Sunday, November 6, 2005

   Ends and means: the last end. (part one)

Before you scoff at the idea of a universal means, observe that it's just the inverse of an end-in-itself. An end-in-itself, long a cornerstone of ethics, is the ultimate end to which all other values are means. An end-in-itself is the end of all means, and a universal means is the means to all ends. If an end-in-itself exists, may not a universal means also exist? Perhaps alchemists erred only in seeking the universal means among tinctures, powders and stones. The concept of an end-in-itself goes all the way back to Aristotle. He observed that some things we choose for the sake of something else and some things we choose for their own sake. To take a modern example, we don't choose a dollar for its own sake, but for the sake of the coffee we intend to buy with it. And we don't choose the coffee for its own sake, but for the sake of drinking it. The dollar is a means to the coffee as an end, the coffee is a means to the end of drinking, and so on--but within limits. Aristotle noted that not everything can be desired for the sake of something else, "for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain." A chain of one means leading to another means, leading to yet another means, and so on forever, would be pointless and impossible. There is necessarily an end which we desire for its own sake: an end-in-itself. Furthermore: "If ... there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), ... clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right?" --Nichomachean Ethics, I 1. This was a good day's work even for Aristotle! Beginning from the commonplace observation that there are things we desire for the sake of something else, he had at one stroke validated the concept of an end-in-itself and proposed the concept of a unique end of all action. The unification of moral life was immense. One need merely focus on the last end and pursue it single-mindedly, evaluating all other goods as means to that last end. There was no need to divide one's attention among myriads of unrelated goods. A single last end would imply an entire code of conduct and way of life.

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