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FINALITY AND INTELLIGIBILITY IN BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ANTONIO MORENO, O.P. Graduate Theological Union Berkeley, California I N SCIENCE AND philosophy the final cause has always .. ,been controversial. To biologists the problem is complicated , but many believe that it is impossible fo give a complete description of the phenomenon of life without taking into oonsideration the teleological aspect of it. Thus Rensch: A special feature of all living organisms is the fact that biological processes in general appear to be: 'meaningful.' They are not only appropriate to the immediate conditions, but also seem to be directed to some purpose which in individual development is only achievE:d at a relatively late stage and after many modications of form.1 Simpson's approach to this problem is shaped by the conviction that biology should attempt to answer all the questions, one of whioh is the reason for a living being's activity: "Here, ' What for '-the dreadful teleological question-not only is legitimate but also must eventually be asked about every vital phenomenon." 2 To understand how finality is realized in biology, let us first turn briefly to the nature of the final cause. The Nature of the Final CaU8e Aristotle deals with causes in the seeond book of his Physics: It is through the causes that scientific conclusions about mobile heings are demonstrated. Movement is intelligible when we discover the causes that produce it. Among the 1B. Rensch, Biophilosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 107. 2 G. Simpson, Th,is Vi.ew of Life (New York: Ifarcourt, 1964), .pp. 104-108. l ANTONIO MORENO, O.P. causes, the first and most important is the final cause, which is defined as "that for the sake of which a thing is done." 3 The final cause is the motive or reason which impels the agent to operate. Motion is the vehicle by whioh the goal is attained and, consequently, the other causes exercise their causality in dependence on the final cause. Hence, Aquinas says: " The final cause is called the cause of causes, because it is the cause of the causality of all the causes. For it is the cause of the efficient ca:usality; and the efficient cause is the cause of the causality of both the matter and the form." .j, The final cause directs, inclines, and attracts; impelled by this attraction, the efficient pushes and exercises its action. Aquinas asserts that those who reject the final cause destroy the intelligibility of science, inasmuch as they suppress the motive or first reason which justifies motion. The final cause is not the cause that executes the adion, for this is the agent's function, the efficient cause. The final cause is the reason why the agent acts. Therefore, the efficient cause presupposes the final: "The end is not the cause unless it moves the agent to act. If there is no action the final cause does not exist." 5 It is interesting to note that many biologists believe that the existence of finality destroys causality, when actually the opposite is true. For example, Simpson says: " The finalist was often the man who made a liberal use of ignaV'a ratio, . . . when you failed to explain a, thing by the ordinary process of causality, you could ' explain ' it 1by reference to some purpose of nature." 6 A simple desirn or attraction is not a cause unless it is fol3 Aristotle, Ph&sias (Trans. W. D. Ross) Book II, 3, 194b34. (Oxford, 1962). 4 Thomas Aquinas, In V Metaph., Iect. 3, n. 782. Of. Summa Theol., I, q. 105, a.5. 5 Thomas Aquinas, On the Power of God, trans. English Dominican Fathers (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1952), q.5, a. l. 6 G. Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 274. FINALITY IN BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 3 lowed by the activity of the agent. The desire to attain the goal is called the " intention " of the action, even when the goal is not achieved, as happens in many of our actions. Failure does not destroy finality; inactivity does. For that which is first in the intention is the last to be achieved as the effect. The intention does not...

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