The Root of The Basic Goods

This episode defines and lists the basic goods associated with each dimension which we should never harm and generally work towards promoting.  Basic goods are goods or ends that should not be instrumental to another good.  In other words, these should not be used to serve other ends.  A list of basic goods includes life, health, knowledge, work, play, aesthetic experience, friendship, marriage, personal integrity, and harmony with the divine.  

The biologic dimension includes life and health while friendship, marriage, work, and play reside in the social dimension.  Harmony with the divine is solely in the spiritual dimension while knowledge and aesthetic experience may either be in the spiritual or the social depending upon whether it is transcendent or not.  Personal integrity is left for the psychologic dimension and reflects a life well lived or the Greek word eudaimonia.

We get into trouble through the psychosocial dyad of dimensions where we mis-prioritize or disorder the goods.  We make some instrumental goods basic goods while relegating other basic goods to instrumental status.  This disordering of goods then puts things out of balance and since some basic goods are harmed this prevents them from working optimally together in harmony.  

References

The Way of Medicine by Drs. Farr Curlin and Christopher Tollefsen 

Practical Principles, Moral Truth, and Ultimate Ends by John M. Finnis, Germain Grisez and Joseph Boyle

This actual list of basic goods I use is from Christopher Tollefsen’s article in Public Discourse entitled Practical Reason, Basic Goods, and Natural Law

The relationship between human flourishing and money is extensively addressed by Ed Diener and Martin E.P. Seligman in their article Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being and Ed Diener wrote a much shorter article summarizing their findings in his article Income and Happiness

E-mail for comments and questions at: Rootsofflourishing@gmail.com