What is GOOD?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Ugh I hate duty. I think it worthless. Good doesn't value it at all. To good it's empty gesture. Like flowers to your wife religiously every Friday might be. Loveless. Without a driving force it's an empty gesture.

I disagree. Duty performs an essential function. Civil and cultural rules can be (though not always) serve as a means for learning moral behavior before one has recognized the virtue that informs the duty. For example, we teach children to say 'please' and 'thank you' before they actually feel gratitude. This habit is not meaningless, because it reinforces the idea that gratitude and respect are important in civil society and also for our own moral development.

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The trouble with that even, is that it still allows wiggle room and contradictory definitions.

For this reason, I believe Platonic ideals must work hand-in-hand with an Aristotelian approach. Each one is incomplete without the other. And because I am a believer, even these must conform to the inner sense of the Word.