3 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Is-Ought Problem responses
The basic thought is that something is good for an organism if it supports it in its efforts to maintain its internal unity
The problem with this argument is that the word "good", in the sense OP means it, is not meant as "behooves", which would be a shorter version of "supports its efforts to maintain internal unity". Example: "Antibiotics are good for me" means "Antibiotics behoove me" means "Antibiotics support my efforts to maintain internal unity." The goodness of a movie, in an aesthetic sense, is not a goodness of behooving.
OP means "good" in the sense of aesthetic preference. Aesthetic preference has nothing to do with the biological / natural sense of "good" as "behooves". In fact, most aesthetic preferences actually conflict with the sense of "behooves".
For example, "this beer is good" does not mean "this beer supports one's efforts to maintain internal unity". In fact, the goodness of a beer often results from its ability to actively diminish internal unity.
Most uses of good are unrelated to the biological welfare of an organism.
Comment by autopoetic at 24/07/2016 at 12:14 UTC*
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Maybe you're right. But can you explain the argument?
Aesthetic preference has nothing to do with the biological / natural sense of "good" as "behooves". In fact, most aesthetic preferences actually conflict with the sense of "behooves".
I don't see why you think this is a general rule.
For example, "this beer is good" does not mean "this beer supports one's efforts to maintain internal unity". In fact, the goodness of a beer often results from its ability to actively diminish internal unity.
Sure, I suppose? I don't see how you get that our preference for beer 'results from' its ability to diminish internal unity.
More broadly, our taste in food is quite directly related to what it took to maintain our metabolism. We find sugar tasty, and rotten meat repulsive. Why? Because one supports our biology, and the other interferes with it.
Comment by [deleted] at 24/07/2016 at 23:13 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Actually, couldn't you make the same "behooves" argument of aesthetic preferences?
I mean thinking of works of art as entities which need to "survive" in the environment of the mental consciousness of people in society. It's a similar thing, right? Unfavorable qualities will get filtered out and those works of art "die" by lack of reproduction (being remembered and passed on from mind to mind).
So certain qualities DO support a work of art's efforts to maintain an internal unity. They need to have qualities which allow them to survive their environment, just as we physical creatures do.