Many of us travel the road from good to right. We move from premises about well-being (which is how I am using the word ‘good’) to conclusions about what morally we ought to do. That may not be the only way we reach moral conclusions. And we may not all take the straight line between the two that some utilitarians do. And we may sometimes travel in the opposite direction too. In fact, I find the road hard to make out and the flow of traffic bemusing. Hence, my choice of subject.

Constraints on the route

There seem to me to be several constraints on the route from good to right.

The nature of individual flourishing. One constraint comes out of prudential values. I use ‘prudence’ not in the ordinary sense of a due concern for one's future, but in the philosopher's broad sense of whatever has to do with one's interests. I have written about this subject elsewhere and anyway have space only to sketch a view rather than to argue for it.

Prudential deliberation leads, I think, to some such list of values as this:

1. Enjoyment.

2. The components of a characteristically human existence (that is, the components of agency: autonomy, minimum material provision, liberty).

3. Understanding (at least on certain basic personal and metaphysical matters).

4. Accomplishment (that is, the sort of achievements in one's life that give it weight or substance).

5. Deep personal relations.