What is Goodness?

Goodness typically means one of two things:

1. Moral excellence or virtue.
2. Excellence in quality.

We speak of a good person, for example, as one who naturally does what is right and good as a matter of course (definition 1). But it is also a matter of #2, since for the truly good person, her moral actions are a result of the kind of person she is: one who is excellent in quality. Just as a car of high quality works very well in doing what it is made for, a person of good quality works very well in doing what she is made for.

A good banana, by contrast, is just a matter of #2.