Examples of Dispositions
A rose flower is perishable. Therefore, perishability of the rose flower is its impersonal property. Perishability is a trait of the rose flower that has no influx; that is, regardless of the condition or situation, nothing can be changed about that, hence qualifying to be an impersonal property.
An example of personal property is being kind. Kindness is a personal property because based on the trait, judgement can be made and also, it is easy to predict the behaviour of the person in question given a situation that requires them to be kind happens ( Goldie, 2004) . However, there is no guarantee that the person will act with kindness in a related situation, at least a more than fifty percent chance exists that they will act as expected.
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Personal property can either be a personality trait or character trait depending on whether it is reason responsive or not. For instance, Goldie (2004) asserted that being funny can either be a character trait or not depending on whether the person in question is aware of their reasons for acting funny; a person who just speaks and whatever they say makes people laugh without them being even aware that whatever they would say will be funny, and another individual who researches jokes and does standup comedy can all be referred to be funny. However, the latter is a personality trait. In this case, kindness is a character trait because it is reason responsive. Since it is a good character trait, it is a virtue.
Difference between Instrumental Good and Final Good
Good can be defined as either final or instrumental. Goldie (2004) explained that final good refers to something worthwhile and is good on its own, or rather does not lead to another good. Instrumental good on the other hand refers to something that leads to another good. For instance, education can be considered an instrumental good. Based on general observation, education leads to lucrative employment opportunities, which result to wealth and ultimately happiness. Therefore, it is something that is a means to many other goods. Final good are mostly states of consciousness such as happiness. Being happy is a final good because it is something that is good in itself and does not necessarily lead to another good; if a 'why are you happy' question is asked, there is no definite answer, instead the question is considered ambiguous.
Hutcheson's Argument
Hutcheson's statement can be broken down to 'Human beings do not solely act the way they do because there is something to gain in the aftermath.' In other words, Hutcheson always thought of the good out of people, and as such, he argued that human beings are not entirely selfish and self-interested but also have selflessness ( Hutcheson, 1729)) . Hutcheson built his argument by challenging other philosophers that if human beings were wholly selfish creatures, then every action by human beings everyday should always reflect their interest to gain something at the end, which he says is not true in the real world: some people do good for the sake of it and expecting nothing in reward. In his statement, he used a generous friend as an example: acts of kindness or closeness towards a generous friend does not necessarily mean that the motive for the actions is simply to gain or encourage the friend to give even more, but is driven by the strong bond of the friendship created.
Works Cited
Hutcheson, F. (1729). An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue... The second edition, corrected and enlarg'd . J. and J. Knapton.
Goldie, P. (2004). On personality . Routledge.
