What is good (in itself)?
As children watching TV, especially those involving conflict, we may have found ourselves asking our parents, "is that the good guy?" or "is that the bad guy?" As infants and toddlers, we'll develop an intuitive sense of good and bad from how our parents respond to us—smiling when we've done something good and frowning when we've done something bad, for example—and so we'll be socialized to categorize just about everything as good or bad. Then, as we begin to dictate our own futures, we'll begin to categorize possibilities as good or bad, seeking to maximize favorable rather than unfavorable outcomes. As pattern-recognizing beings, we may even seek to formulate a general concept of what makes good things good. We'll look for a standard that can guide us as we seek to maximize the good over the bad. Such a standard will be the source of goodness itself—something that is intrinsically good—something good in itself.
Is there such a thing? What does it even mean for something to be good in itself? Surely we speak of things being good in many ways, but is there something that all these have in common? We can ask what's good for something particular given its particular context. But can we also ask what's good for anything in any context? If so, how would we speak of this good in itself? How would we speak of the good, and what is the nature of the good? Would this good be the general terms in which we're able to speak of anything being good at all? Would the good be that which serves as the standard by which all other goods are measured? ...
