"[2] And here the criterion is the same as before, and
equally subjective. In desire idea and existence are separated; they
are united in the satisfaction of desire; and approbation is said to
be just the feeling of satisfaction in an idea which is also present
(or imagined as present) in existence. Not only actual satisfaction of
the desire but also imagined satisfaction is covered by "approbation";
but this approval is still simply a feeling of some individual person.
[Footnote 1: Appearance and Reality, p. 407]
[Footnote 2: Appearance and Reality, p. 418.]
We need not concern ourselves at present with the adequacy of this
statement as an account of the way in which we come to 'approve' or
hold something as good. The point is, that it does not advance us at
all towards determining the validity of this approval, or towards an
objective criterion for distinguishing 'good' from evil.
Mr Bradley draws a distinction between a general and a more special
or restricted meaning of goodness. For the former it is enough that
existence be "_found_ to be in accordance with the idea"; for the
latter, it is necessary that the idea itself produce the fact.[1]
In the former sense "beauty, truth, pleasure, and sensation are all
things that are good,"[2] quite irrespective of their origin; in the
latter sense, only that is good which the idea has produced, or in
which it has realised itself, which is the work, therefore, of some
finite soul.
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