What is good, and how do we define goodness?

The passing of a great pope promotes thoughts about goodness, and what constitutes it. What is goodness? And, for that matter, what is good itself? Joseph Addison was quite clear: ‘Music is the greatest good that mortals know.’ But among the greatest evils of our time, I would put pop music, its idols, its drugs and its diabolic possession of tender susceptible youth high on the list, certainly among the top ten. Edmund Burke was equally sure: ‘Good order is the foundation of all good things.’ That is arguable, anyway, though most dictators would support it ex officio. And all good things? Surely not. Most poetry, art and literature spring from disorder. Art is itself an ordering process. Of course, if you put the stress on ‘good’, then good order is an end in itself, not a foundation. But that is not what Burke said, and how could he, being a Whig and devoting his life to reform? It is of the essence of reform that it disturbs order, even good order.

Good, and goodness, are more easily illustrated than defined. Shelley thought the essence of good was powerlessness. In Prometheus Unbound he has a pregnant little triplet:

The good want power, but to weep barren tears.
The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.
The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom.

But to assert that the powerful can never be good is to eliminate all rulers, including popes, not least John Paul II, who in many ways disposed of considerable power, strove earnestly (and often successfully) to do good, and brought to that task both love and wisdom which, pace Shelley, are not incompatible but promote each other. It is true that power corrupts and, having corrupted, promotes evil; and where power becomes absolute, the evil becomes absolute too.