Anything which under one concept is good because it fulfills the concept may under another concept be bad because it does not fulfill that concept. Thus, as Spinoza observed, a good ruin is a bad house, and a good house is a bad ruin. It is the art of the optimist always to find that concept in terms of which the thing appears good, and that of the pessimist always to find that concept in terms of which the thing appears bad. The thing is always the same; optimism and pessimism appear in the art of naming and hence understanding it.
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A thing is good if it has all the properties of its concept. The proper concept of the world must contain all the natural properties there are, have been, or will be. The world is that which has all these properties and thus always fulfills its concept. Therefore it is good. If a concept of the world is posited that does no contain all the properties there are, then it is not the concept of the world, and wrong thinking results, in the light of which the world is bad because it does not fulfill the concept posited. The goodness of the world is, of course, not ethical but axiological goodness. Although the world as such is good, the things in it may, indeed must be, both good and bad; for as we have seen anything that is good under one concept may be bad under another. Badness thus is the transposition of concepts or the incompatibility of things which in themselves are good. The world, thus, axiologically good as it is, contains the maximum variety of good and bad things (cf. Leibniz's pre-established harmony).
--Robert S. Hartman
--Robert S. Hartman
