they may not explain this well. For the goodness and badness in question are the goodness and badness of actions. An action is good insofar as it brings about the ends that a living being seeks and desires for their own sake; its badness is the opposite. This is indeed the case: knowledge, truthfulness, and justice bring about ends sought and desired for their own sake. Thus, an action’s goodness or badness consists in its bringing about the end desired for its own sake or being contrary to it.

For this reason, the term “true” is sometimes used with reference to affirmation and negation: “This is true,” meaning established, and “This is false,” meaning negated. When applied to actions, it refers to attaining the intended end. Thus, one says, “This action is right,” meaning beneficial or productive of the intended end; or one calls it “vain,” meaning that it has no benefit, and so forth.

As for their claim that self-evident intuition and innate reason may make a judgment whose falsity subsequently becomes apparent to them through a syllogism, this is mistaken. A syllogism necessarily relies on self-evident, innate premises. If such premises could be erroneous, with their error becoming apparent only through a syllogism, then the innate premises themselves would conflict with the conclusion entailed by a syllogism whose premises are innate. Rejecting these innate premises on account of those is no more justified than the reverse. Rather, error is more likely in what has fewer premises. Thus, what is known through a syllogism involving innate premises is more liable to error than what is known through innate reason alone.