If something is non derivatively good then is it always good?

Question

This should explain the meaning of non derivatively good.

Suppose that someone were to ask you whether it is good to help others in time of need. Unless you suspected some sort of trick, you would answer, “Yes, of course.” If this person were to go on to ask you why acting in this way is good, you might say that it is good to help others in time of need simply because it is good that their needs be satisfied. If you were then asked why it is good that people's needs be satisfied, you might be puzzled. You might be inclined to say, “It just is.” Or you might accept the legitimacy of the question and say that it is good that people's needs be satisfied because this brings them pleasure. But then, of course, your interlocutor could ask once again, “What's good about that?” Perhaps at this point you would answer, “It just is good that people be pleased,” and thus put an end to this line of questioning. Or perhaps you would again seek to explain the fact that it is good that people be pleased in terms of something else that you take to be good. At some point, though, you would have to put an end to the questions, not because you would have grown tired of them (though that is a distinct possibility), but because you would be forced to recognize that, if one thing derives its goodness from some other thing, which derives its goodness from yet a third thing, and so on, there must come a point at which you reach something whose goodness is not derivative in this way, something that “just is” good in its own right, something whose goodness is the source of, and thus explains, the goodness to be found in all the other things that precede it on the list.

SEP

Answer 1

From Zimmerman's "The Nature of Intrinsic Value" pages 22-23:

I think that [Judith Thompson] would say that she has in mind a particular kind of way of being good, and that something's being intrinsically good (were this possible) would not be a case of its being good in a particular kind of way. We should now look into this

Thompson is perfectly happy to acknowledge a certain distinction on which proponents of intrinsic value rely, the distinction between (as she puts it) nonderivative and derivative goodness. This distinction, she says, "cuts across" ways of being good.

From this reading, I deduce that one philosopher believes another philosopher believes derivative-goodness and non-derivative-goodness are ways of categorizing ways of being good, and thus imply any thing which is given a title of derivative-goodness or non-derivative-goodness must be goodness. Thus anything which is not good cannot be non-derivativly-good (via. contrapositive).

If this reading is correct, then anything which appears to be a non-derivatively-good thing with some time-based condition is actually not a non-derivatively-good thing. Rather there is a non-derivatively-good thing whose wording includes the time condition... and that good thing has no condition.

As an example (because the wording is hard), "If it is before bed time, then brushing your teeth is non-derivatively-good" would be an invalid phrase, because non-derivatively-good things must always be good by definition. A slight change in wording "Brushing your teeth before bed time is non-derivatively-good" may be a valid phrase, because the entire non-derivatively-good thing is "brushing your teeth before bed time."

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Edit: responding to your comment in my answer (because that way I can use newlines): The change in wording reflects the classic logic decomposition of "P -> Q" into "NOT(P) OR Q". Limiting myself to just Actions rather than All-Things without loss of generality (so the wording is a bit easier to read):

First statement: "If it is before bed time, then brushing your
                  teeth is non-derivatively-good"
Forall A in Actions: BeforeBed(A) -> (IsBrushingTeeth(A) -> NonDerivGood(A))
    Decompose the first if predicate
Forall A in Actions: NOT(BeforeBed(A)) OR (IsBrushingTeeth(A) -> NonDerivGood(A))
    Decompose the second if predictate
Forall A in Actions: NOT(BeforeBed(A)) OR (NOT(IsBrushingTeeth(A) OR NonDerivGood(A))
    Change grouping of the 3 clauses combined by OR
Forall A in Actions: (NOT(BeforeBed(A)) OR NOT(IsBrushingTeeth(A)) OR NonDerivGood(A)
    Demorgan's rule (this is the tricky step that makes the proof work)
Forall A in Actions: NOT(BeforeBed(A) AND IsBrushingTeeth(A)) OR NonDerivGood(A)
    Recomposing NOT(P) OR Q into P->Q
Forall A in Actions: IsBrushingTeeth(A) AND BeforeBed(A) -> NonDerivGood(A)
Final statement: "Brushing your teeth before bed time is non-derivatively-good"

Answer 2

The best answer I can offer is an class of directions to look for your answer

It is easier to approach your question if you widen it slightly to "if something is non-derivatively good, is it unconditionally good?" This is wider than your first question, which is only concerned with time-based questions. Widening it as such does not change the final answer I arrive at, but does make it easier to avoid classes of wording traps that show up regarding time.

Once it is phrased this way, a few answers show up

• If something is non-derivatively good, and causes no side effects which are not-good, then it is always good. This holds as long as, formally, "For all X,Y in things: Good(X) AND Good(Y) -> Good(X AND Y)". If you have a system of goodness where "two rights can make a wrong," then this argument fails to hold. As "For all X: NonDerivativelyGood(X) AND NOT(HasSideEffects(X)) -> Good(X)," non-derivatively good things with no non-good side effects must be good.
• If your non-derivatively good thing has side effects, they must be accounted for
  • If non-derivative goods have already accounted for side effects as part of their "goodness," then they may be treated as good with no-side effects without loss of generality.
  • If non-derivative goods have do not already account for side effects, then the answer to your question depends on your aggregation function. In laymans terms "can a right and a wrong make a wrong?" This would be for situations such as "it's always good to feed the homeless, except in situations which make them dependent on your handouts." The formal question you are approaching is whether there exists an event X such that "NonDerivativelyGood(X) AND NOT AggregateGood(X, SideEffects(Y)))"

Of these branches, the only one which does not result in a definitive "yes, they are always good" is the case where there are side effects, but they are not accounted for in the intrinsic goodness. This is where you should look for direction. The SEP article you linked contained a lot of words along the lines of "Aggregation of goodness or value of two separate events is a highly contentious topic." Whether you believe a non-derivatively-good thing must be always good or not really depends on how you handle this case of needing to aggregate all of the side-effects.

Your quote does not address this side of the discussion. In your quote, you are lucky enough to have a linear series of events whose only metric for goodness is the next event in the series, and it ends in a non-derivatively good event. If you have a more tree-like series of events, where some events are non-derivatively good and some are non-derivatively bad, you will have a more complicated situation.