Right and Good

What do we mean by taking the right action? That we are acting “in accord with what is just, good, or proper.”6 We take a right action by correctly applying a principle (norm, premise, presupposition, rule, standard, or law).7

We offer reasons to justify the principle and its application. We do our duty, or act to protect a person’s rights. For instance, we

might assert that not littering in a public park is right, because we have a duty to respect the rights of others who use the park.

By being a good person, we mean that a person is “virtuous.”8 Being good involves having the character and personal qualities that we justify by reason as having moral worth. The traditional word for such character traits is virtues.

I believe that gratitude, integrity, and frugality are important virtues for environmental ethics.  Would a person who is grateful for the beauty of the flowers in a park throw a candy wrapper in the flowerbed? Not if he has integrity. 

Saying someone is the right person for a job means that we think the person will do a good job, but in this statement the adjectives right and good have nothing to do with ethics. The phrase “good science,” which appears in debates about climate change, does not refer to an ethical presumption, but to relying on proper procedures in scientific research. 

As ethics concerns how we ought to live together, our goal is “a good society.” No one argues that our goal is “a right society” or “the right society.” Also, we speak of “the common good” and “good relationships,” rather than “right relationships,” to identify the ethical goals of ensuring freedom, equality, and social justice for everyone.

Both the adjectives right and good have opposites that help to define their meanings. If an action is morally wrong, it is not right, and a good person is not a bad person. (Yet, a good person may act badly.)9

Good has comparative and superlative forms (better and best), but right does not. Also, we speak of “goodness” meaning “the quality or state of being good,” but not of “rightness” although we talk of being “right.” Right takes the form of a verb, for we may try “to right a wrong,” but good does not have a verb form.

These differences in our everyday language are reflected in diverse patterns of thought in moral philosophy. Right involves an action, whereas good refers to a state of being. I suggest that the keywords duty and rights are largely concerned with right action, and that the keywords character and relationships are primarily about being good persons.

Right action and being good identify different paths on "mount ethics," and ethical theories emphasizing duty or rights branch off the “right action” path, whereas ethical theories concerning character or relationships diverge from the “being good” path. 

The words right and good are also nouns with distinctive meanings. A right refers to a moral claim that a person has against other persons. If backed by law, this moral right is a legal right.

A good is a way of being (an end, a goal) that has intrinsic moral worth, not because it is a means of realizing some other good purpose. Having respect for other persons is a good, because each person is autonomous and rational and thus should respect every other person. 

When I use the plural noun rights I am referring to legal rights, some of which are human rights under international law. Moral rights are not necessarily legal rights, and ethics has a larger concern than the law. Yet, making and enforcing law is an ethical challenge. The plural noun goods is sometimes used by moral philosophers to speak of moral values, interests, or ends. In economic theory, however, “goods” are simply commodities.

analogy to rule of law 
constructing presumptions
critical reasoning
faith and reason
environmental ethics 
ethical traditions
feelings
ethical relativism
testing presumptions

6.   Online at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right.

7.   All these nouns may have slightly different meanings, depending on the context in which they are used, but I am using them all to affirm our commonsense meaning for an ethical principle or moral standard.

8.   Online at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/good.

9.   It is important in raising children to make this distinction, so that children do not take criticism of their actions to mean that they are bad persons.

  Words that matter...

Language is the way in which humans are most different from other animals. And moral philosophy is a way of using words to represent feelings and reasons that matter to us.

Food and security matter to every animal, but non-human animals do not have a way to verify the distribution of these goods that is right, when the goods are scarce. Only humans have the language to make that ethical judgment.

Without language, animals may value a behavior because it contributes to their survival and their security. If we see a buffalo protecting its calf from a pack of wolves, we might refer to human virtues to praise the buffalo, by saying she is courageous, or being a good mother.

But we are being metaphorical in this use of our language, projecting onto animals the praise that we would use for humans in similar circumstances. Buffalo do not gather to debate the virtue of courage. But humans, with language, do this.

There would be no meaning in saying that this makes humans better than non-human animals. The comparison is nonsensical. In general, mammals and birds care for their young according to their nature, as do humans according to their nature.  The words "good" and "right" only apply, however, to human nature, which involves culture that is concerned with taking the right action and being good persons.

Therefore, I suggest we affirm our duty to animals without ascribing rights to them as individuals, as rights are claims that only humans, individually or as communities. But our duty to care for animals now involves protecting the right of endangered species to life.