No, quite the opposite. Hitler surely thought he was attaining some consequential good. With someone like Bundy, it’s less clear. I know many serial killers have expressed a sort of hardened nihilism, so they might not see their actions as “morally good,” but they clearly seek something they see as good (as desirable), else they wouldn’t make efforts to attain that good.
So, consider @AmadeusD question:
Not quite. “Good” is used far more broadly, and ontologically. In an ontological register, the good is being qua (truly) desirable. It is being as considered through the lens of the will, the rational appetite for what is best. By way of contrast, truth in the ontological register is being qua intelligible, what can be known, and is what is sought by the intellect.
In terms of decision-making, a “good knife” is (in general) one that cuts well, a good racecar is fast, etc. Of course, what is “good” is always relative to some end (some goal). Hence, a “good knife” for butchering a deer is sharp, while a “good knife” to give to a young child to butter their bread is dull. So, we have means that can be better or worse (more or less good) relative to some end.
However, ends themselves can sometimes be treated as means. For example, the end of the art of saddle making, good saddles, is ordered to the end of horseback riding, right? And it is the distal end that determines the goodness of the proximate end. So, for instance, the goodness of a “good sail” vis-a-vis sail making is determined by the goodness of sailing (the master art to which sailmaking is ordered).
Now, we have lots of ends ordered to other ends in our lives. People seek education to earn money, money to procure pleasure, pleasure to be happy, etc. Aristotle sees happiness as the ultimate end to which all pursuits are ordered, and he gives a number of, IMO very good arguments for this, which have been expanded over the centuries. I should note here that “happiness” (eudaimonia) is not the thin notion of positive sentiment that predominates today, but something more like “living an excellent life and being an excellent person.” I would say that this is largely correct, although I don’t think it fully captures the desire for goodness, because people can and do pursue lives they see as miserable, or death, in order to attain what they see as the highest good (be it something lofty like enlightenment, or tawdry, like petty vengeance). The rational appetite for goodness is the intellectual desire to have what is understood to be best (which is phenomenologically distinct from the sensible desires and emotional/thymotic passions).
So, when it comes to values anti-realism, hardly any philosopher denies that something can be a better or worse car, knife, etc. (although plenty of amateurs seems to). The question of grounding values then, comes down to ultimate ends. Are ends ultimately arbitrary? This seems implausible, since human ends are shared and intelligible. But some will claim that they are grounded in irrational sentiment (generally because the rational appetites are denied), and that on account of this they are merely subjective tastes. At any rate, this sort of ordering is what anchors a teleological approach to ethics. Essentially, all the things we desire can be properly or improperly ordered, to what is truly most desirable. This does not, however, rely on the assumption that everyone recognizes what is most desirable, since people can clearly be wrong about this, or suffer from a weakness of will.
Choice-worthiness is more narrow. It is the good as considered through the lens of our choices. If a certain knife is better for an end than any others, it is most worth of choice. If a certain end is truly more desirable than another, then that end is more choice-worthy. On any account where there is a distinction between what is truly most desirable and what merely appears so, there will be a distinction between what is truly most choice-worthy and what merely appears so.
Now, anyone who is making intentional decisions (who isn’t suffering from a total weakness of will that leaves them bereft of any rational choice) is orienting their actions towards some good. If people do not see their choices as “morally good” this is either a sign of internal conflict, or merely the result of the fact that they don’t actually consider what is “morally good” to be desirable (which simply means that it is someone else’s standard).
The reason much talk of “moral goodness” is confused, is because it is wholly divorced from desirable ends. When someone says “I don’t care about being good, or having what is good,” what they really tend to mean is “I don’t take the standards of my societies’ moralists to reflect what is truly desirable,” not “I do not think anything is more or less desirable, and am indifferent to all outcomes in my life.” Absolutely no one act like they actually believe or experience the latter.
The desire for what is best (over and above any particular sensible or emotional appetite) can, of course, be atrophied. That’s a key point. It is the most powerful desire when it is properly motivated (for better or worse). This is why revolutionaries, saints, and fanatics are capable of great feats of self-sacrifice and asceticism. But it is certainly also the case that many people these desires are given little formation, and the lower appetites (for amusement, social status, and sensible pleasures) are given free reign. This doesn’t mean people cease to have rational desires for truth and goodness, it simply means they have not ordered themselves to these, so that reason has become “a slave to the passions” rather than ruling.
