ULTIMATE END. - It is the supreme good toward which every nature tends in its action, and above all the spiritual nature that acts according to intellect and will.
I. NOTION
Irrational natures present a closed cycle of development that every individual traverses according to determinate laws having as their purpose the preservation of the species, so that the ultimate end remains immanent to nature itself. The spiritual creature, on the other hand, has a likeness of its own to the divine nature and by reason of its spirituality has the capacity to know and love God himself, to whom it is therefore "immediately" ordered: "Sola creatura rationalis est capax Dei, quia ipsa sola potest ipsum cognoscere et amare explicite" (St. Thomas, De verit., q. 22, a. 2 ad 5). While therefore irrational natures move by an innate inclination toward the functions of the species (e.g., in living beings, feeding, reproducing, etc.), the spiritual creature can know the supreme Good that transcends the species, and has freedom at its disposal to decide the ultimate end of its action and thereby "chooses" its destiny. Man, therefore, insofar as he is endowed with an intelligent and free soul and attains the dignity of a "person," obtains as a "singular individual" a transcendent value, that is, the immediate ordering to God that each one can (and must) translate into act through the exercise of his freedom: hence in the sphere of spiritual beings, the attainment of the ultimate end is not univocally determined in function of the species, but remains suspended upon the ambiguity of each one's free decision. The outcome will correspond to the nature of the choice: happiness for the one who has chosen the immutable Good, unhappiness instead for the one who has chosen the apparent and transient good.
The ultimate end can then be considered from the objective point of view, and in this all creatures concur, insofar as it is the glory of God that each one manifests and brings about in his own way through the unfolding of his own activity. Or the ultimate end can be considered from the subjective point of view, that is, according to that operation which makes possible for the agent the possession of, or union with, the supreme Good: such a subjective ultimate end evidently belongs properly to spiritual natures and entails the supreme repose of full and absolute happiness. In the field of Catholic theology it is disputed whether the essential motive of subjective beatitude is to be placed in an act of the will, as Scotism holds, or in the apprehensive function of the intellect, as Thomism maintains. An explicit declaration of St. Thomas allows us to give to the primacy he attributes to the apprehensive moment its precise meaning, which is not exclusive of the affective moment, but rather calls it back as its completion and as itself a necessary constitutive element of beatitude. Remaining faithful to the Aristotelian principle: ὀρέξει χυτὲ χερὰ τὸν λογισμὸν (De Am., III, 10, 433 a 25), the holy Doctor affirms: "Quia felicitas est principalissimum bonum hominis, consequens est ut magis consistat in eo quod est rationale per essentiam quam in eo quod est rationale per participationem. Ex quo potest accipi quod felicitas principalissime consistat in vita contemplativa quam activa, et in actu rationis vel intellectus quam in actu appetitus ratione regulati" (In X Eth., I, I, lect. 10, ed. Pirotta, Turin 1934, n. 126).
But it is in the Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew that St. Thomas gives the complete formula, and precisely with the exact reference to Aristotle: "Notandum quod secundum Philosophum, ad hoc quod actus contemplativi faciant beatum, duo requiruntur: unum substantialiter, scilicet quod sit actus altissimi intelligibilis, quod est Deus; aliud formaliter scilicet amor et delectatio" (Expositio super Ev. Matthaei, cap. 5, lect. 1, ed. Parm., X, p. 49 b). The unusual formula corresponds to that of St. Augustine: "Beatitudo est gaudium de veritate," which is God himself (Confess., X, 22; cited in 1ᵃ-2ᵃc, q. 4, a. 1, sed contra).
II. HISTORICAL CINNO
It is clear that this determination of the subjective ultimate end, or happiness, presupposes the conception of God, of man and of the world that is proper to Christian philosophy, which rests on the truths 1) of the creation from nothing of the whole world and of spiritual beings themselves and 2) of the survival or personal immortality of individual souls. These two truths, in their exact metaphysical concept, were lacking in all of Greek philosophy and have receded into shadow in modern philosophy. The great Socratic systems (Plato and Aristotle) criticize to the depths the hedonism that placed happiness in the goods of the body, as, for example, the Cyrenaics did: pleasure indeed belongs to happiness, but as a completion, as beauty does for youth, and in some way pleasure is the greatest good: σημεῖον τι τοῦ εἶναι ποιὸν τὸ ἄριστον τὴν ἡδονήν (Eth. Nic., V, 13, 1153 b 26). For the mature Aristotle this pleasure springs from living "according to reason" on this earth, unlike Plato, who placed it in the contemplation of the Ideas, where man arrives as at the island of the blessed (Resp., 519 C) and becomes like the gods: πρὸς οἵσπερ θεὸς ὢν θεῖος ἐστίν (Phaed., 249 C). Epicurus, according to Clement of Alexandria, returns to the materialist hedonism (albeit balanced by reason) of the Cyrenaics, because for him too happiness consists in living a long life in pleasures: τὸ ἡδέως ζῆν, τέλειον δὲ ἀγαθὸν μόνον τὴν ἡδονήν (Strom., II, cap. 5; ed. O. Stählin, Berlin 1939, p. 182, 6). The Stoics on the theme of happiness did not depart from the Aristotelian position of τὸ εὖ ζῆν and τὸ εὖ πράττειν understood as a κατ' ἀρετὴν ἐνέργεια (Eth. Nic., X, 7, 1077 a 12), to which Aristotle however wanted the goods of the body, of external life and of good fortune to be added as a crown (Eth. Nic., I, 8, 1099 b 2 ff. and V, 13, 1153 b 18): the Stoics specify that happiness lies in "living according to reason," which is in turn a living according to nature (κατὰ οὐσίαν), so as to attain perfect tranquillity of mind (ἀταραξία). To this Clement of Alexandria will oppose the impassibility (ἀπάθεια) of the Christian, who must seek "likeness to God" in the "imitation of Christ" (Strom., VII, 12). Nor do the Neoplatonists escape from intellectualism: happiness is the perfect life of the perfect being and therefore of God and of the sage, who is inaccessible to the pains of the body and the blows of fortune: they realize to the highest degree the τὸ εὖ ζῆν, which is a living in aspiration toward liberation from the body (Plotinus, Enn., I, 4; περὶ εὐδαιμονίας, §§ 1 and 16). Paganism therefore conceived happiness only as a possibility for a few privileged spirits in this life; but it either demands immersion in the goods of this world or a negative attitude toward them, and the outcome of both positions could not satisfy their proponents: because in the life of time the life of man cannot be worthily concluded, and the recourse to the θεία μοῖρα, to the θεία τύχη... reinforced this profound skepticism and discouragement, and the problem of evil remained without an answer.
In the first rationalism of modern philosophy, happiness lies in the complete development of reason itself, which thus rests in its full possession. Descartes, writing to Princess Elizabeth, appeals to this ideal of Stoic ethics set out by Seneca in the De vita beata: "Vivere beate nihil aliud est quam animo perfecto et tranquillo frui" (ed. Adam-Tannery, Paris 1901, Correspondance, IV, p. 263 f.). This conception of the ontological immanence of the ultimate end entails that man find his happiness in a certain conclusive disposition or perfection (ἕξις, the Greeks called it) of his being, which refers to no other term than the harmony and fullness of life that it unfolds for itself and by itself. The formula is in the last thesis of Spinoza's Ethica (part 5, prop. 43): "Beatitudo non est virtutis praemium, sed ipsa virtus; nec eadem gaudemus, quia libidines coërcemus; sed contra, quia eadem gaudemus, ideo libidines coërcere possumus" (2nd ed. G. Gentile, Bari 1933, p. 286). This "vera animi acquiescentia" has its origin in the "cognitio intuitiva Dei" (part 4, cap. 4, p. 244) and has its completion in the "amor Dei intellectualis" (part 5, prop. 33 scholium, p. 278). Kant, while holding firm that virtue is the supreme good, observes that it is not yet the whole and perfect good, because to have this, happiness is required: one must therefore rise above both the Epicurean and the Stoic criterion. This necessary link between virtue and happiness, in which the supreme practical good consists, cannot be analytic but only synthetic, and this leads for Kant to the primacy of practical reason over speculative reason, which is realized on condition that complete conformity between virtue and happiness, or between holiness and the possession of the supreme Good, is assured. The realization of this "holiness," which is an infinite task, requires the "postulate" of the immortality of the soul and that of the existence of God: thus - with the primacy of practical reason - the equilibrium between immanence and transcendence seems re-established (cf. Kritik d. prakt. Vernunft, part 1, l. 2, cap. 2 § 1 ff.). In transcendental idealism, Schelling and Hegel take up Spinoza's position: more faithful to Kant, Fichte sees the ultimate end of man in the "participation," proper to each according to the exercise of personal freedom, in the happiness of God (cf. Anweisung zum seligen Leben of 1806; ed. F. Medicus, V, Leipzig 1923, p. 330 ff.).
In Schopenhauer's pessimism, the impulse toward pleasure and happiness reveals a deficiency and is a source of pain: therefore it must be compressed and suppressed through the annihilation of desire, and the ultimate end of human striving can therefore be nothing other than nothingness, if "pleasure is negativity" and pain the positivity of existence (cf. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, I, IV, § 58 in W. W., ed. Bergmann, I, Leipzig n.d., p. 413 ff.). In the more recent and contemporary philosophies, the problem of the ultimate end has been absorbed by that of "value" or of "existence," and its outcome depends on the metaphysical orientation of the respective solutions: the "formal" neo-Kantian theories of value place the ultimate end in the perfecting of culture, of art, of natural morality, etc. (W. Windelband, H. Rickert, N. Hartmann); existentialism, on the other hand, either does not admit an ultimate end of positive meaning, insofar as man is "thrown into the world" and prey to finitude (M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre), or else places man's happiness in "fidelity" to the Transcendent (F. Ebner, M. Buber, G. Marcel). In Nietzsche's atheistic titanism, the supreme goal of humanity is the formation of the "superior" man, who must dominate the "herd" and make it serve as an instrument for the realization of his plans of political greatness (cf. Also sprach Zarathustra, ed. minor, Vorrede). Marxist atheism proclaims as the ultimate end of human society the disappearance of social classes (Klassenkampf) in order to have the equitable distribution of material goods that assures everyone the enjoyment of earthly life.
III. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE
Catholic doctrine sets before man his ultimate end on the twofold plane of nature and of Grace. Man consists not only of a body but also of a spiritual soul that must rule over it: thus man's supreme happiness belongs to the soul and consists in the highest knowledge and love that man can attain by his own spiritual powers. This aspiration to "conformity" or likeness to God was conceived by antiquity as a ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν (Plato, Theaet., 176 B), which consists in the practice of justice and of the other moral virtues. Were it not that men, seized by the necessities of life, hemmed in by the limits of their own intelligence and tempted by the passions, made more insolent by the original fall, could not by themselves attain the ultimate end even in the form of a sufficient abstract knowledge of God and of a fundamental practice of virtue. Even the best minds, observes St. Thomas, would not reach it except "cum magno labore... vix post longum tempus... [and in all this] plerumque falsitas admiscetur": for which reason "salubriter divina providit clementia ut ea quae ratio investigare potest, fide tenenda praeciperet, ut sic omnes de facili possent divinae cognitionis participes esse et absque dubitatione et errore" (C. Gent., I, 4). To the elevation of knowledge through Revelation and Faith there corresponds, for the will, the help and the motion of Grace. With this elevation to the supernatural order there is offered to man, as his ultimate end and eternal happiness, participation in the intimate life of God himself in the light of glory, according to the declaration of the Council of the Vatican: "Deus ex infinita bonitate ordinavit hominem ad finem supernaturalem, ad participanda scilicet bona divina, quae humanae mentis intelligentiam omnino superant" (Denz-U, n. 1786). The dogma of the final resurrection of the bodies gives the last fulfillment of divine Providence to man's perfect happiness in eternal life.
One must recognize a profound mystery in the "natural situation" of man, who is drawn by the infinite Good but who, with the sole natural powers of his spirit, can neither know nor love and enjoy it in an authentic and proper sense: this both because of the metaphysical disproportion between a nature that always remains finite, and because of a weakness as inexplicable as it is real, which prevents the intelligence from the clear discovery of the truth and the will from the sincere aspiration to the good. Thus humanity, even in its highest thinkers, has not succeeded in definitively clarifying the problem of the ultimate destiny and of personal immortality, and has had to stop at precarious and discordant solutions: hence the restlessness and dissatisfaction that pure philosophical inquiry has felt in every age, and the cause of the multiplicity and instability of its attempts. St. Thomas expressly acknowledges this for Aristotle and the whole of classical thought: "Quia vero Aristoteles vidit (Eth. Nic., X, 10, 1779 a 33 sgg.) quod non est alia cognitio hominis in hac vita quam per scientias speculativas, posuit hominem non consequi felicitatem perfectam sed suo modo. In quo satis apparet quantum angustiam patiebantur hinc inde eorum praeclara ingenia, a quibus angustia liberabimur si ponamus [according to the Faith] hominem ad veram felicitatem post hanc vitam pervenire posse, anima hominis immortali existente" (C. Gent., III, 38). Therefore modern philosophy, which abandons the fate of the individual and confines itself to universal Reason, not only alters the divine promise of Christianity but betrays the deepest aspiration of classical thought for a perfect justice and happiness. Thus the "anguish" of the ancient philosophers, who could not have the Faith, becomes the "despair" of the modern philosophers who reject the Faith.