Kitaro Nishida continues: what is the good?

At chapter 15 of Kitaro Nishida's book we finally pass into the discussion of ethics and "the good" within human conduct, the long-deferred but titular subject of it all.

Nishida's definition of freedom of the will seems to steer directly into Kantian territory. End of chapter 17, "[The] unifying activity [of consciousness] is not a product of nature; rather, it is because of this unity that nature comes to exist. This unity is the infinite power at the base of reality, and it cannot be limited quantitatively. It exists independently of the necessary laws of nature. Because our will is an expression of that power, it is free and goes beyond the control of such natural laws."

A few chapters later, after a classification of all other ethical positions and his view of their errors, he gets to his own: goodness is the perfection of this will-beyond-natural law, and so the fullest expression of the underlying unity of consciousness. So at the end of chapter 23 he draws the inference that we can in fact (and must) infer the ought from the is.

"The laws of morality thus come to be included in the laws of reality, and we are able to explain the good in terms of the true nature of the reality known as the self. Internal demands, which are the basis of value judgments, and the unifying power of reality are one, not two. " He references the Upanishads here.

How does this help us answer any questions about how we ought to act? More tomorrow about this.

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