Before proceeding
to the expression of concrete ideals, he thinks it necessary to ask a
preliminary and quite abstract question, to which his essay is chiefly
devoted; namely, what is the right definition of the predicate "good,"
which we hope to apply in the sequel to such a variety of things? And
he answers at once: The predicate "good" is indefinable. This answer
he shows to be unavoidable, and so evidently unavoidable that we might
perhaps have been absolved from asking the question; for, as he says,
the so-called definitions of "good"--that it is pleasure, the desired,
and so forth--are not definitions of the predicate "good," but
designations of the things to which this predicate is applied by
different persons. Pleasure, and its rivals, are not synonyms for the
abstract quality "good," but names for classes of concrete facts that
are supposed to possess that quality. From this correct, if somewhat
trifling, observation, however, Mr. Russell, like Mr. Moore before
him, evokes a portentous dogma. Not being able to define good, he
hypostasises it. "Good and bad," he says, "are qualities which belong
to objects independently of our opinions, just as much as round and
square do; and when two people differ as to whether a thing is good,
only one of them can be right, though it may be very hard to know
which is right.
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