GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

A THEORY OF GOOD OR VALUE 419
their own right; it is necessary, in short, that some things
should be really good, others really bad, some things
really right and others really wrong* Objectivist theories
assert or imply that this is the case. On the assumption,
then, that some form of Objectivism is correct, I have
tried to show that, when any genuine ethical judgment
is made, for example, the judgment that quinine is good
for a cold, the existence of something that is considered
to be ultimately valuable for its own sake and not as a
means to something else, is implied.
(2) Conclusion that Since Ultimate Values are Unique
No Account Can Be Given of Them. Secondly,
there is the conclusion that whatever is ultimately valuable
is unique, and that, because it is unique, no account can
be given of it. For the uniqueness of ultimate values a
number of reasons has been adduced. These reasons may be
formulated in the type of argument which was instanced
in the last chapter in criticism of subjcotivist theories of
good. 1 This type of argument seeks to show that the
meaning of the word "good" and I am here using
the word "good" to denote whatever is ultimately
valuable in and for itself- cannot be equated with the
meaning of any other concept. If, for example, we arc
told that pleasure is good or is the Good, then, whenever
we meet the words "good" or "the Good" in a sentence,
we can substitute for them the word "pleasure". Now that
pleasure is the Good is a discussible proposition, but that
pleasure is pleasure is not a discussible proposition.
Thus the
two propositions do not mean the same thing, and pleasure
cannot, therefore, be equated with good or the Good.
The same argument can be used with equal force against
the attempted identification of good with any other con-
cept. It follows that good, or rather, to use the word which
in the interests of clarity of exposition I am proposing to
substitute, value, is unique in die sense that it cannot be
equated with, or exhaustively analysed into, anything else.
* Sec Chapter XI, pp. 388,389-