good-in-itself

Updated: May 26, 2025

From the idea of good-in-itself, i.e., Order, flow all duty, right, obligation, morality, and natural legislation. He carries the idea of Order still farther back to the Deity, making it the expression of the divine thought, and opening up the religious side of morality; but he does not mean that its obligatoriness as regards the reason is thereby increased.

Alexander Bain - Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics