The Good (bonum) is, in the Thomistic tradition, a transcendental property of being: everything that is, insofar as it is, is also good. The Good and being are the same in reality but differ in concept — ens et bonum convertuntur. For personal ontology this connection between being and goodness is foundational: because the person is the most perfect thing in all of nature, the highest created value of goodness also belongs to it.
The Good is at the same time that toward which the will is essentially oriented. The human being can resolve only upon the Good, or upon what appears good to it — even one who chooses evil chooses it under some aspect of the Good. In the third dimension of personhood, the morally Good is realized through the free decision to honor the Personalist Norm: to affirm the person for its own sake. Virtue is the abiding disposition to recognize and to do what is truly good.
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae I, q. 5, a. 1 (ens et bonum convertuntur).
- Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics I, 1 (the Good as the end of all striving).