Goodness is Absolute 

   That is, the opposite of the goodness of something being relative to a set of criteria directed to some pre-given purpose – the goodness of a knife is relative to how well it cuts. There is no means-end relationship involved at all. Absolute goodness is reality as love-able, which is to say: ‘good that it exists.’ (The deepest passage in the Old Testament is Genesis 1:31 – And God looked upon what he had created and saw that it was good, very good.) The consequences of actions, to the extent there are any, are secondary to the action or person’s ability to reveal other human beings, the Creation, or the Creator even as love-able, as good. Good is not whatever conduces to happiness; the Good is what judges whether any particular conception of or means to happiness is decent or right or good. As such it is outside all conceptions of happiness. I can't make myself happy by betraying another person and plunging them into misery. Such happiness is worthless. The Good judges all actions designed to make us happy. 

    The same applies to evil. There are some acts that are never justifiable, period. Regardless of the circumstances, to rape is evil. It is always more than understandable that a rapist suffer remorse. 

       Philosophers with no antenna to this dimension of reality like to list horrible scenarios designed to bully us into admitting that goodness is a sentimental illusion. They believe if they get us to admit that in a certain situation we would rightly do something generally considered evil, then they prove that neither goodness nor evil is absolute but both are relative to something subjective, like happiness or social harmony or the happiness of the many. If I could save humanity and ensure a good life for every human being by betraying my children and giving them over to human sacrifice or some such nonsense, then not to save humanity, so the supposed reductio ad absurdum, would show that I was acting immorally, showing a too precious concern for my moral purity. That is a vulgar attitude. Such examples prove nothing except that human beings can be put in situations in which only a choice between evils is possible. Such choices ... I think of an extreme one in a novel: Sophie’s Choice, by Willian Styron, where a Polish mother was allowed to choose which of two children got sent to the gas chamber and which one survived... such choices usually destroy a human being, but that fact about us proves what I am saying. ‘Well, I must choose between my children. Rationally, the boy has a better chance of survival; hence, I will sacrifice my daughter. I acted rationally and thus no guilt attaches to me but only the Nazis.’ Well, I suppose that is what she would hear from a “therapist,” but in the novel despair took her, and we pity her, showing that a novelist can understand more about the human soul than a moral philosopher or a “therapist”.

    What is the Good? What did Plato mean by it? He couldn't say. The Idea of the Good was beyond conceptualization. I think I can do a bit better, though I agree with Plato that it is ultimately beyond conceptualization. The Good is that which is enjoined by the purest love - a love untainted by the "fat, relentless ego" (Iris Murdoch) or by sentimental fantasy. Christians often ask: What would Jesus do? That at least points in the right direction.