Good, Justice, Ethics, Reason, Virtue
TOPIC ARISTOTLE GO THE OLD TESTAMENT GO THE NEW TESTAMENT GO THE KORAN GO IMMANUEL KANT GO GEORG W. F. HEGEL GO CHARLES DARWIN GO ERNST CASSIRER GO
Good
Truthful
Just
Lawful
Fair
  
Ethics.

" . . . [J]ust means lawful and fair; and unjust means both unlawful and unfair."1a

" . . . [V]irtue ensures the correctness of the end at which we aim, and prudence that of the means towards it."1b

The Old Testament.

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness." [Genesis 1:3-4]1a*

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." [Genesis 2:17]1b

"When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness." [Job 30-26]1c

The New Testament.

"Ye shall know them by their fruits. . . 
[E]very good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit."  [St. Matthew 7:16-18]1a*

"[Jesus] . . . said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man . . . 
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
And shall cast them into a furnace of fire . . .
Then shall the righteous shine forth . . . "
[St. Matthew 13:37-43]1b

"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great . . . " [St. Luke 6:35]1c

" . . . [T]o him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." [James 4:17]1d

 

 

The Koran.

"He that does a good deed shall be repaid tenfold; but he that does evil shall be rewarded only with evil." [The Heights 6:160]1a

Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals.

" . . . [Reason's] true function must be to produce a will which is good, not as a means to some further end, but in itself . . . "1a*

The Philosophy of History.

"This is the seal of the absolute and sublime destiny of man - that he knows what is good and what is evil; that his Destiny is his very ability to will either good or evil . . . "1a*

The Origin of Species.

"Man selects only for his own good . . . "1a

The Myth of the State.

"God is a person - and that means a will. No mere logical methods of arguing and reasoning can make us understand this will. . . It is from God himself, from the revelation of his will, not from dialectic, that man has to learn good and evil."1a

* Italics in the original.

1 Aristotle. The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean EthicsTranslated by J.A.K. Thomson, 1953. Revised with Notes and Appendices by Hugh Tredennick, 1976. Introduction and Bibliography by Jonathan Barnes, 1976. London, England: Penguin Books Ltd.
a Book V: Justice, at 172.
b Book VI: Intellectual Virtues, at 222.

1 The Holy Bible. The Old Testament. King James Version. London, England: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1957.
a Genesis 1:3-4.

b Genesis 2:17.
c Job 30-26.
1 The Holy Bible. The New Testament. King James Version. London, England: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1957.
a St. Matthew 7:16-18.

b St. Matthew 13:37-43.
c St. Luke 6:35.
d James 4:17.
1 The Koran. Translated, with Notes, by N.J. Dawood. N.J. Dawood, 1956, 1959, 1966, 1968, 1974, 1990, 1993. London, England: Penguin Books Ltd.
a The Heights 6:160.
1 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785). Translated and Analyzed by H.J. Paton. New York, NY: Harper and Row, Publishers, Incorporated. (Originally published under the title The Moral Law, Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., London, 1948.)
a The function of reason, at 62-64.
1 G. W. F. Hegel. The Philosophy of History. Translated by J. Sibree. Prefaces by Charles Hegel and J. Sibree. Introduction by C.J. Friedrich. New York, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1956.
a Introduction, at 34.
1 Charles Darwin (1809-1882). The Origin of Species (1859). In Darwin, Philip Appleman (ed.), 2nd ed., New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1970, 1979.
a Natural Selection; Or the Survival of the Fittest, at 56.
1 Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945). The Myth of the State. Yale University Press, 1946. Henry Cassirer and Anne Applebaum, 1974. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
a The Religious and Metaphysical Background of the Medieval Theory of the State, at 82.