Competing goods

The balance of Competing goods is a philosophical problem involving the acknowledgement of multiple social values that may at times conflict with one another.

The 20th-century philosopher Martha Nussbaum invokes Aristotle in her discussions of the problem, writing that "[T]he Aristotelian agent scrutinizes each valuable alternative, seeking out its distinct nature. She is determined to acknowledge the precise sort of value or goodness present in each of competing alternatives, seeing each value, so to speak, as a separate jewel in the crown, valuable in its own right, which does not cease to be separately valuable just because the contingencies of the situation sever it from other goods and it loses out in an overall rational choice.";[1] and that Aristotle saw that "the values that are constitutive of a good human life are plural and incommensurable".[2] Nussbaum has argued that Immanuel Kant and Thomas Aquinas were mistaken when they dismissed conflicts of obligation as illogical.[3]

Michael Jinkins, citing Isaiah Berlin, sees both Plato and Aristotle as endorsing the concept of a singular, overwhelming social good and Machiavelli's works as seminal discussions of competing social goods.[4]

The issue has arisen in the medical professions, since patients may not necessarily rank their potential cures above their other values.[5]

References
  1. Kent Greenfield (2006). The failure of corporate law: fundamental flaws and progressive possibilities. University of Chicago Press. p. 226. ISBN 978-0-226-30693-3.
  2. James Jasinski (2001). Sourcebook on rhetoric: key concepts in contemporary rhetorical studies. SAGE. ISBN 978-0-7619-0504-2.
  3. Mark R. Schwehn, Dorothy C. Bass (2006). Leading lives that matter: what we should do and who we should be. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 310. ISBN 978-0-8028-2931-3.
  4. Michael Jinkins (2004). Christianity, tolerance, and pluralism: a theological engagement with Isaiah Berlin's social theory. Volume 7 of Routledge studies in religion. Routledge. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-415-32908-8.
  5. Daryl Koehn (1994). The ground of professional ethics. Routledge. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-415-11667-1.
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