Musings on External Goods

Prosperity and leisure are two states which can be either ethically praiseworthy or not. When the natural outcome or result of an agent's behavior, they properly attract praise. As such, they are more to be desired than the mere makaria to which they devolve when the result of tuche. But even then, prosperity and leisure are mere markers of the behavior (and, more fundamentally, the intentional state/character of the agent underlying the behavior). They are, however, natural markers of the makar (as a subset of the eudaimon); they reciprocally flow from, and allow for, the fullest expression or instantiation of the aretai. Considered from this perspective, it is (potentially dangerously) misleading to dismiss them as external goods in the pejorative sense often seen in the philosophical literature. Though not ethically significant per se, it is important to remember that precious few concepts are relevant per se - the worth of ethical thought arises from applied relations. Ethical theory is a derivative of applied ethics, not vice versa.