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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Dr. Mortimer J. Adler's 

Six Great Ideas

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Skepticism with regard to truth reared its head in antiquity.
Confronted with it, the ancients came up with its refutation.
Not so with regard to goodness.

Skepticism about value judgments—about the validity of our
attribution of goodness to objects and about the truth of any
statement that contains the words "ought" or "ought not"—
begins in the modern world. Without having been confronted
with that brand of skepticism, the ancients provided us with
clues enabling us to separate that aspect of the good that has
the objectivity of truth from that aspect that is entirely subjec-
tive and relative to the individual.

At the dawn of modern thought, Thomas Hobbes and Bene-
dict Spinoza advanced the view that "good" was merely the
name we gave to those things that in fact we happened to desire
or like. Goodness is not a discoverable property of the things
themselves. We simply call them good because we desire them.
If we had an aversion to them instead, we would call them bad.

Since desires and aversions are matters of individual temper-
ament, nurture, and predilection, there is nothing that all
human beings agree upon as deserving to be called good or
bad. Just as the skeptic concerning truth says that what is true
for me may not be true for you, so here the skeptic says that
what is good for you may not be good for me.

A century or more later, David Hume, as we have seen,
added another arrow to the quiver of skepticism about values.
He pointed out that from our knowledge of the facts about
nature or reality (as complete as one might wish it to be), we
cannot validate a single value judgment that ascribes to the
object a goodness that makes it true to say that all men ought to
desire it. Those who, before or after Hume, identify the good
with pleasure or the pleasing, do not avoid the thrust of his
skeptical challenge. Rather, they reinforce it, for what pleases
one individual may not please another; and, in any case, the
goodness that is identified with pleasure does not reside in the
object but in the emotional experience of the individual.

Hume's challenge is further reinforced in our own century by
a group of thinkers whose names are associated with a doctrine
that has come to be called "noncognitive ethics." They use the
word "ethics" to refer to the whole sphere of moral judgments
about good and bad, or right and wrong, especially in the form
of prescriptions about what ought and ought not to be sought
or what ought and ought not to be done. Their dismissal of
ethics as "noncognitive" is their way of saying that statements
that assert an ought or an ought-not cannot be either true or
false.

Not capable of being either true or false, such assertions are
noncognitive. They do not belong to the sphere of knowledge,
even in the weaker sense of that term, which connotes verifi¬
able or supportable opinion. Thrown out of the sphere of truth,
they are relegated to the sphere of taste. They are at best expres-
sions of personal predilection or prejudice, entirely relative to
the feelings, impulses, whims, or wishes of the individual.

If we ask why judgments about what ought to be desired or
done are totally incapable of being either true or false, the an-
swer appeals to an understanding of what truth and falsity con-
sist in—an understanding first formulated in antiquity and one
that these twentieth-century exponents of a noncognitive ethics
adopt. Once we conceive the truth of a statement as residing in
its correspondence with the facts of the matter under consider-
ation, with the way things really are, we are led to the conclu-
sion that only statements that assert that something is or is not
the case can be either true or false—true if they assert that
which is in fact the way things are, false if they assert the
opposite. All such statements can be characterized as descriptions of reality.

Statements that contain the words "ought" or "ought
not" are prescriptions or injunctions, not descriptions of any-
thing. If our understanding of truth and falsity conceives them
as properties that can be found only in descriptions, then we
cannot avoid the skeptical conclusion that prescriptive state-
ments cannot be either true or false.

A moment's reflection will lead us to see that the only way
that this skeptical conclusion can be avoided is by expanding
our understanding of truth. Can we find another mode of truth,
one that is appropriate to prescriptions or injunctions, just as
the more familiar mode of truth is appropriate to descriptions,
or statements of fact? How can oughts and ought-nots be true?

For the answer to this question, we must go back to antiquity
—to the thought of Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle, following
Plato, formulated the conception of truth that has been gen-
erally adopted in Western thought—the one that is appealed to
by the exponents of noncognitive ethics when they maintain
that only descriptive statements can be either true or false.
However, he did not stop there. Recognizing that that mode of
truth did not apply to prescriptive statements or injunctions
(which he called "practical" because they are regulative of
human action), he proposed another mode of truth appropriate
to practical judgments.

That mode of truth, he said, consists in the conformity of
such judgments with right desire, as the other mode of truth
consists in the correspondence of our descriptions of reality
with the reality that they claim to describe.

Unfortunately, Aristotle did not explain what he meant by
right desire. We are, therefore, on our own in pushing the
inquiry farther.

What is right desire? It would appear that the answer must be
that right desire consists in desiring what we ought to desire,
as wrong desire consists in desiring what we ought not to de-
sire.

What ought one to desire? The answer cannot be—simply and
without qualification—that we ought to desire what is good.
We have already seen that the good is always and only the
desirable and the desirable is always and only the good. As
Plato's Socrates repeatedly pointed out, we never desire any-
thing that we do not, at the moment of desiring it, deem to be
good. Hence we must somehow find a way of distinguishing
between the goods that we rightly desire and the goods that we
wrongly desire.

We are helped to do this by the distinction that Socrates
makes between the real and the apparent good. He repeatedly
reminds us that our regarding something as good because we
in fact desire it does not make it really good in fact. It may, and
often does, turn out to be the very opposite. What appears to
be good at the time we desire it may prove to be bad for us at
some later time or in the long run. The fact that we happen to
desire something may make it appear good to us at the time,
but it does not make it really good for us.

If the good were always and only that which appears good to
us because we consciously desire it, it would be impossible to
distinguish between right and wrong desire. Aristotle's con-
ception of practical or prescriptive truth would then become
null and void. It can be given content only if we can distinguish
between the apparent good (that which we call good simply
because we consciously desire it at a given moment) and the
real good (that which we ought to desire whether we do in fact
desire it or not).

Up to this point we seem to be running around in circles. We
have identified the real good with that which we ought to de-
sire. We have interpreted right desire as consisting in desiring
what one ought to desire, which amounts to saying that it con-
sists in desiring what is really good. To say that the truth of a
prescriptive or practical judgment, which tells us what we
ought to desire, consists in conformity with right desire
amounts to saying that a prescription is true if it tells us that
we ought to desire what we ought to desire. And that is saying
nothing at all.

The only way to get out of this circle is to find some way of
identifying what is really good for us that does not equate it
merely with what we ought to desire. How can that be done?
Aristotle provides us with the answer by calling our attention
to a fundamental distinction in the realm of desire.

On the one hand, there are the desires inherent in our human
nature, rooted in potentialities or capacities that drive or tend
toward fulfillment. These are our natural desires, desires with
which we are innately endowed. Because they are inherent in
human nature, as all truly specific properties are, they are pres-
ent in all human beings, just as human facial characteristics,
human skeletal structure, or human blood types are. Not only
are they present in all human beings, as inherent properties of
human nature, but they are always operative tendentially or
appetitively (that is, they always tend toward or seek fulfill-
ment), whether or not at a given moment we are conscious of
such tendencies or drives.

On the other hand, there are the desires that each individual
acquires in the course of his or her life, each as the result of his
or her own individual experience, conditioned by his or her
individual temperament and by the circumstances of his or her
individual life. Consequently, unlike natural desires, which are
the same in all human beings, acquired desires differ from in-
dividual to individual, as individuals differ in their tempera-
ments, experiences, and the circumstances of their lives. Also,
unlike our natural desires, of which we may not be conscious
at a given moment, we are always conscious of our acquired
desires at the time they are motivating us in one direction or
another.

The quickest and easiest way to become aware of the validity
of this distinction between natural and acquired desires is to
employ two words that are in everyone's vocabulary and are in
daily use. Let us use the word “needs" for our natural desires,
and the word "wants" for the desires we acquire. Translated
into these familiar terms, what we have said so far boils down
to this: that all human beings have the same specifically human
needs, whereas individuals differ from one another with regard
to the things they want.

The use of the words "need" and "want" enables us to go
further. Our common understanding of needs provides us at
once with the insight that there are no wrong or misguided
needs. That is just another way of saying that we never need
anything that is really bad for us—something we ought to
avoid. We recognize that we can have wrong or misguided
wants. That which we want may appear to be good to us at the
time, but it may not be really good for us. Our needs are never
excessive, as our wants often are. We can want too much of a
good thing, but we can never need too much of whatever it is
we need. We can certainly want more than we need.

One thing more, and most important of all: We cannot ever
say that we ought or ought not to need something. The words
"ought" and "ought not" apply only to wants, never to needs.
This means that the natural desires that are our inborn needs
enter into the sphere of our voluntary conduct only through the
operation of our acquired desires or wants. In other words, we
may or may not in fact want what we need. Almost all of us
want things that we do not need and fail to want things that we
do need.

In the statement just made lies the crux of the matter. We
ought to want the things we need. We ought not to want the
things we do not need if wanting them interferes with our
wanting—and acquiring—the things we do need.

The distinction between needs and wants enables us to draw
the line between real goods and apparent goods. Those things
that satisfy or fulfill our needs or natural desires are things that
are really good for us. Those that satisfy our wants or acquired
desires are things that appear good to us when we consciously
desire them. If we need them as well as want them, they are
also really good for us.

However, if we only want them and do not need them, they
will nevertheless appear good to us because we want them.
Beyond that, they may either turn out to be harmless or innoc-
uous (in that they do not impede or prevent our acquiring the
real goods we need) or they may turn out to be the very oppo-
site (quite harmful or really bad for us because they somehow
deprive us of one or another of the real goods we need).

We cannot ever be mistaken about our wants. No one can be
incorrect in saying that he wants something. But it is quite
possible for individuals to be mistaken about their needs. Chil-
dren are frequently given to thinking or saying that they need
something when they should have said that they want it.
Adults are prone to making the same mistake.

If we can be mistaken about our needs, does not that weaken
the underpinning of our argument so far? To avoid this, we
must be able to determine with substantial accuracy the needs
inherent in human nature. Since their gratification often re-
quires the presence of certain favorable environmental circum-
stances, we must also be able to determine the indispensable
external conditions that function instrumentally in the satisfac-
tion of needs (e.g., a healthy environment is instrumentally
needed to safeguard the health of its members).

Success in these efforts depends on the adequacy of our
knowledge and understanding of human nature in itself and in
its relation to the environment.

It is by reference to our common human needs that we claim
to know what is really good for all human beings. Knowing
this, we are also justified in claiming that we can determine the
truth or falsity of prescriptions or injunctions. As Aristotle said,
prescriptions are true if they conform to right desire.

All our needs are right desires because those things that sat-
isfy our natural desires are things that are really good for us.
When we want what we need, our wants are also right desires.

The injunction to want knowledge, for example, is a true
prescription—the true statement of an ought—because human
beings all need knowledge. As Aristotle pointed out, man by
nature desires to know. Since the acquired desire for knowl-
edge is a right desire, because it consists in wanting what
everyone needs, the prescription "You ought to want and seek
knowledge" is universally and objectively true—true for all
human beings—because it conforms to a right desire that is
rooted in a natural need.

No one, I think, would question man's need for knowledge
or the truth of the prescription that everyone ought to want and
seek knowledge. That truth comes to us as the conclusion of
reasoning that rests on two premises.

The first is a categorical prescription or injunction: We ought
to desire (seek and acquire) that which is really good for us.

The second is a statement of fact about human nature: Man
has a potentiality or capacity for knowing that tends toward or
seeks fulfillment through the acquirement of knowledge. In
other words, the facts about human nature are such that, if we
are correct in our grasp of them, we can say that man needs
knowledge and that knowledge is really good for man.

Now, if the foregoing categorical prescription or injunction
is true and if in addition the foregoing statement of fact about
human nature's involving a need for knowledge is true, then
the prescriptive conclusion, that everyone ought to want and
seek knowledge, not only follows from the premises, but is also
true—true by conforming to right desire as set forth in the
categorical prescription that we ought to want and seek that
which is really good for us (i.e., that which by nature we need).

The truth of the categorical prescription that underlies every
piece of reasoning that leads to a true prescriptive conclusion is
a self-evident truth. Anyone can test this for himself by trying
to think the opposite and finding it impossible.

We simply cannot think that we ought to desire that which is
really bad for us or that we ought not to desire that which is
really good for us. Without knowing in advance which things
are in fact really good or bad for us, we do know at once that
"ought to desire" is inseparable in its meaning from the mean-
ing of "really good," just as we know at once that the parts of a
physical whole are always less than the whole. It is impossible
to think the opposite just as it is impossible to think that we
ought to desire that which is really bad for us.

We acknowledge a truth as self-evident as soon as we ac-
knowledge the impossibility of thinking the opposite.

What about the truth of the other premise in the reasoning?
That is a factual premise. It asserts a fact about human nature.
As I pointed out a little earlier, Aristotle's observation that man
by nature desires to know seems unquestionable. Man's natural
desire or need for knowledge being acknowledged, the factual
premise can be asserted as true—if not with certitude, then
with a very high degree of assurance. It is beyond a reasonable
doubt if not beyond the shadow of a doubt. That suffices for
present purposes.

What about other natural desires or needs, about which we
must make accurate statements of fact if we are to proceed with
reasoning that will yield us other true prescriptive conclusions?

I have already admitted that, while we can never make a
misstatement about our wants, we may be mistaken about our
needs, declaring that we need something that we should have
said we wanted, or failing to recognize that we need something
that we do not want. Such mistakes would result in false rather
than true factual assertions about human nature and the desires
that are inherent in it.

The consequence of this is obvious. The prescriptive conclu-
sions to which our practical reasoning would lead us would
then be false rather than true, practically or prescriptively false
because the errors we have made about matters of fact prevent
the conclusions from conforming to right desire.

Therefore, what remains for further inquiry is whether our
knowledge of human nature enables us to identify—with suf-
ficient assurance, not with certitude—the real goods that fulfill
man's natural desires or needs. I will undertake to approximate
this in the following chapter, concerned with the range and
scale of goods.

To complete our picture of the matters covered in this chap-
ter, one closing comment must be added. I conceded earlier
that David Hume was correct in pointing out that from our
knowledge of matters of fact about reality or real existence, and
from that alone, we cannot validly reason to a true prescriptive
conclusion—a judgment about what one ought or ought not to
desire or do.

In the foregoing statement, I have italicized the words “and
from that alone." Upon that qualification, the correctness of
Hume's point rests. It follows, therefore, that practical or pre-
scriptive reasoning can be validly carried on if it does not rely
upon factual knowledge alone.

The reasoning to be found in the preceding pages of this
chapter relies on factual knowledge but not on that alone. Fac-
tual knowledge is represented solely in the second or minor
premise—the one that asserts a certain fact about human na-
ture; for example, that man by nature desires to know. The
prescriptive conclusion, that everyone ought to want and seek
knowledge, does not rest on that premise alone. It rests on that
premise combined with the first and major premise—a categor-
ical prescription that is self-evidently true, the injunction that
we ought to want and seek whatever is really good for us.

Upon this one categorical prescription rest all the prescriptive
truths we can validate concerning the real goods that we ought
to seek, limited only by the extent to which we can discover,
with reasonable assurance, the facts about human nature and
its inherent desires or needs.