Goodness in Anne Conway’s Metaphysics

In this paper I explore the role of the good in Anne Conway's Principia philosophiae (1690) in order to argue that Conway's conception of goodness is primarily metaphysical rather than moral. I show that for Conway goodness grounded in the goodness of God and structured into her ontology as the god-likeness of all created things. This provides the dynamic of perfectibility which ensures the overall tendency of all things for the best. Although Conway's account of the causal efficacy of goodness within her system is very much her own, her metaphysical conception of the good stands broadly within the Platonic tradition.