in De natura boni (On the Nature of Good, c. 399). Augustine denies the positive existence of absolute evil, describing a world with God as the supreme good at the center, and defining different grades of evil as different stages of remoteness from that center. Later developments The summum bonum has continued to be a focus of attention in Western philosophy, secular and religious. Hegel replaced Plato's dialectical ascent to the Good by his own dialectical ascent to the Real. G. E. Moore placed the highest good in personal relations and the contemplation of beauty – even if not all his followers in the Bloomsbury Group may have appreciated what Clive Bell called his "all-important distinction between 'Good on the whole' and 'Good as a whole'". The doctrine of the highest good maintained by Immanuel Kant can be seen as the fulfillment of all rational will. It is the supreme end of the will, meaning that beyond the attainment of a good will, which is moral excellence signified by abiding by the categorical imperative and pure practical reason, this is not reducible to hypothetical imperatives such as happiness. Furthermore, in virtue of the doctrine of the highest good, Kant postulates the existence of God and the eternal existence of rational agents, in order to reconcile three premises: (i) that agents are morally obligated to fully attain the highest good; (ii) that the object of an agent’s obligation must be possible; (iii) that an agent’s full realization of the highest good is not possible. Judgments Judgments on the highest good have generally fallen into four categories: Utilitarianism, when the highest good is identified with the maximum possible psychological happiness for the maximum number of people; Eudaemonism or virtue ethics, when the highest good is identified with flourishing; Rational deontologism, when the highest good is identified with virtue or duty; Rational eudaemonism, or tempered deontologism, when both virtue and happiness are combined in the highest good. See also Intrinsic value (ethics) Meaning of life Omnibenevolence Summum Notes Attribution External links Christian philosophy Neoplatonism Superlatives in religion