What Things Are Good?

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Ross’s moderate pluralism about the good. Though it is less original than his moderate pluralism about the right, it is argued that there is much to be said for his version: his list of basic intrinsic goods—happiness, virtue, knowledge—is a plausible starting list. And much of what he says about virtue and about the value of knowledge is also plausible. There is, however, another aspect of Ross’s treatment which it is argued is wholly mistaken: a persistent impulse to downgrade happiness relative to virtue. This radical antihedonism takes different forms in The Right and the Good and the Foundations; but both forms are misconceived.