In this chapter, I discuss and defend the existence of “higher goods.” In the first section, I explain what such goods would be and consider some examples that tend support their existence. The existence of such goods has been accepted by many philosophers, including Franz Brentano, Blaise Pascal, W. D. Ross, and perhaps Aristotle and John Stuart Mill. In the second section, I consider a problem that arises for the existence of higher goods if we reject certain extravagant claims that some of their defenders, such as Ross, have made about them. I argue that even if such claims are false, the existence of higher goods can be defended. The defense I offer presupposes a principle analogous to the principle of organic unities, a principle I call the “principle of rank.” In the third section, I consider briefly the importance of such goods for Mill's distinction between the quantity and quality of pleasures. In the fourth section, I discuss the importance of higher goods and the principle of summation. This discussion of higher goods, organic unities, and summation continues the discussion of these issues from the last chapter.

HIGHER GOODS

In “Overpopulation and the Quality of Life,” Derek Parfit imagines a choice between two futures, the century of ecstasy and the drab eternity. In the former, he would live for another hundred years, with a life of extremely high quality. In the latter, he would live forever a life that was barely worth living.