It seems to me, then, that knowledge, or perhaps we should rather say the activity of the mind which leads to knowledge, is good, not in the sense that human nature likes having it (although in fact most men do like having it), but in the sense that it is an admirable activity of the human spirit; that this activity owes its excellence not to our liking it, but to its being conducted according to its own proper principles, i.e. according to the principles discovered by logic; and that different instances of this activity are good in proportion as they are conducted according to these principles.
W. D. Ross, Foundations of Ethics, Chapter XI
