Good and Evil according to Geach
In this article, I'd like to put forward a thesis that Peter Geach stated in his short paper Good and Evil.
Borrowing terms from grammar, I'd like to make distinction between something that is logically predicative, and logically attributive.
Logically predicative: "Is an A B" logically splits into "is an A" and "is a B."
Logically attributive: "Is an A B" cannot be logically split.
A few examples:
the phrases "X is a big flea" and "X is a small elephant" are both attributive. If they were predicative, then we could say that a big flea is a big animal and a small elephant is a small animal, leading us to conclude that a big flea is bigger than a small elephant.
"X is the possible father of Y" does not break up into "X is a father" and "X is possible." Those would both be incorrect conclusions to draw from the original phrase and even contradict it. So, it is a logically attributive phrase.
"X is a red book," however, is logically predicative. For it is correct for me to say that "X is red" and "X is a book" are both true.
Good and evil thesis: "good" and "bad" are always attributive. You cannot safely infer of a bad A what you could infer of an A. Take for instance, bad food. Just because food supports life you cannot infer that bad food also supports life. So "bad" is clearly attributive.
This is not so obvious for "good." For whatever holds true for A will (in most cases) hold true for a good A. but consider the phrases "good car" and "red car." If my farsighted but colour-blind friend sees a car in the distance and I, being more nearsighted, tell him that the distant object is red, we can conclude that there is red car. There is no possibility of ascertaining that a thing is a good car by combining independent information in this manner.
Even when we use "good" and "bad" in a grammatically predicative way, there is still some substantive that must be understood. there is no such thing as being just good or bad, there is only being a good or bad so-and-so.
But Bulgakov, I hear you ask, what is the point of this distinction? What do we gain from this distinction? More than you might imagine. If this distinction is true, than the only way to be a "good human" or to perform a "good human act" is to fulfill certain requirements that only humans can. What does this give us? Nothing short of a secular reason to support to support the Catholic view of good: a fulfillment of being human, and to regard evil as a privation. For if the only way to be a good man is to fulfill certain characteristics that only humans can, then to be evil is to be less human (to fail at being human) and to be good is to be more human (a success at being human).
In fact, this distinction leads us right to teleology, the realm of final causality. If the only way for anything to be good is to be successful at what it is essentially is, then that thing must have a telos, a purpose. This then, suggests that humans, and all other things, have a purpose as a part of their essence.
It should be kept in mind that Geach's thesis when not paired with a proper (i.e. Scholastic) ontology, leads to a sort of crude functionalism in regards to morality. For then we are left with the idea that things are only good by virtue of their definition, we settle on a form of nominalism. Geach's thesis is then interesting but does not reveal much.
Bulgakov's Behemoth