Ends in General

a) Definition of End

An end is both a termination and a goal. In other words, an end is that which completes or finishes a thing, and it is that for which the thing is finished. A sculptor has reached the end of his work on a statue when the last bit of marble has been chipped away; and he has reached the end in another sense, inasmuch as the finished statue is the goal he set out to attain when he started the work. By an end we mean the end of an activity. We do not speak of end in the sense of boundary, or edge, or rim, or side of a bodily object, but as the termination and goal of activity. In the example given, the work of the sculptor, the activity of making the statue (both in itself, and as coming from interior plan and purpose) is the activity considered. Every activity tends toward an end. A tree tends to grow to full stature, maturity, and fruitfulness: and this is the end of its activity of growth. A hungry dog seizing a bit of beef evinces an activity of instinct for the meat as a good thing to have, as an end to be achieved. Even lifeless things have activities proper to their nature, and these tend toward ends by reason of what we call natural laws. Thus, fire tends to burn, bodies tend to fall toward the center of the earth, bodies at rest tend to remain at rest, bodies in motion tend to remain in motion of the same direction and velocity. Every activity tends toward an end; and thus every activity is a tendency. Now, every tendency may be called an appetite, or more properly, appetency. When appetency exists without any sort of knowledge—as in plants and lifeless things—it is called natural appetency, in a special limited, and technical sense of the term “natural.” When appetency comes of knowledge, it is of two kinds, just as knowledge itself is of two kinds. Appetency which is stirred into action by sensation (i. e., by knowledge acquired by the senses) is called sense-appetency or sensual appetite. We have an example of such appetency in the hungry dog seizing meat. Appetency which is stirred into action by intellectual knowledge is called the will or rational appetency. We have an example of such appetency in the act of the sculptor described above. The sculptor knows the statue to be desirable (for one or many reasons: it may bring fame, or money; it may express devotion to art; it may express love of the personage represented, and so on), and he wills to make it. We have already learned in our study of Human Acts that the will springs into action only when intellectual knowledge presents something desirable, satisfactory, or simply good, to be achieved by action. Every will-act, that is, every human act, is the expression of rational appetency or will: it is an act directed to an end known as desirable, that is to say, as good to attain. In Ethics we speak of the ends of human acts. Here, then, the end is that which is apprehended as good, as desirable, and which attracts the human agent to the performance of the act. It is the agent’s motive and reason for acting. It causes the agent to act, and, in so far, the end is the final cause of a human act—a cause called final, from the Latin word finis, which means end. The agent is the efficient cause of his acts, for it is he that effects or performs them; but he would not effect them were he not attracted by the end or final cause. No human act can exist, therefore, without a final cause, that is to say, without an end apprehended by the agent as desirable or good enough to attract the agent to action and to serve as his motive in the act. The end or final cause of human acts must be apprehended as good. Evil cannot be willed as such or for its own sake. Evil is done only when it assumes the aspect of good, as something that will bring satisfaction or will lead to it. This does not mean that a sinner thinks he is acting virtuously when he commits a sin. On the contrary, he knows that the sin is morally evil and that he is responsible for it. But the point is that the sin to which he consents is apprehended as something that willl bring present satisfaction, or will lead to it, and this is judged by the agent as a greater good than that which is required by the moral law which forbids the sin. Notice that it is as a greater good that the sin is chosen. Of course, the agent’s judgment in the matter is not sound; his sin will not lead to ultimate happiness or Satisfaction, but inasmuch as it is a judgment of the sin as good, it explains what is meant by the statement that evil is not chosen as such, nor for its own sake, but only when it assumes the aspect of good. In our sense, good is that which answers tendency or desire. To define end: An end is a termination and goal of activity. In a human act the end is the final cause, viz., that on account of which, or to attain which, the act is performed, and which is, in consequence, apprehended as a good sufficiently desirable to motivate the agent in performing the act.

b) Classification of Ends

Here we distinguish: i. The end of the act, and the end of the agent; ii. Proximate and remote ends; iii. Intermediate and ultimate ends. i. The end of the act is the end toward which the act of its own nature tends. Thus, the act of giving food and shelter to destitute persons tends of its nature toward the relief of distress, and we say that the relief of distress is the end of the act.—The end of the agent is the end which the agent intends to achieve by his act. Thus, the act of giving food and shelter to destitute persons may be performed by the agent to increase his merit before God, or as an act of impetration to obtain a grace or favor, or as an act of penance for sins committed. Again, the agent may perform the act in order to have it noticed by others, so that he may gain the reputation of a beneficent person. Again, the act may be performed by an agent who merely wishes to relieve distress. In the last case, the end of the agent coincides with the end of the act. In the other cases, the end of the agent is different from the end of the act. When we speak of the end in Ethics, we usually mean the end of the agent. ii. The proximate end is the end intended as the immediate outcome of an act. The remote end is that which the agent wishes to achieve later on, and toward the attainment of which he employs the present act as a means. Thus a politician who gives money to the poor, wishes his good deed to be recorded in the newspapers: his proximate end is favorable publicity. However, he does not desire publicity for its own sake, but for the votes it will gain him in the coming elections; and he wishes for votes as a means to office. Thus, while publicity is his proximate end, votes and election to office are remote ends. iii. An end, whether proximate or remote, is willed either for its own sake or as a means to an end more remote. If it is willed for its own sake, it is a last or ultimate end, and if it is willed as a means to a further end, it is an intermediate end. To illustrate : A man gives money to the poor. He gives the money to gain favorable notice in the newspapers (proximate and intermediate end); he wills publicity as a means to votes (remote and intermediate end) ; he wills votes as a means to election (remote and intermediate end) ; he wills election for the prominence, power, and wealth which the office will give him (remote and ultimate end). This example shows us a chain or series of ends; and, since the ultimate end of the series is not the general or unconditioned end of the man’s whole life and all its human acts, but ultimate only in relation to the present series of ends, the ultimate end of the series is called an end relatively ultimate. Now, there must also be an end which is un-. conditionally and unlimitedly the ultimate end of all human acts; and this we call the absolutely ultimate end. We shall discuss this end in the next Article. We notice here that it is the ultimate end which gives meaning to the intermediate ends that lead to it. The intermediate ends are subordinated to the ultimate end, just as the steps of a stairway are subordinated to the top step. And as a man who wishes to reach the top of a stairway must take many intermediate steps before reaching the top, but would not take any of them except to reach the top, so in a series of ends, the agent must attain intermediate ends before achieving the ultimate end, but he would not try to attain any of them except on account of the ultimate end. Thus, we repeat, the ultimate end of a series of ends gives meaning and motive to the whole series. An ultimate end is both objective and subjective. The objective ultimate end is that thing, that object, which, in last analysis, motivates a human act. The subjective last end is the possession of the objective end and the satisfaction or happiness that is apprehended as belonging to that possession. Thus, the politicians’s last end (in the series of ends which we studied above) is a political office with its power, prominence, and good wages. This is the objective ultimate end. The subjective ultimate end which the agent seeks to achieve is the possession of the office and what it will bring. In other words, the object sought is office; and the subjective desire of the agent (the acting subject) is satisfaction in the possession of the office.

Summary of the Article

In this article we have discussed the meaning of end, and have described it and defined it. We have seen that an end is always the object of appetency, and we have discovered that the rational appetency of man is his will. Since the will is necessarily exercised in every human act, it follows that every human act comes from appetency, or tendency toward an end: and thus every human act is performed on account of an end. We have called the end of human acts their final cause. We have seen that the end of human acts is always sought because it is desirable, satisfactory, or good; and that evil as such is- never the end of human acts. We have classified the ends of human acts, distinguishing the end of the act and the end of the agent, the proximate and remote ends of human acts, and the intermediate and ultimate ends of such acts. We have indicated the fact that there is one absolutely ultimate end of human action. We have distinguished the ultimate end as objective and subjective.

The ultimate end of human acts is that which, in the last analysis, serves as a sufficient reason and motive for the acts. This end, considered as an objective thing toward the attainment of which the acts are directed, is the objective ultimate end of human acts. The possession of this objective end and the happiness which the agent seeks in that possession, is the subjective ultimate end of human acts. We have seen that a human act is always done on account of an end, and an ultimate end. We now assert that all human acts are performed for a single absolutely ultimate end.