On Goodness

On Goodness attempts to answer the question "What is goodness?" It is natural to associate this question with ethics; but goodness is not confined to ethics. Water and wine, a strategy for streamlining maintenance operations, and an oil painting may all be good and in non-ethical ways. Goodness figures prominently in ethics; so the study serves ethics. But it serves other domains as well. On Goodness is a contribution to the foundations of value theory. It is also a metaphysical inquiry, for two reasons. As the examples indicate, the entity under investigation is extremely general. Goodness occurs in potables, plans, and paintings, among countless other kinds of things. Second, it is particularly obscure what sort of being the entity is. Besides the description "good," is there a single thing that good drinks, strategies, and artworks share? Is their goodness related in a more complex way? And regardless of these relations, in any instance, just what is that goodness? The question "What is goodness?" has been central to philosophy since Socrates and Plato made it their polestar. The distinctive contribution of On Goodness lies in its methodology. The method of pursuing the metaphysical question is linguistic. The basic proposal is that achieving the answer depends on clarifying the meaning and use of the words "good" and "goodness." Consequently, the study is pervasively informed by and critically engaged with contemporary linguistic theories and ideas.

About the Author :
David Conan Wolfsdorf is Professor of Philosophy at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously he taught at Fairfield University in Connecticut. He is the author of Trials of Reason (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Review :
Wolfsdorf's impressive study is a linguistically sophisticated and philosophically motivated treatment of the various meanings of 'good' and 'goodness'. It brings classic ideas from philosophers such as Geach and Ziff into contact with some of the most sophisticated recent linguistic theories concerning ambiguity, multidimensional gradability, context sensitivity, syntactic determination, and mass noun denotation. I highly recommend it for value theorists interested in expanding their understanding of the rich complexity packed into the core evaluative terms of English and also for anyone studying the meaning of 'good' and 'goodness. Good' is the most central and important evaluative word in the English language, and David Wolfsdorf has written the definitive study of its semantics and syntax. Writing primarily for a philosophical audience, Wolfsdorf has conducted an unprecedentedly thorough and painstaking exploration of the relevant developments in contemporary linguistics. To write on the meaning of 'good' now without first consulting this book would be scholarly malpractice. If you agree with G. E. Moore that the nature of goodness is fundamental to philosophical ethics, you should want to read this book. Decades of linguistic work on terms such as 'right,' 'must,' and 'ought' have illuminated the nature of rightness and obligation. Parallel work on 'good' has not yet had a similar impact on philosophical theorizing about goodness.This book will change that, for the better.