It does not appear especially difficult to find what we are now seeking. We have just given the total array of uses to which this word is put, and we have also reduced that array to some measure of coherence by means of our five classes. Is it not, indeed, a matter of the commonest observation just what conduct human beings manifest when they use the term “good” and signify thereby what is included in Class A? It will be recalled that this class includes “that which is useful, fit, serviceable, and the like, for any purpose whatsoever.” Keeping our eye upon the specific behavior patterns implied by this class of “good,” we may now venture the following mechanistic interpretation: When a man is ready to perform any action, he calls anything GOOD which assists or furthers that particular action-tendency. Or, the same thing may be conveyed in the following words: Any stimulus that evokes a response we are ready to make we are wont to call good.
Any picture of the human race that one may draw furnishes evidence of the cogency of this definition. The child calls candy “good,” not because he knows that sugar is muscle food, but simply because he craves it, and sucks it in his mouth with avidity. This mode of speech he got long ago from his parents. His wanting the candy makes it “good” to him when he gets it, because the candy is a stimulus that evokes a response he was ready to make. The boy of ten wants a top that will spin like those which the other boys have, and he calls his a “good” top, when it satisfies the action-pattern which he has been developing. The rough youth of seventeen gives his bullying chum a “good” punch in the eye, by which he again means that the action-tendency he was covertly developing toward him has been provided a chance to expand into a full excitation. The college man of twenty-two calls a dance tune a “good” one, when, by its rhythmic effects it induces him to caper and relax, and satisfy his semi-sexual tendencies in public. And the old man of sixty-five often speaks of his wife as a “good” woman, because she has always had his dinner ready for him piping hot when, upon coming home, his whole alimentary system was keyed up to perform elaborate acts of chewing and swallowing. These and countless other cases, taken from every hour of the day and night, fully support the mechanistic interpretation which we have just given. But mark, that no question is in place here as to whether all such persons ought to use the word “good” in such connections. The fact that they do use it is, for the present, the only essential item to be considered in an empirical science of human conduct.
Just as when we enquired into the basic nature of antonyms, we carried our investigation a little below the surface of the organism, so may we here carry on a similar study to advantage. It is obvious that the readiness with which we respond to the objects called “good” is necessarily dependent upon the integrity of certain internal mechanisms, which, though never observed in their uninterrupted working, have nevertheless been deduced from a multitude of scientific investigations. Moreover, it has been discovered that every response we make is chiefly a function of the muscular and nervous systems of the body. How, indeed, would a child reach out for candy unless his arm were an extensible hinge, and how could it be extended unless something, namely, his triceps muscle, pulled on the radial bone, and how also could the muscle contract, unless a motor nerve from the spinal cord were stimulated to perform this specific activity? We do not, of course, specify that the definition of “good” be restricted to imply only this particular set of facts, but on the other hand we stipulate that this significant mechanism be not lost sight of by him who seeks without prejudice to understand how ethical concepts originate. Even more specific information than this is now available. Any muscle that is ready to contract (or, as the vitalist would say, to do Psyche’s bidding in attaining Homo’s good) is said to be in a condition of tonus or elastic tension. So far, then, as the muscles are concerned, the “good” of Class A implies a normal muscular tonus, which can, under the proper conditions, be developed into a full contraction. Physicians know that in both of the abnormal conditions of tetanus and contractured tonus, the organism cannot obtain some of the things which are essential for its adaptation of the world about it. The possession of a normal muscular tonus is, then, an ethical desideratum of no mean importance.
Every such muscular contraction as we have just described is brought about by means of a nervous impulse, originating at a receptor organ, either external or internal, which impulse proceeds toward a muscle or a group of muscles. However, this impulse (which in a sense may be thought of as a desire on its way to fulfilment), is often subject to a rather eventful history of interruptions before it finally produces muscular action. Between the individual nervous strands along the pathway of its motion the impulse may encounter blockades, unless electrically charged particles (called ions) are present at the various gaps in considerable numbers. Here again, then, we reach a further refinement in our understanding of what one class of “good” means. The “permeability of the synapses” (to use a phrase descriptive of the above situation), thus becomes a large determinant in human action. And if one of the classes of our concept is definable in terms of actions that are facilitated, the light which neurology throws upon ethics is not to be despised.
Our next adventure is the search for the various implications of the term “good” as employed with respect to Class B. This class, as previously stated, involves the general notion of dependability. Things of this class are nominally useful, fit, or serviceable, not merely with reference to the desire of the moment, but also and more particularly they are useful for the future also. Nevertheless, this phrase, “useful for the future,” must be taken to mean “imagined as continuously or continually useful,” for although we commonly regard tomorrow as a sort of package that is coming to us in the mail, it is strictly something not yet existing and consequently unreal. Just as William James said, “The feeling of past time is a present feeling,” so is the feeling of dependability here to be interpreted not as a property of objects, but as a condition of the organism. And, while no incontrovertible evidence of the nature of such a condition has yet been brought to light, it is directly in line with the facts as we know them to assert that the “good” included in Class B implies both a maintenance of muscular tone and a steady permeability of the synaptic membranes involved in the action-patterns aroused by the things we keep calling “good.” To which we might also safely add, that the receptor organ requisite for initiating such an energy transformation has also become so attuned to receiving the stimulus as to show what the psychologists call a lowered threshold. Suppose we now condense this whole account, and state it more pointedly by saying that Class B refers to those objects that produce the responses for which the organism has mobilized its maximum available energies. Some of these dependable “goods” may thus imply habitual responses, while others may simply imply a craving long denied its overt satisfaction. And I doubt not that between these two extremes every man can find his own “highest good.”
In passing, it might be pertinent to remark that the “good” implied by Class B is always life-enhancing, were it not for the fact that this obtrudes a standard not warranted by all users of this term. For the snap judgment (or even the pondered conclusion) of an exceedingly great number of people makes money the chief dependable “good,” that of others puts friends and companions in this category, while with fewer still knowledge is so regarded. Some of these things do not always turn out to be life-enhancing,—time, place, circumstance, and the ductless glands alter the assumed value of any such hypothesis. Hence “good” has been here defined simply in terms of what the organism is doing, and not in terms of any spurious teleological principle. Empirical science has no books to balance. He who watches a little closely will see that as far as conduct reveals it (which is, indeed, very far), all sorts of things that are not particularly life-enhancing are chosen hourly as the “highest goods” in the sense of being greedily and furiously pursued. Sexual excitement, drug-taking, gourmandizing, idling, and the latest styles in clothing vie with any and all of these soberer values for first place in the attention of numberless people. And while many a man may choose for himself, yet none can choose for all.
Class B includes skilful and kind persons as objects to which the term “good” is customarily applied. No new difficulties confront our attempt to pronounce the physiological implications of our concept as thus employed, even if we are obliged to alter to some slight extent our previous point of view. The skilful man is called “good” simply because he does or can mobilize his energy to produce something which is regarded as useful, fit, or serviceable. Likewise, the skilful or kind person is one who may be counted on to assist in maintaining, restoring, or increasing any state of things that is regarded as desirable. And we who employ the concept “good” to praise or encourage such a man insinuate that the same mobilization of energy is going on within us. Indeed, as could be readily shown, all perceptions of persons involve an imitative or empathic response. That is why skill and virtuosity of all sorts are agreeable to behold. They furnish numerous outlets for subconscious action-tendencies.
As regards Class C, the concept “good” points to “that which fulfils expectation,” that is, the normal or typical thing. These words “normal” and “typical” (“implying the existence of characteristic qualities”) are related to the word “good” by means of the conditioned reflex. Our experience with all such things as motor-cars, for example, involves not only cognition, but eventually discrimination and comparison as well. Thereafter, when we hear of a good motor-car, we think of such a one as we have been trained to regard as capable of a certain kind of performance. The same thing holds with respect to all other objects and persons concerning whom we have become discriminative. “Good,” thus employed, seems to imply that energy is being mobilized to perform selective activity, and also that the sense organs have become specially attuned to receive a specific stimulus. The “good” cat is not any old beast of the back alley, but a mouser with a certain number of catches to her credit. The “good” grocer (that is, supposedly normal) is one who gives full weight and makes prompt deliveries. Moreover, there is implicit in all such uses of this value predicate some reference to that dependability which was discussed in connection with Class B. Here, then, we may state that Class C implies the mobilization of energy for the performance of such action as will maintain our physical or mental equilibrium. And this, physiologically speaking, is ultimately a matter of the progressive coordination of reflexes and the maintenance of muscular tone.
The objects referred to by class D are those which greatly or even suddenly exceed expectation, whence, as has been hinted before, the signification of our concept frequently approaches that of an expletive. Let us see what physiological mechanisms provide this shade of meaning. It is generally realized that not only do our successes and failures, our disappointments and satisfactions attune our neuro-muscular mechanism to respond to the typical or normal thing by calling it “good,” but these same successes and failures may also whet our appetite for things which, by exceeding the average, shall make up for those experiences which have been especially disappointing. All normal protoplasm is insatiable for the maximum success. And hunger of any sort, physiologically speaking, may be described as a condition in which the motor mechanism is activated to greater efforts than usual in order to relieve the condition of want. Consequently, the physiological implications of the concept “good” may be made as precise with respect to Class D as with any of the preceding classes. The action-patterns implied by this class are those which are exhibited by anyone when, after long privation, the tensions he has accumulated are suddenly relieved by the appearance of the desired stimulus. Indeed, such action-patterns may sometimes be described as rapacity, as is illustrated in the case of our crying out “Good!” when some misfortune has befallen a particularly annoying prig.
The physiological implications of the term “good” as regards Class E have already been sufficiently hinted in our delineation of that class. Moreover, the surprise, shock, and spasm which it connotes prevent its having an important rôle to play in our judgments of value.