Summum bonum

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For the poem by Robert Browning, see Summum Bonum (poem).

Summum bonum is a Latin expression meaning the highest or ultimate good, which was introduced by the

Cyrenaic philosophers claimed that the 'good life' consistently aimed for pleasure, without suggesting that pleasure constituted the meaning or essence of Goodness outside the ethical sphere. In De finibus, Cicero explains and compares the ethical systems of several schools of Greek philosophy, including Stoicism, Epicureanism, Aristotelianism and Platonism
, based on how each defines the ethical summum bonum differently.

The term was used in

ultimate importance, the singular and overriding end which human beings ought to pursue.[3]

Plato and Aristotle

The Republic argued that, "In the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen...to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right".[4][5] Silent contemplation was the route to appreciation of the Idea of the Good.[6]

Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics accepted that the target of human activity, "Must be the 'Good', that is, the supreme good.", but challenged Plato's Idea of the Good with the pragmatic question: "Will one who has had a vision of the Idea itself become thereby a better doctor or general?".[7] However, arguably at least, Aristotle's concept of the unmoved mover owed much to Plato's Idea of the Good.[8]

Hellenic syncretism

Philo of Alexandria conflated the Old Testament God with the unmoved mover and the Idea of the Good.[9] Plotinus, the neoplatonic philosopher, built on Plato's Good for his concept of the supreme One, while Plutarch drew on Zoroastrianism to develop his eternal principle of good.[10]

Augustine of Hippo in his early writings offered the summum bonum as the highest human goal, but was later to identify it as a feature of the Christian God[11] in De natura boni (On the Nature of Good, c. 399). Augustine denies the positive existence of absolute evil, describing a world with God as the supreme good at the center, and defining different grades of evil as different stages of remoteness from that center.[citation needed]

Later developments

The summum bonum has continued to be a focus of attention in Western philosophy, secular and religious.

Hegel replaced Plato's dialectical ascent to the Good by his own dialectical ascent to the Real.[12]

G. E. Moore placed the highest good in personal relations and the contemplation of beauty – even if not all his followers in the Bloomsbury Group may have appreciated what Clive Bell called his "all-important distinction between 'Good on the whole' and 'Good as a whole'".[13]

Immanuel Kant

The doctrine of the highest good maintained by Immanuel Kant can be seen as the fulfillment of all rational will. [14] It is the supreme end of the will, meaning that beyond the attainment of a good will, which is moral excellence signified by abiding by the categorical imperative and pure practical reason, this is not reducible to hypothetical imperatives such as happiness.[3] Furthermore, in virtue of the doctrine of the highest good, Kant postulates the existence of God and the eternal existence of rational agents, in order to reconcile three premises: (i) that agents are morally obligated to fully attain the highest good; (ii) that the object of an agent's obligation must be possible; (iii) that an agent's full realization of the highest good is not possible.[15]

Judgments

Further information: Intrinsic value (ethics) § Life stances and intrinsic value

Judgments on the highest good have generally fallen into four categories:[2]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ De finibus, Book II, 37ff
  2. ^ a b c Dinneen 1909.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-3-11-036900-7
    .
  4. ^ B. Jowett trans, The Essential Plato (1999) p. 269
  5. ^ 517b–c (Stephanus)
  6. ^ Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (1980), p. 108
  7. ^ H, Tredennick revd, The Ethics of Aristotle (1976) p. 63 and p. 72
  8. ^ Tredennick, p. 352
  9. ^ J. Boardman ed., The Oxford History of the Classical World (1991) p. 703
  10. ^ Boardman, p. 705-7
  11. ^ J. McWilliam, Augustine (1992) p. 152-4
  12. ^ Kojève, p. 181-4
  13. ^ Quoted in H. Lee, Virginia Woolf (1996) p. 253
  14. ISBN 978-3-11-036900-7
    .
  15. JSTOR 2182492
    .
Attribution

External links

Look up summum bonum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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