summum bonum
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈsʌməm ˈboʊnəm/
- Formal
:
summum bonum
- This leads Locke to apparently deny that there is any summum bonum:
Examples
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And if so, government cannot properly enforce a single summum bonum for all individuals, but it can properly enforce the conditions for people to have the liberty to pursue their summum bonum in the natural and voluntary associations of society.
Blog text (7) -
And yet West rightly points to another passage in the Essay where Locke says that human beings "are both concerned and fitted to search out their summum bonum" (IV.12.11).
Blog text (7) -
And doing all that was the summum bonum, she had thought.
Fiction book (1991) -
But it had certainly not been the summum bonum.
Fiction book (1991) -
But if the appropriate ranking or organization of these generic goods varies according to the temperament, talents, and circumstances of different individuals, then each individual has a distinctive summum bonum.
Blog text (7) -
Virtue is not directly a consideration, which may dismay social conservatives, but neither is the libertarians' and liberals' summum bonum of personal autonomy.
Academic text (1997) -
Many Straussians object, however, that Locke breaks fundamentally with Aristotle and Aquinas in denying that there is any natural summum bonum for human life.
Blog text (7) -
And if so, government cannot properly enforce a single summum bonum for all individuals, but it can properly enforce the conditions for people to have the liberty to pursue their summum bonum in the natural and voluntary associations of society.
Blog text (7) -
"In this passage," West observes, "Locke admits that there is a summum bonum—not one single good for everyone, to be sure, but a genuine highest good for each person" (37).
Blog text (7) -
In moral philosophy, the summum bonum is considered the ultimate goal that all values derive from.
Synonyms
6
7.6
The most important thing or main aim
2
6.8
The most important goal or purpose of something
Surface Forms
Morphology
summum + bonum
Although the phrase is Latin, its meaning is directly compositional: 'summum' = highest/supreme and 'bonum' = good, so together they yield 'the supreme/highest good.' If a B1 learner knows the constituent meanings (or recognizes cognates in Romance languages), the overall sense is immediately derivable rather than idiomatic or metaphorical.
Etymology
Summum bonum comes from Latin: summum means 'highest' and bonum means 'good'. The idea is the very top of what is good, so the phrase means the single 'supreme good' or main goal people try to reach in life.