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What makes an action morally good, worthy, or virtuous? I offer a pluralist answer to this by considering a spectrum of actions, especially those with many motives. There are, I argue, two types of good motives: concerns simply for what is (pro tanto) right or good as such and concerns simply for matters, such as pleasing or protecting someone for its own sake, that make actions (pro tanto) right or good, independently of their being right-or-good-makers. Acting from either type is good, and acting from both types in the right proportion is best. But between the most excellent and the minimally decent actions, vast, unexamined varieties exist. We may act from mixed motives, or from ones that are good and ones that are bad or neutral. We may fail to act from better motives. We may fail to care about the costs of what we do. And even when we act rightly, we may be lured by bad or neutral temptations to act wrongly. Despite not acting from the best motives, such actions may still be to differing degrees good. By exploring such actions, I develop an account to assess when and how good any action is.
The pluralist view I develop draws on the ideas of early twentieth-century British ethicists, especially W. D. Ross. Although the view is intuitive, it is neglected in the current literature, which is dominated by monist views. I revive the pluralist view as a superior, competing view. I reconsider classic cases, in which we are simply acting solely from good motives, and introduce new ones, in which our psychology is messier and more realistic. I draw our attention to important but overlooked moments in our lives where we are acting from mixed motives, where we are acting solely from a good motive but are indifferent to very important concerns, and where we are tempted to do what is wrong by good, bad, or neutral concerns.
