In the previous post, I explained the presumption of goodness and argued for it from theological considerations. In this post, I want to present an account of what good is, and argue from there to a presumption of goodness.
The account of good is a pragmatist account. It is related to a pragmatist account of what things are. The general account says that whatever exists shows itself to be what it is in the long run. As it relates to good, then, it says that whatever is good, whatever one ought to do, in the long run it will become clear that it was so. Thus, whatever is good will be proven good, and whatever is bad will be proven bad.
Note that this account can be agnostic as to whether what proves something good or bad makes it so. My preferred view is that actions and events are good or bad on account of how they impact the flourishing of various entities, and are proven such because of a coherence among various things in the world. The view also makes no definite claims about what something's being proven good would amount to, but the obstruction of the ordinary or intended consequences of an act or event is likely to count, ceteris paribus.
This view presumes that the world works together in some kind of coherent manner, and holds that this coherent manner is, in total, good. Particular events or actions can still be bad, so long as other parts of the system, as it were, "reject" them, but the entirety of the system over the long haul has to cohere in such a manner that particular things show up as good and other particular things show up as bad. On this basis, then, we wind up at the same place when considering the world as created good: the way the world works must be, at root, good.
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