XXVII. The Unhistorical Deduction of the Concept of “Good”For all their good spirits, the English psychologists failed in their attempt to understand the concept of “good.” They gave an historical explanation of the origin of the concept. Originally, the on-egoistic acts of people are praised and called “good” by their recipients because they found them to be useful to themselves. Then the origin of the praise was forgotten and it became simply routine to praise non-egoistic acts. That which is merely useful to the recipient is erroneously called “good in itself.” The results of the English psychologists are a devaluation of the proudest values of humanity but they do not think historically, because they reflect the idiosyncratic categories of the psychologists; utility, forgetting, routine, and error.
The error of the English psychologists lies in locating the source of the concept “good” in the sentiments of the recipients of actions. Instead, its origin lies in the valuation given by “the noble, mighty, highly placed, and the high minded” to their own actions. A “good action” belongs “to the highest rank, in contradistinction to all that was base, low and plebeian.” A “bad action” is one undertaken out of baseness. This contrast between the actions of the nobles and that of the base depends on the “pathos of distance,” the feeling of superiority of the “higher” over the “lower.” There is no element of utility here, as the noble values spring from their passions, rather from any cool calculation. Nor is there any reason to call “good” with actions hat are not undertaken egoistically, as the herd would have it.
