The Natural, Terrestrial End of Man

THE NATURAi,, TERRESTRIAL END-OF MAN T HIS article is written to establish the existence in the philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas of a coherent teaching on the natural end of man. That teaching is to this effect: that man has a natural, terrestrial, ultimate end (Aristotle ) which, although supremely good in the natural order, is imperfect relatively to man's supernatural end (Aquinas). This position is one that is almost native to the balanced Christian intellect. Even recent Catholic critics of the natural end of man 1 have not directly questioned it. They have been concerned to show that man has no natural end in the next life. There is no discussion here of any such end. What is proposed here is that man has a natural end achievable in the present life. It is assumed that he has a supernatural end achievable in the next life. I. ARISTOTLE 1. Man has a natural, terrestrial end. That man has a natural end in this life, and that its constituents are rationally determinable, are two of the major conclusions of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. The existence of some ultimate end in this life is the point of Book One; the final determination of the constituents of that end is the point of the last half of Book Ten. Most of the intervening books are concerned with the means to that end, namely, intellectual and moral virtue. That the end of man envisioned by Aristotle is natural, not supernatural, is but a corollary to the fact· that he is a pagan, and not of the Judaic-Christian dispensations. Tb.at this end should refer to the present life, unlike the closing myth of 1 Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel (Paris: Aubier, 1945); Joseph Buckley, Man's Last End (St. Louis: Herder, 1949). 373 874 JAMES V. MULLANEY Plato's Republic, arises from Aristotle's uncertainty about any future life.2 Better, he would judge, to be clear about the meaning and purpose of this life of which one is sure, than to occupy oneself analyzing an end postulated in some future life of which one is unsure. There is much to be said for this hard-headed attitude, granted his religious situation. It is therefore within the framework of the natural and terrestrial that Aristotle establishes the existence of some end for man. a) The existence of the end: Aristotle's argument proving the existence of a natural, ultimate end in this life is characteristically pointed. A means is chosen for the sake of something else, but an end is chosen for its own sake. If there were no end, but means only, then everything would be chosen for the sake of something else, to infinity 8-so that nothing would ever be chosen. Rephrased, the argument is this: a means is a relative thing. There can be no means except as bearing on some end. If nothing is loved for its own sake (end) , then nothing will be loved for the sake of it (means) . To say that there is no end, is to imply there are no means, for the end is the reason of the means. That we employ no means is so clearly contrary to human experience as to need no comment. Any objection based on intermediate ends misses the point. Such an end partakes of the formalities both of end and of means: it is desired both for its own sake (end) and in reference to a further end (means). Insofar as it is itself an end loved for its sake it justifies the argument of the preceding paragraph: there is some end. Insofar as it is a means it also bears out the preceding argument, because a means is loved in reference to a further good loved for itself alone. As means implies end, so the intermediate end implies an ultimate end.4 •Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I, 11; llOlb 22-1101" 8; De anima, I, 4; 408b, 1829 ; II, 2; 413b 24-27. "Aristotle, Ethics, I, 2; 10948 17-21. 'Ibid., I, 7; 1097• 80-85. THE NATURAL, TERRESTRIAL END OF MAN 375 b) There is only one end: However many constitutive goods may enter into...