By “self interest” I mean, in this case, “individual self
interest,” or the interest that the rational subject has as an individual.
Since in our terms, the “Self” refers to the life of the rational subject, all the practical interests of the rational subject can be can be called forms of self interest. Thus, given that the rational subject also has a spiritual and religious interest, their corresponding names would be her “spiritual self interest” and her “religious self interest,” respectively. (See discussion of these forms of self interest in Change: Dichotomies of rational level culture.)
Individual self interest includes, as we have seen, two kinds
of goals, necessary goals and optional goals. The necessary goals are the
goals that are good for the individual because they control conditions that
affect her reproduction as an individual. Optional goals are goals that are
good for the individual because they are good in some other way and the individual
chooses to pursue them, making them good for herself. These two kinds of goals
are good in different ways, and since there are correspondingly different
reasons why they are what ought to exist as far as reason is concerned, let
us consider them separately.
The individual subject is a multicellular
animal, and like any animal, there are certain conditions that the rational
subject must control because they affect her reproduction. These are the necessary
goals of individual self interest.
They include all the goals implicit in animal
nature, such as obtaining food, shelter and other necessary resources. But
they also include goals implicit in the nature of the animals that are parts
of spiritual animal, that is, the social goals, such as maintaining family
relations, having friends, and other social relations that are normal for
members of one’s spiritual animal. To a certain extent, therefore, they are
relative to the technology and style of life that prevails in the spiritual
animal in which one lives. However, they do not include animal goals that
are incompatible with being a member of a spiritual animal, such as avoiding
the risk of losing one's life fighting wars, since that is a necessary aspect
of the ecological niche that individuals occupy
It should be kept in mind, however, that necessary goals do not include reproduction itself. Reproduction is not one of the conditions that affect reproduction, but, rather, what determines which conditions are relevant to control, which is the criterion for necessary goals. By controlling relevant conditions, the subject is in a position to reproduce, if she chooses. But reproduction itself is an optional goal (unless, perhaps, reproduction must be controlled because of necessary goals pursued by the spiritual animal). Reproduction is good for the subject, if she chooses to reproduce, and it brings with it all of the other goals that having children entails.
Necessary goals are normally picked out by desires that are inherited as part of biological nature, which include social goals. From hunger to the need for companionship and love, the goal selection system built into individual subjects by the biological behavior guidance system guides behavior toward goals that control conditions that are relevant in the sense of affecting individual reproduction. But what makes the goals good is not that they satisfy desire, as hedonism mistakenly assumed. Rather, as evolution by reproductive causation implies, they satisfy desires because they are good in the sense of contributing to one’s maximum holistic power as an organism, that is, of contributing to the natural perfection of the individual as an organism.
The function of the desires that motivate the pursuit of necessary goals is the same as in other animal organisms, namely, that they control some condition that must be controlled in order maximize one’s power to control relevant conditions over one’s entire reproductive cycle. In other words, they contribute to the natural perfection of the individual in the same way as the goals pursued by non-rational animals.
Even the hedonistic rational subject, before ontological philosophy evolves, is more powerful than non-rational animals, because when she chooses to behave in the current situation in ways that will maximize the satisfaction of her desires over her lifetime, she also tends to be choosing ways of behaving that control the relevant conditions more efficiently and reliably.
But when the rational subject gives up hedonism in favor of
a functional explanation of desires and recognizes that the control of relevant
conditions, rather than the desire, is what makes the object of desire good,
she is even more powerful over her whole life than the hedonist. The desires
built into the brain as part of its goal selection system are a crude indication
of the kinds of goals that will give the individual the maximum holistic power
of an organism. She is better able to see the relative importance of such
goals and how they can be attained as efficiently as possible by considering
their role in controlling relevant conditions than by the amount of pleasure
they give.
Our
ontological explanation of the nature of goodness implies, therefore, that
necessary goals are good for the rational subject as an individual because
they contribute to her natural perfection as an individual organism. And since
they are good for the rational subject, we infer that the rational subject
ought to pursue them. That is the form of the argument that will be used to
show that goals are good for reason in each of the cases below. But it is
commonly assumed that the difference between facts and values makes any such
proof impossible, that is, that values cannot be reduced to facts. Indeed,
there is a famous philosophical argument against this kind of explanation
of what ought to exist, and it will be answered here, though it works the
same way for all the goals that determine what ought to exist for reason.
What is at issue is whether there is a naturalistic fallacy.
It seems that there is
reason to doubt that this argument about the goals that rational subjects
ought to pursue is valid. For it can be argued that, from the premise that
a goal is good for a rational subject in the sense of contributing to her
natural perfection as an individual organism, it does not follow
that she ought to pursue it. Indeed, the belief that any such implication
holds is called the “naturalistic fallacy.”
Ontological philosophy does give a naturalistic definition of “good,” because it defines “good” as contributing the natural perfection and that is a property that can be known by theoretical reason alone in explaining the nature of evolution (as reproductive global regularities). But according to G. E. Moore, goodness cannot be explained naturalistically. Indeed, he would insist that it commits a logical fallacy which he called the “naturalistic fallacy.”
Moore’s own positive view is that goodness is a simple, non-natural property that supervenes on natural properties (where that means that if one thing has it, then anything else with a relevantly similar physical nature also has it). Its simplicity keeps goodness from being explained in terms of simpler properties, and its non-naturalness is supposed to explain its normative meaning, that is, that what has the property, goodness, ought to exist. But what is relevant here is the problem to which Moore was pointing, which is better known as the difference between fact and value. Can values be reduced to facts, or is there something inherently irreducible about them.
The most compelling argument that G. E. Moore gives for believing that there is a naturalistic fallacy is the so-called “open question argument.” Moore argues that, given any naturalistic definition of “good,” it is possible to ask meaningfully of something that is good according to that definition, “But is it good?” For example, if “good” is defined as being pleasurable, it makes sense to ask of something that is pleasurable,” But is it good?” because it might be bad, for example, because of its later consequences or because it is morally wrong. It is an open question whether something satisfying that naturalistic definition is actually good and ought to be chosen. Moore insists that the same holds of any naturalistic definition of “good.” If any such naturalistic definition of “good” were correct, Moore’s question should be as insignificant as asking, “But is the good good?” or “Is the good what ought to be chosen?” Thus, the fact that Moore’s question can be asked significantly with respect to any naturalistic definition of “good” shows that there is a naturalistic fallacy.
A. J. Ayer argued in a similar way against naturalism, albeit is as a logical positivist. He argued that if a naturalistic definition of "good" were correct, it would be self contradictory to hold that something that satisfies the definition is not good. Thus, the fact that no such proposition is self contradictory would also suggest that naturalism rest on a fallacy.
However, it is not possible to know in advance that Moore’s question will be significant with respect to every naturalistic definition of “good.” Thus, it can be argued that Moore simply had not tried the right naturalistic definition. And that is the way to refute Moore’s open question argument without denying its validity as a test for fallaciousness. (Likewise for Ayer's way of challenging the truth of naturalistic definitions of "good.")
Let us, therefore, apply Moore’s open-question argument to our ontological explanation of the nature of goodness. The issue is, then, whether it can be asked with significance, Is what contributes to natural perfection good? Or since we are talking about what is good for reason, the questions is, Is what contributes to the natural perfection of a rational being good for that rational being?
There is a way in which Moore’s question might seem significant, though it is not relevant here. It might seem significant, because one does not understand what it means to say that something contributes to natural perfection. In order to understand the question, it is necessary to understand this ontological explanation of the nature of goodness, and that means understanding its explanation of the cause of evolution and seeing how it involves an inevitable series of stages leading up to rational subjects like us. Let us assume, therefore, that the question is being asked by someone who understands the conclusions of theoretical reason about what is and recognizes herself as a rational subject of the kind they entail. That is, let us assume that it is being asked by someone at the stage of ontological philosophical spirit, that is, by ontological reason.
In that case, the answer to Moore’s open-question argument will be that it is not significant, at least, not in any way that is relevant to showing that some mistake is being made. Let us focus on the case at issue, about the goodness of the necessary goals of individual interest. The theory implies that such goals are good because they contribute in essential way to one’s natural perfection as an individual organism. To ask, But are these necessary goals good? is to ask whether one has sufficient reason to pursue them. But rational subjects do have sufficient reason to pursue goals that are good in this sense, because pursuing goals of that kind is part of their nature as rational subjects. When the rational subject recognizes that she is a being of the kind that comes to exist as a result of evolution by reproductive causation, that she is able to ask this question about whether she ought to pursue necessary goals because she is rational in the way implied by this theory, and (as we shall see) that all the goals she already takes to be good as a rational being are shown to be good by their contribution to one’s natural perfection as a rational subject, it simply does not make sense to ask if what contributes to one’s natural perfection is good. That is simply what reason does: it pursues the good in that sense.
This point can also be put from the outside, so to speak, because
Moore’s question is closed by the ontological explanation of the dichotomy
between theoretical and practical reason. The difference between facts and
values is one of the dichotomies among arguments at the rational spiritual
stage of evolution. Facts are conclusions of theoretical reason, and values
are conclusions of practical reason. Ontological philosophy overcomes this
dichotomy, as we have seen, by deriving the nature of reason as part of the
course of evolution by reproductive causation, for that reveals that reason
is a behavior guidance system that uses knowledge of the true to discover
what is good. “Good” in that sense is defined as contributing to natural perfection,
which is a naturalistic definition. But when we recognize that we are rational
beings in that sense, then that is also what we mean by the word, “good.”
To ask whether what contributes to one’s own natural perfection is good, when
one accepts ontological philosophy, is as senseless as asking, But is the
good good?
The more profound refutation
of the naturalistic fallacy is ontological philosophy's response to Moore,
because its way of closing Moore’s open question also provides the kind of
wisdom that Socrates was seeking in the name of philosophy, as love of wisdom.
I am assuming that what Socrates was seeking is an explanation of the nature
of goodness that would make any rational subject who understood it virtuous.
That is my interpretation of the meaning of the Socratic principle: knowledge
is virtue.
This is a plausible interpretation of Socrates’ argument in the Apology. When the oracle at Delphi says that Socrates is the wisest man in Athens, Socrates insists that he does not have the kind of wisdom that he takes the sophists to be claiming to have when they offer to teach virtue for a fee. In order to find out what the oracle meant, Socrates explains, he went about cross examining various kinds of respected figures in Athens about the nature of wisdom, and he found in each case that they did not have the wisdom that they claimed to have. How he showed this might be called “Socrates’ open-question argument,” because when they explained their wisdom about goodness, he was always able to point out that there was some question about whether it was really good. In the end, the only wisdom that Socrates admits to having is knowing that he does not have knowledge. But in the context of the Apology, it is clear that what he means is a knowledge about the nature of goodness that would make one virtuous, that is, the kind of wisdom that the sophists claimed to have by promising to teach virtue. Thus, the merely human wisdom that Socrates does have, which he describes by saying that he knows he does not have knowledge, can be expressed more positively as knowledge about what wisdom is, namely, that it is knowledge about the nature of goodness that would make one virtuous. That is the kind of wisdom that Socrates takes philosophy to be the love of.
Our way of closing Moore’s question is also, therefore, a way of giving Socrates the wisdom that he sought as a philosopher, or lover of wisdom. It explains not only what is good for the rational subject, but it also explains why it is good and, thus, gives the rational being a sufficient reason to choose it. The good is what contributes to one’s own natural perfection as a rational subject, and what makes the good good is that it contributes to one’s own natural perfection. The answer that Socrates was seeking is the same answer that Moore was denying was possible, namely, a self-understanding by reason that reveals how reason is related to a kind of perfection that is appropriate to the nature of what exists (including himself) in a spatiomaterial world like ours.
Thus, since ontological philosophy can explain the goodness
of all the goals that we believe that rational beings pursue, it succeeds
in doing what Plato tried to do for Socrates by taking an epistemological
approach to philosophy. It vindicates Socrates’ merely human wisdom by showing
that there is, indeed, a kind of goodness the knowledge of whose nature would
make a rational being virtuous. But instead of being The Good Itself (the
source of the other Forms in the realm of Being, according to Plato) what
makes things good is the natural perfection that is entailed by progressive
evolution, when evolution is explained as a global regularity caused ontologically
by reproductive cycles and space.
Within this ontological
theory, however, let me mention a way in which it might seem that Moore’s
question is still open and significant (and Socrates’ quest is not fulfilled),
though it comes from failing to recognize the nature of natural perfection.
What generally makes Moore’s question significant when asked about other naturalistic
definitions of “good” is that there are always ways that it could turn out
that something that satisfies the naturalistic definition is not good because
of some larger context in which it occurs where it is bad. That is, I assume,
how Socrates was able to cast doubt on the wisdom about virtue that other
Athenians claimed to have. But that is not possible, because of the way in
which "good" is defined by ontological philosophy, that is, how
it explains the nature of goodness ontologically.
In the case of hedonism, for example, Moore points out that, although defining “good” as pleasure seems plausible at first, we discover that the definition is faulty when we see that it makes sense to ask, But is pleasure good? That question makes sense because we know there are situations in which pleasure is bad. (Socrates uses this argument as well.)
But Moore’s question cannot be significant in an analogous way when applied to our definition of “good,” because there is no larger context in which what contributes to natural perfection can turn out to be bad. All the forms of natural perfection fit together as parts of the overall structure of natural perfection as a single, spatio-temporal whole, and thus, whatever is good by virtue of contributing to some form of natural perfection is good by virtue of contributing to the natural perfection of the whole. That is the unity of goodness on this theory.
It is true that what is good for one organism can be bad for another, as we have seen in the case of the predator and its prey. Eating another animal is good for the predator and bad for the prey. But this is not an ultimate conflict, because the predator catching the prey is good for the ecology, that is, contributes to the natural perfection of the ecology (not to mention how it contributes to the natural perfection of life or to the natural perfection of change).
Nor does Moore’s question become significant by wondering whether the natural perfection within which everything else is good might turn out to be bad in a still larger context, like a perfect murder or perfect tyranny. The overall structure of natural perfection includes spatially a whole planet or, perhaps eventually, a whole planetary system, and temporally, the whole course of evolution. Its larger context is the rest of the universe, with all its other stars and galaxies. But there is nothing about the large scale structure of the universe that could possibly make natural perfection bad. What we know about the rest of the universe is that evolution will follow the same course on any other suitable planet, and that can hardly make evolution in our planetary system bad. On the contrary, given the vast reaches of space separating planetary systems, the rest of the universe seems, at worst, to be indifferent to what happens on any one planet (or planetary system). It is meaningless to suggest there is some larger context in which natural perfection is bad.
There is, however, a way in which it does make sense to ask, Is what contributes to natural perfection good? But it is not a way that supports belief in a naturalistic fallacy. One could be asking if there isn’t something more to goodness, some further story to be told about its nature that is not included in the definition. That surely makes sense. What is good by our definition could be good for other reasons as well. I suggest something like that below. But what is relevant here is that the possibility of such a deeper explanation of the nature of goodness does not supply any reason to doubt that what contributes to our natural perfection is good. It merely adds to the story about why the good, so defined, is good. And far from supporting the claim that there is a logical fallacy about defining “good” naturalistically, it presupposes the possibility of such a naturalistic explanation.
There is, therefore, no naturalistic fallacy. G. E. Moore’s mistake was to infer from his own inability to find a naturalistic definition of “good” that would close his “open question” to the conclusion that there can be none. He promoted his inability to think of a naturalistic definition into a logical fallacy. But as we have seen, there is a naturalistic property to which “good” might be referring that does close his question, at least, if evolution is caused by reproduction. (The same holds for Ayer.)
In fact, the nature of the property, goodness, may also explain
why Moore saw “good” as referring to a simple, non-natural property. Goodness
may seem to be a simple property, for the goodness of anything actually depends
on how it is part of a unique kind of structure that is as large as the planet,
at least. That is why “good” cannot be defined by any set of physical properties
that characterize the local objects, events and conditions that are said to
be good.[1] And goodness seems
to be non-natural, since to be good means that it ought to exist, and unless
one understands the nature of the natural perfection in the world and recognizes
oneself to be part of it, it is hard to see how any naturalistic property
could call for things that have it to exist. Thus, by closing his open question,
not only does this view of goodness show, on Moore’s own turf, that there
is no naturalistic fallacy, but it also explains why Moore takes it to be
a simple, non-natural property. It seems to be a simple, non-natural property
because it is actually the most complex, natural property.
The autonomy of reason, as we have seen, makes
the subjects who have the power of reason basically different from all other
multicellular animals. It enables them to do what is good because they believe
that it is good, and thus, in addition to goals that control conditions that
affect their own reproduction as individuals, they can pursue goals that are
good in virtue of contributing to the natural perfection of other evolving
things or to artificial perfection, such as works of art. And since rational
subjects will inevitably choose to pursue them, we have assumed that such
goals are good for the rational subject when she chooses to pursue them. That
is how we introduced the notion of optional goals for rational beings. But
now that the issue arises for practical reason, it might be asked whether
rational subjects ought to pursue optional goals.
Reason is autonomous, because it is the new,
language-based behavior guidance system that takes over control of animal
behavior as primitive spiritual animals evolve into rational spiritual animals.
The animal desire to submit to the leader’s instructions becomes the desire
to submit to the conclusions of practical reason, and thus, reason wrests
control of behavior from (other) animal desires (that is, from control by
the goal selection system of the multicellular animal behavior guidance system).
That is, as we have seen, what makes it possible for the rational subject
to puruse what she believes are necessary goals of individual self interest,
even when it is opposed by strong immediate desires. But since reason works
by enabling the subject to intend and actually do what she believes is
good, it also enables her to pursue goals beyond those that control conditions
that affect her individual reproduction, or optional goals.
Optional goals include all goals that are good for other reproducing structures, the ecology, life, or change because of how they contribute to their natural perfection, as well as what is good in virtue of contributing to artificial perfection. They include, for example, doing good for other individual rational beings (beyond what is required by morality, that is, as supererogation), making contributions to culture (beyond the normal rational interest in knowing the good, the true and the beautiful), serving the interest of one’s spiritual animal (beyond duty), doing good for other spiritual animals, for the ecology, for life, or for evolution generally. And optional goals include creating or enjoying works of art, including not only works of fine art, but also the aesthetic aspect of one’s daily life.
It is good to pursue optional goals, however, only insofar as necessary goals are already being attained. Necessary goals take priority over optional goals. But the power of reason is so great that rational beings are often in situations where they are able to control more conditions in the world than what affects their individual reproduction, and they spend their extra rational action on optional goals. The choice of such goals is what makes them good for the rational subject. But as rational subjects, they cannot choose to pursue any goal unless they believe (correctly or mistakenly) that it is already good in some way, that is, by contributing to the natural or artificial perfection of something. The autonomy of reason is the power to do what they believe is good, not the power to act arbitrarily or capriciously.
The natural (or artificial) perfection of other things in the world is often something that rational subjects can detect, because rational imagination enables rational subjects to see the actual against the background of the possible and that can reveal ways in which the whole is an optimal part-whole relation. The rational interest in beauty is also what enables rational subjects to see how best to control all the conditions that affect their individual reproduction, not to mention what enables them to judge what is true. It plays the same role in the choice of optional goals and pursuing them.
When a rational subject pursues an optional goal, she is guided by the perception of what is good for something other than herself, that is, by her perception of how it contributes to some other natural perfection. The judgment of what it is good to do is disinterested, because it depends of her belief about what is good for it. This is true even in the case of a work of art. What is good for the work of art is not what contributes to the natural perfection of something that is already evolving, because it does not even exist until the artist chooses to create it. But it does have an optimal part-whole relation, which is called beauty, and thus, it is like natural perfection and recognized by rational imagination in the same way. Artists testify that, as the work of art grows, it “calls for” certain additions so that the artist is merely ministering to its needs. That is the sense in which works of art imitate nature: the beauty of art is the imitation of the natural perfection found in nature. It is artificial perfection.
To say that rational subjects can choose to do what is good because they believe that it is good, even when it does not control relevant conditions, is not to deny that they may also have a desire to pursue that goal. It is only to say that the desire to pursue the goal is not what makes it good.
Desire may prompt the choice of one optional goal over another, for example, when the desire to listen to music leads one to become a musician or even just to listen to music. But that is not what makes the goal good. What makes it good is that what one is listening to or adding to the whole makes an essential contribution to the optimal part-whole relation of the work of art itself. Likewise, a benevolent desire may prompt her to take an interest in the good of someone else, but what makes the rational subject’s actions in pursuit of it good is not how it satisfies that benevolent desire, but how it contributes to the other’s natural perfection and, by doing so, contributes to her own natural perfection.
Moreover, once one has chosen music, say, as an optional goal, the desire that is the source of the enjoyment one gets from pursuing it is not merely the desire that prompted the choice in the first place. What the rational subject learns about its natural perfection in pursuing the optional goal transforms that desire. Not only does she come to enjoy new aspects of music, or whatever the object, but she also enjoys them for other reasons, having to do with how they contribute to the natural perfection of the whole. The desire that is being satisfied is ultimately the desire to submit to reason, though given how reason grows and matures with the rational pursuit of optional goals, it might be better called the desire to enjoy the power of reason.
It is the nature of rational imagination that leads us, as we have seen, to appreciate aesthetic goodness. The perception of beauty is implicitly the recognition of perfection, and that is what accounts for our response to it. In perceiving that nothing can be done to make it better, reason would have us leave it as it is and simply enjoy it.
However, if goals are not good because they satisfy desire, but rather because of the relevant conditions they control, as our ontological explanation of goodness and our functional explanation of desire imply, one might doubt that optional goals are good at all. Since they do not control conditions that affect the rational subjects reproduction as an individual, what makes them good?
It is clear that optional goals are not good for rational subjects
in the same way that the goals of behavior in other multicellular animals
are good for them, because the attainment of optional goals does not control
“relevant conditions” in the sense of conditions that affect the rational
subject’s reproduction as an individual. Controlling them does not necessarily
make the individual better able to reproduce. Thus, ontological philosophy
cannot explain why optional goals are good for the individual in exactly the
same way as it does necessary goals.
Ontological
philosophy does, however, imply that it is good for rational beings to pursue
optional goals, because it explains the nature of goodness as contributing
to natural perfection, not necessarily as contributing to its own maximum
power to control conditions that affect its own reproduction. The latter is
merely how the power to contribute to natural perfection is usually brought
into being in a spatiomaterial world like ours.
The power of reason makes rational subjects essentially different from other multicellular animals, indeed, from all other organisms (except spiritual animals), and that means that their natural perfection is different from other animals. Though other organisms can only evolve behavior (and other structural effects) that control conditions that affect their own reproduction, that limitation is lifted in the case of rational beings, because reason guides behavior as a result of a cultural evolution of arguments that discover the true, the good and the beautiful. It is a behavior guidance system that is able to tell what is good more generally than by pursuing goals dictated by the biological behavior guidance system and what can evolve biologically by natural selection. It enables rational subjects to do what is good simply because they believe that it is good. Furthermore, since reason often gives rational beings more power than they need to control relevant conditions, the natural perfection of rational beings is not just the maximum power to control all conditions that affect individual reproduction. It is the maximum power to control conditions generally that are good.
In other words, the fact that a power to contribute to natural perfection does not evolve by making the organism better able to complete its own reproductive cycle does not imply that it is not good. Reproductive causation is merely what is usually responsible for the existence of such powers in the world. And if at later stakes in evolution, organisms acquire powers of that kind without being naturally selected for having them, that does not mean that they are not good. Given the nature of goodness, any contribution to the natural perfection of the whole of which something is part is good, regardless how it comes to exist in the world. That is something that reason enables the rational subject to recognize, though that is not why reason evolved in the first place.
Perfection is an optimal part-whole relation in which the whole does the most with the least, and in the case of natural perfection, it is an optimal part-whole relation in which the whole has as much power to use free energy to control what happens in the world with the fewest and simplest structural causes as possible. In the case of reason, the structural causes are the sources of rational action, that is, the use of practical arguments to guide one’s behavior toward the good. Thus, the optimum cannot be a matter of using the fewest and simplest structural causes to attain some given ends, for there is a fixed supply of structural causes, namely, all the behavior of a rational subject over her lifetime. In this case, the part-whole relation does more with less by using the structural causes already available to do more, that is, to control more of what happens in the world.
Nor is there any question about what counts as more or less control of what happens in the world, because optional goals are goals that control conditions that contribute to natural (or artificial) perfection in some way or other. Though they may not control conditions that affect one’s own reproduction, optional goals are not arbitrary or random changes in the world. They are not chosen by reason unless they are seen as contributing to the natural perfection of some other organism, to some other form of natural perfection, such as the ecology or evolution, or to an artificial perfection that imitates natural perfection, such as works of art.
Thus, the natural perfection of rational beings is more like the natural perfection of life than the natural perfection of organisms. New levels of part-whole complexity in the structures of reproducing organisms contribute to the natural perfection of life not because they control conditions that are already relevant to reproduction, but rather because their higher level of organization makes new conditions relevant and brings new conditions under control, extending the power of life as such to control what happens in the world. Likewise, what contributes to the natural perfection of reason is what increases the power to control what happens in the world, not to control conditions that are relevant to its own reproduction. In both cases, however, the new conditions brought under control are not arbitrary, but are good because they contribute to natural (or artificial) perfection in some way.
Rational subjects ought, therefore, to choose optional goals and pursue them. Though the optional goals themselves are not necessary, it is a necessary goal of rational subjects to pursue some optional goals or others, if they have the extra power to do so. It contributes to their natural perfection as rational subjects, even though those goals do not control conditions that are relevant to their own reproduction. The pursuit of optional goals is, therefore, good for rational subjects.
Thus, it is possible for ontological philosophy to answer G. E. Moore’s doubts about the possibility of any such naturalistic explanation of the goodness of optional goals in the same way as it did necessary goals. To a rational subject who understands her nature as a rational subject and her place in the natural world, it simply does not make sense to ask, But is contributing to one’s own natural perfection good?
The pursuit of optional goals is also part of the wisdom that
Socrates was seeking, because this ontological explanation of the nature of
goodness explains why optional goals are good for the rational subject. And
the pursuit of any optional goal that one has chosen is good, because the
pursuit of optional goals is good for rational beings and this goal is the
one that the rational subject has chosen.
