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Examples

  • Following the discussion of bonum naturae, Philip considers what he calls bonum in genere.

    Philip the Chancellor McCluskey, Colleen 2007

  • Thus, notwithstanding this seeming conflict of practical reason with itself, the summum bonum, which is the necessary supreme end of a will morally determined, is a true object thereof; for it is practically possible, and the maxims of the will which as regards their matter refer to it have objective reality, which at first was threatened by the antinomy that appeared in the connection of morality with happiness by a general law; but this was merely from a misconception, because the relation between appearances was taken for a relation of the things in themselves to these appearances.

    The Critique of Practical Reason Immanuel Kant 1764

  • To that one in the solution of which the latter could do nothing but commit paralogisms (namely, that of immortality), because it could not lay hold of the character of permanence, by which to complete the psychological conception of an ultimate subject necessarily ascribed to the soul in self-consciousness, so as to make it the real conception of a substance, a character which practical reason furnishes by the postulate of a duration required for accordance with the moral law in the summum bonum, which is the whole end of practical reason.

    The Critique of Practical Reason Immanuel Kant 1764

  • In the summum bonum which is practical for us, i.e., to be realized by our will, virtue and happiness are thought as necessarily combined, so that the one cannot be assumed by pure practical reason without the other also being attached to it.

    The Critique of Practical Reason Immanuel Kant 1764

  • Thus then rises the ascent or scale of advantages, as traced from beings of a more general character to such as have an interest in that summum bonum which is made out of the best condition and circumstances that the body can desire, together with the consummation of the rational or intelligent faculties.

    Cicero's Five Books De Finibus: Or, Concerning the Last Object of Desire and Aversion 1812

  • It has survived despite the efforts of successive rulers and bureaucracies in Kabul to bring it within the strait-jacket of a modern nation-state, on the questionable assumption that the European construct of the nation-state was a summum bonum, a kind of political form of organization that is self-evident, a 'natural' culmination of all societies.

    Michael Hughes: Obama's Vietnam Michael Hughes 2011

  • The preview tape for MasterChef: the Professionals BBC2 also got trashed in the riots – I can't think of any other explanation why one wasn't available – so I can't tell you who won, but it would be wrong not to acknowledge the passing of another series without a valedictory nil – well, not much – nisi bonum.

    TV review: The Slap; Up in Flames: Mr Reeves and the Riots; and MasterChef: the Professionals 2011

  • De mortuis nihil nisi bonum, as they say, but a few who worked with him have spoken of his less-than-saintly actions.

    Rev. James Martin, S.J.: St. Steve Jobs? Probably Not, But…. S.J. Rev. James Martin 2011

  • For this reason it can be said with certainty that the first chapter of Genesis has established an unassailable point of reference and a solid basis for a metaphysic and also for an anthropology and an ethic, according to which ens et bonum convertuntur (being and the good are convertible).

    Dr. Janet Smith replies to Dr. Schindler, defends Christopher West 2009

  • The Greater Good is a science center that clues people into how far evolutionary understanding has come from the simplistic notion of unbridled competition for survival as the summum bonum of human life.

    Shambhala SunSpace » Barry Boyce – The Mindful Society Pages 2009

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