Abstract

In this article the authoress has presented the understanding of the good as the motive for human action on the basis of the position of M. A. Krąpiec. At the beginning, the authoress has concentrated on an analysis of the fact of action, which includes three major factors: the end, the exemplar, and the efficient cause. The good-end here performs the most essential function. The good-end is the motive due to which action has come into existence rather than not. That “which throws” man “out of passivity” to action is described as the motive that appears as the good. In the next part of the article, the good is presented as a fundamental transcendental property of being. The connection of being with the good shows that the world that surrounds us is a world of goods, that is, of beings ordered to the will of a maker or of the Creator. The transcendental good thus understood constitutes the foundation for all action. In the final part of the article, an analysis is made of the functions that are shown by the good that constitutes the motive for action. The first of these functions is the cognitive apprehension of the good understood in the context of the end—the motive of action. At the end, the domains of goods are listed, in which the ontic good, which is a transcendental property of being, plays the most important role.