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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Dr. Mortimer J. Adler's
Six Great Ideas
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Socrates spoke of “real” versus “apparent goods.” Real goods are what we ought to desire whether we do in fact desire them or not.
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Editor's note:
Excerpts from Six Great Ideas are offered below, indented format; plus, at times, my own commentary.
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What ought one to desire? The answer cannot be—simply and
without qualification—that we ought to desire what is good.
We have already seen that the good is always and only the
desirable and the desirable is always and only the good. As
Plato's Socrates repeatedly pointed out, we never desire any-
thing that we do not, at the moment of desiring it, deem to be
good. Hence we must somehow find a way of distinguishing
between the goods that we rightly desire and the goods that we
wrongly desire.
We are helped to do this by the distinction that Socrates
makes between the real and the apparent good. He repeatedly
reminds us that our regarding something as good because we
in fact desire it does not make it really good in fact. It may, and
often does, turn out to be the very opposite. What appears to
be good at the time we desire it may prove to be bad for us at
some later time or in the long run. The fact that we happen to
desire something may make it appear good to us at the time,
but it does not make it really good for us.
If the good were always and only that which appears good to
us because we consciously desire it, it would be impossible to
distinguish between right and wrong desire...
It can be given content only if we can distinguish
between the apparent good (that which we call good simply
because we consciously desire it at a given moment) and the
real good (that which we ought to desire whether we do in fact
desire it or not).
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