The great merit of this view over all except Sidgwick’s is its recognition that all truths of the form “This is good in itself” are logically independent of any truth about what exists. No ethical proposition of this form is such that, if a certain thing exists, it is true, whereas, if that thing does not exist, it is false. All such ethical truths are true, whatever the nature of the world may be. Hence, in particular, none of them are either identical with any subjective proposition (e.g. “So-and-so has this feeling or desire or cognition”) or such that, if it be true, any subjective proposition whatever need be true. Thus Brentano recognizes fully the objectivity of this fundamental class of ethical judgments. “No one,” he says, “[except Herbart] has so radically and completely broken with the subjective view of ethics” (p. ix).
Nevertheless Brentano is wrong in supposing that the conception “rightly loved” or “worthy of love” is the fundamental ethical concept which we mean by “good in itself.” Sidgwick was right in holding that that concept is unanalyzable; and it is, in fact, the concept which Brentano denotes by the word “right,” when he says that a thing is good in itself, if the love of it would be right. Brentano recognizes two very important concepts when he recognizes both the concept of what it is right to love and of the rightness which belongs to love of such things; and the question which of these is properly denoted by the words good in itself might seem to be merely a verbal question. But it is not a merely verbal question, if, as Brentano rightly does, we take what is good in itself in the highest possible degree to be that of which it is our duty to promote the existence. For whereas the degree in which a thing possesses the quality which he calls “right” must be taken into account in considering what is that greatest possible good which it is our duty to effect, the degree in which things are “worthy to be loved” is not a measure of our duty to effect their existence. It is certain that many things, e.g., inanimate beautiful objects, possess the quality of being worthy to be loved, in a higher degree than they possess that of “rightness;” it may even be doubted whether they possess the latter at all. And it is our duty to effect that which is the most “right” possible, not that which is most worthy to be loved. Though therefore we can agree with Brentano that everything which is good in itself is worthy to be loved, we cannot agree that everything which is worthy to be loved is good.
Brentano makes a similar mistake with regard to the definition of
