to the distinction between pleasure and pain, and the causes of each. This distinction is known through sense perception, reason, and revealed law, and is agreed upon by earlier and later generations alike. Indeed, even animals recognize it; rather, it exists in all created beings. When we affirm the distinction between good deeds and evil deeds—which is the distinction between good and bad—it ultimately comes back to this.

People of sound reason agree that some actions are agreeable to a person while others are contrary to his interests. When these are described by saying, “This is good and this is bad,” goodness and badness in this sense are, by their unanimous agreement, knowable through reason.

They disagree, however, over goodness and badness in the sense of an action being grounds for blame and punishment: can this be known through reason, or only through revealed law? One cause of their disagreement was their assumption that this category was distinct from the first, whereas it actually falls within it. Nothing is good except in the sense of being agreeable, and nothing is bad except in the sense of being contrary to one’s interests. Praise and reward are agreeable, while blame and punishment are contrary to one’s interests. Thus, these are particular instances of the agreeable and its opposite.

The discussion therefore concerns certain kinds of good and bad, not all of them. Undoubtedly, some kinds can be known only through revealed law. The disagreement, however, concerns things whose badness is known to people generally, such as injustice, lying, and the like.

The disagreement concerns several matters. One is whether an action possesses a quality by virtue of which it becomes good or bad, and that rational goodness consists in its conformity to the knower’s interests, while rational badness is the opposite. Does revealed law, then, add anything beyond