Helen Knight and Margaret Macdonald on the meaning of ‘good’

Bibliographic Data

ID21597692
AuthorsOliver Thomas Spinney (0000-0002-5540-8914, University of London, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume33
Issue4
Pages911-929
Publication date2025-07-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0960-8788 • E-ISSN: 1469-3526
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09608788.2024.2379977
OpenAlexW4401595026
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited23

I argue that Helen Knight and Margaret Macdonald expressed views on the nature of ‘good’ in aesthetic contexts which anticipate to a striking extent the dispute between Peter Geach and R. M. Hare over ethical uses of ‘good’ several years later. I show that Knight introduced a distinction between uses of adjectives later drawn also by Geach, and that she employed that distinction, as Geach did, in order to defend a descriptivist approach to ‘good’ according to which ‘good’ is not ambiguous. I also show that Macdonald conceived of evaluative statements as commendatory, and that her conception of evaluative language therefore closely resembles the position which Hare would later advance

Epistemology · Knight · Physics · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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