woman cross the street as “good.” In fact, it doesn’t seem like the goodness of any particular action can even be judged without sufficient information about the context in which it is performed. Put otherwise, it doesn’t seem like the mother would feel like she has enough information to judge a specific action that occurred in the real world as “good” without knowing the context. Imagine you walk up to the mother and ask her, “Is the action of helping an old woman cross the street good?” She’d likely reply that it is. But the difference becomes apparent if you ask her, “Is Jeffrey’s action of helping an old woman cross the street good?” She’d likely respond with a request for more information before feeling like she can make a confident judgment. “Why did Jeffrey perform that action? What other actions did he perform around the time he helped her? Did he pickpocket the old woman?” She may ask these questions and more to ascertain adequate context. This reveals that the action of helping an old woman cross the street isn’t always good. The action isn’t good in of itself, its goodness depends on other ingredients coming together in the right way. As an abstraction, the general idea of the action of helping an old woman cross the street seems obviously good, but, when describing the goodness of such an action in reality, it’s not always so simple.
What does the mother really mean when she tells her child the action of helping an old woman cross the street is good?
Let’s recap for a second. We’ve established that the man himself isn’t what is being described as “good,” the virtue of unselfishness itself isn’t what is being described as “good,” and the action of helping an old woman cross the street itself isn’t what is being described as “good.”
So what is being described as “good”? What thing has the potential of being described as “good” by the mother in that scenario if she doesn’t see the man pickpocket the old woman?
In other words, what is the thing the mother would no longer describe as “good” if she sees the man pickpocket the old woman that she would have otherwise described as “good” if she did not see the man pickpocket the the old woman?
In addressing this, it is helpful to consider how you think the mother would react if posed with this question. It seems like she’d answer with something like, “Well the action of helping the old woman cross the street is only good under certain circumstances.” But what if she was asked what the necessary circumstances are for this action to qualify as “good”? How would you personally answer that question?
As far as I can tell, your answer to the question of what circumstances are necessary for a specific action to qualify as “good” must entail detailed descriptions of complete situations you would find “good.”
And this is the point.
When we describe something as “good,” we don’t mean there are essentially good things. That is to say, we don’t mean there are essentially good people, essentially good virtues, or essentially good actions. Because, if these things were essentially good, if they were intrinsically good, then they’d always be good. But they’re not always good. People aren’t always good nor virtues nor actions. Instead, what we mean when we describe a thing as “good” is that the specific circumstances wherein which that specific thing exists are good.
The husband, the coffee shop lady, and the mother aren’t saying any particular component of the scenario above is good, they’re saying the entirety of the perceived situation is good. If the mother sees the man pickpocketing, she feels negatively about the situation she perceives, but, if she doesn’t see the man pickpocketing, she feels positively about the situation she perceives. She expresses this positive response using the word “good.” There is nothing essentially good about any of the situation’s components. The man, the virtue of unselfishness he demonstrates, and the action he performs are all just abstractions of the perceivable components of a specific situation about which the viewer either feels positively or negatively.
When we encounter a situation like the one at the beginning of this post, we feel positively about what we perceive to be the situation. In order to express our positive psychological response, we use evaluative words like good, beautiful, just, right, moral, appropriate, civil, etc. to describe some component of the situation.
But there are no real good, beautiful, just, right, moral, appropriate, civil, and etc. essences held within particular components of specific situations. There are no essentially “good things.” There are only subjective descriptions of perceived situations derived from individual perceptions colored by culturally influenced personal experiences.