PURPOSE, FINALISM. — By "purpose" (f.) is meant the correspondence that a natural process or any human act has with a certain result toward which the agent tends: this correspondence requires that the phases of natural processes, like the moments of every event in human life, realize an overall process and therefore have their first impetus in the end to which they tend. For this reason, the final cause is the first in act in a rational conception of nature as well as of spiritual life: purpose (f.) thus transcends both materialism and absolute idealism. In free agents, who directly dispose of the end of their actions and the means to achieve it, purpose is evident: every decision is made with a view to a good, true or apparent, toward which it aims. The concrete correspondence between means and end is therefore established by the intelligence of the individual agent, who then implements it with his freedom: "De agentibus per intellectum non est dubium qui agent propter finem: agent enim praeconcipientes in intellectu id quod per actionem consequuntur et ex tali praeconceptione agent" (C. Gent., III, 2; Adluc).
In nature, on the other hand, the correspondence is inherent as a necessary law of the process itself, immediately from God, the author of nature, even if the process may be hindered or diverted in its completion by obstacles or opposing forces intervening (contingency). The purpose of nature is attested by the "regularity" and constancy of phenomena, upon which the very possibility of scientific laws rests, and is also manifested to experience as the tendency that nature usually has toward the good and the better: "Videmus autem in operibus naturae, vel semper vel frequentius quod melius est; sicut in plantis folia sic esse disposita ut producunt fructus et partes animalium sic disponi ut animal salvari possit" (C. Gent., III, 3; Adluc). The constancy and positivity of the effect constitute proof of the existence of purpose in nature and impose the requirement of an ordering Intelligence of the universe (5th way).
The progress of astrophysics in probing the complexity of sidereal systems and the most recent discoveries of microbiology and atomic physics have provided decisive contributions to the refutation of absolute mechanism, which denies purpose (atomism of antiquity and positivist science of the 19th century). The marvelous combinations of the movements of the stellar worlds are not the mechanical result of the movement of a machine, but the overall effect that points to a supreme first Mind as their ordainer. Likewise, the physics of atomic and subatomic structures, while revealing in its original nucleus the "contingency" of physical phenomena defended by traditional necessity, has clarified the meaning of physical laws as laws of global (statistical) facts and thus their evident finalistic character.
In biology, research in experimental embryology has shown that the development of living matter obeys a plan of structures to be built by virtue of specific and proper functions, so that when, either through traumatic incidents or by experimental devices, the normal conditions of either the germ or the embryo are altered, living matter enjoys—within limits sometimes very broad—self-regulating powers that equally allow the achievement of the final result (H. Spemann, H. Driesch, M. Hartmann). The same "laws of heredity" (Mendel) that govern the preservation of the species show the tendency of the germ to return to the average values of the species whenever the genetic endowment is altered: thus an evolution without norm and principle is repugnant.
Purpose is therefore the "completion" (τέλος) toward which becoming tends in its development, but in the precise sense that such perfection or completion is understood as immanent to the process itself as the reason "for which" (τοῦ δὲ ἔνταχ: Papyus, II, 2, 194 n. 27) the agent first operates the matter according to a determined form. Purpose, almost entirely absent in early Greek philosophy, was expressly banished by Democritus, who explained the becoming of nature by virtue of the mechanical movement of atoms in the void and according to the diversity of their external form (ibid., VIII, 9, 265 b 29 ff.). For Aristotle, on the other hand, purpose constitutes the first and ultimate reason of all processes of the real, whether considered as movements of ascent or descent of being (generation and corruption), because every being moves insofar as it "tends" toward the attainment of a certain structure or "form" that establishes it in its specificity: and this form or substantial nature constitutes the primary purpose of being. Once nature is constituted in itself, the process begins for the attainment of the perfection to which it is destined or that such nature can achieve according to its effective capacities: this kind of "vis a tergo" by which natural entities, and especially living beings, are driven forward to perfect themselves, is what constitutes the second. The very notion of nature (οὕτης) in Aristotle (ibid., II, 1, 192 b 21-23) as "principle of motion and rest in the subject in which it is found, per se and not accidentally" expresses the priority and ontological dominance of purpose, while Democritus' mechanism expresses the ontological dominance of the efficient cause. Since purpose presupposes the organization of a development plan, it is also understood how, for Aristotle, the first principle of the universe must be a supreme Intelligence (Met., XIII, 7, 1074 b 7 ff.) and that purpose is absolutely the first of the causes: πῶς τὴν αἰτίαν ἦν λόγον ἐντὸς τῶν (De part. anim., I, 1, 639 b 14).
The Aristotelian theory, submerged by Stoic fatalism, had an immediate repercussion in Epicurus, who, to safeguard individual personality and freedom, tempered the rigidity of Democritus' atoms by introducing into the motion of atoms a "deviation" or "declination" (χάνωμεν).
Thus Epicurus substantially accepted Aristotle's critique of atomism, even if he did not accept its metaphysics, namely, the position that every process of becoming derives its order from a "form" immanent to the whole (cf. De Anima, III, 12, 434 a 31): a principle, moreover, that received its definitive clarification only in the Christian doctrine of creation, according to which all sensible and finite forms have their origin and foundation in the divine Intellect and receive being and movement according to the free disposition or governance of divine Providence, which St. Thomas calls precisely: "Ratio (divina) ordinandorum in finem" (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 22, a. 1).
Purpose is denied by the anti-Aristotelian philosophies of the Renaissance (Telesio, Campanella), Galilean mechanics, empiricist philosophies (Fr. Bacon), and that of the absolute necessity of universal contingency.
From the finality that is manifested in the order of nature, men of all ages arrived at the knowledge of the existence of God (cf. St. Thomas: Theol., 1a, q. 2, a. 3). With the argument of finality, Plato already refuted the atheists of his time by affirming that through this « both Greeks and barbarians believed in divinity » (Leg., 886 B. Cf. also: Epinomis, 982 F. - 985 B. which develops this doctrine at length). The young Aristotelian Platoist remains faithful to his master and sees in the order of the world the presence of the gods, as Cicero preserves for us (De nat. der., II, 37) from the De Philosophia (Aristotelis Fragmenta, ed. V. Rose, in Opera Aristotelica, V. Berlin 1870, p. 1476). St. Thomas also affirms that the consideration of the order and the finality that it entails is the most evident way to ascend to God, whom he calls by the authority of God (Lectura in Ev. Ioannis, Prologus; ed. Parm., t. X, p. 279 a). In Aristotle, moreover, this solidarity, so to speak, between finality and the existence of divinity was conceived so intimately that the entire world of the stars, which reveals itself as a marvelous complex of movement, is considered « divine » (De coelo, I, 9, 279a 30 ff. Cf. M. P. Nilsson, The origin of belief among the Greeks in the Divinity of the heavenly Bodies, in The Harvard theological review, 33 [1940], p. 7).
Finality is therefore the guarantee and substance of the order of the world both as a whole and in its individual parts; this does not proclaim our world as the best or that everything that happens is good, but rather that a law is immanent in the world, impressed by a supreme Mind, whose violations constitute mere deviations from which nature recoils and which it often succeeds in overcoming. For this reason causality does not oppose finality but actuates it, just as finality dominates and integrates causality.
Finality in human activity. — Finality is one of the most universal characteristics of reality and therefore one of the most universal notions of the human mind. To common sense intuition and philosophical reflection, finality presents itself as the result of two essential elements: intellectual ideation and volitional impulse. Common sense discerns a trace of finalism everywhere and spontaneously posits it in necessary relation to an intelligent and volitional being. This relation may be one of identity or of causal dependence. Indeed, beings that lack intelligence and will yet act in a finalistic manner are possible and in fact exist; moreover, no activity is possible that is not oriented toward a finality. But common sense perceives that finalism consists formally and fundamentally in intelligent and volitional activity, and therefore considers the finalism of beings without reason and will as caused and participated by an intelligent and willing being. Upon the perception of the genesis and essentially intellectual and volitional nature of finalism is founded the demonstration of the existence of God as pure intelligence and will, from which derives and upon which depends the unconscious finalism of irrational nature.
These general principles regarding finalism immediately authorize the assertion that human activities, properly speaking, are finalistic by their intrinsic nature; for a properly human act is precisely one that proceeds from intelligence and will. These are the specific faculties of man (cf. atto UMANO). To think and to will is, by identity, to know and to tend toward an end. Thus, the end, in general, of human action is everything that is the object of human intelligence and will, namely, every reality in its transcendental aspects of truth and goodness. The same conclusion is reached by starting from the notion of end as perfection. The convertibility of the notion of end with that of perfection is a datum of immaculate intuition: inasmuch as any being tends to attain its end, it becomes and is complete and perfect in its own genus. The end of human action therefore coincides with the perfecting of human intelligence and will; the intelligence is perfected by knowing reality as truth, the will by loving and possessing reality as good. This perfecting of intelligence and will is subjectively felt as the satisfaction of a need, as the fulfillment of a desire, from which arises a sense of joy and well-being. The term consecrated by usage to designate the end from this point of view is happiness. The end of human action is therefore an objective reality, extrinsic to man and to his operations of intelligence and will; but it is also a subjective reality, intrinsic to man, since it is identified with the very operations of intelligence and will. Of these two aspects, objective and subjective, of the end of human action, the principal or determining one is the subjective. Any reality, however great its value in itself, so long as it is not known, loved, desired, and possessed by man, does not have for him the value of an end in an actual and formal sense; it is, however, objectively a potential or material end. The end, being the term of the operation, is posterior to it and represents almost its crowning or result; it stands to the operation as the fruit does to the plant; the very word "end" expresses formally its character of ultimacy. But if one observes closely, the end, from another point of view, precedes the operation as its root and principle; for it is necessary that man first know and love an end before he can strive to attain II. This twofold aspect of principle and term inherent in the end is expressed in the well-known dictum: finis est primus in intentione, ultimus in executione (Sum. Theol., 1^2^2^, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1^2^2^). Just as the fruit comes from the plant, but the plant in turn comes from the fruit, so the end is at once the fruit and the germ of the action. The word «motive», common in ordinary language to designate the end, formally expresses the causal antecedence it has with respect to the action. The ideological-affective nature of the end is formally expressed by the terms idea, ideal, aim, goal, intention, intent, purpose.
An essential component of the teleological structure of human action is the means. End and means are not opposed as two contradictory or contrary terms, but as two correlated realities or notions. Indeed, what confers upon a reality the name and character of an end is the fact that it is known and desired in its complete perfection. What, instead, confers upon a reality the name of means in relation to a given end is the capacity, in whatever measure inheres in it, to contribute to the realization of that end. It can therefore be established as a general principle that potentiality is the characteristic of the means as such, while actuality is the characteristic of the end as such. End and means are, in a certain sense, the same thing in two phases that are really distinct: the phase of potentiality and the phase of actuality; and it can therefore be said that the means is the material object and the end the formal object of human action; or, in other words, the end is the object in itself and for itself, while the means is the object in itself but not for itself of the will. It must also be noted that the same reality can have the value of an end, inasmuch as it is the realization of means ordered to it, and can have the value of a means in relation to a further end. Hence means are also called intermediate ends. From this it can be concluded that in the hierarchy of goods, the name of end in the full and absolute sense belongs to the ultimate end (q.v.), which can only be that good which, being infinitely good, contains within itself no potentiality in relation to a further good, and therefore cannot in any way be a means to another end; all other goods are ends in a relative sense, to the extent that they represent a certain actual perfection, and all are means to the extent of their finitude. The more perfect a good is, the greater is its value as an end and the lesser its value as a means; conversely, the reason for being a means increases as perfection decreases.
With regard to the priority of means and end, in the intentional order—that is, from the point of view of human action—the will of the end precedes and generates the will of the means; whereas in the order of objective realization the means precede and produce the end. Yet this priority of means over end in the ontological order is only relative, as is the priority of potentiality over act. Indeed, from the absolute point of view, embracing all reality, the end, being the most perfect good, ontologically precedes the means, that is, finite goods. The ascending scale of means toward the end, of potentiality toward act, presupposes the descending scale of the end toward the means, of act toward potentiality. From the absolute point of view, therefore, the end has the character of principle in every respect.
Turning from these general reflections to consider human action as it presents itself in experimental reality, one is at first struck by the diversity and disparity of its teleological orientations. The indefinite multiplicity of aspirations, tastes, desires, vocations, professions, and careers of men reflects the indefinite variety of concrete ends or purposes that they propose to themselves in their action; the multicolored variety of goods or values intended and realized by human activity is, by identity, the variety of the ends toward which it is directed. Yet beneath this manifold form of activity there lies a common teleological principle. Comparing with St. Augustine the attraction toward an end to the weight of a body (*pondus meum amor meus* [Confess., XIII, 9: PL 32, 849]), one may consider individual human subjects, in their teleological activity, as so many bodies having their own center of gravity; but just as a common force impels all bodies toward a common center of gravity, so a single final impulse orients all men in their varied human activity toward a common and unique term. This common term is the ultimate end of human action.
The problem of the ultimate end (q.v.) of human action is fundamental in practical knowledge, inasmuch as only in the ultimate end is it possible to find the supreme point of reference for distinguishing good from evil, the lawful from the unlawful; to indicate the touchstone for measuring the value of man and his works; to establish the criterion for judging the progressive or regressive sense of civilization. The very meaning of terms such as good or evil, virtue and vice, progress and civilization, right and justice, etc., depends, more or less directly, upon the determination of the ultimate end of man. As the supreme goal, it sets the fundamental directives to which man must conform in all his action, and to which, therefore, the sciences that treat of these matters must ultimately be inspired, such as, for example, political and economic sciences.
Referring to the respective article for the theoretical and historical treatment of the ultimate end, two general premises are indicated here in relation primarily to human activity.
1) Human action must have an ultimate end, whatever it may be. Just as in the order of efficient causality it is repugnant to have an infinite series of causes subordinated to one another, but it is necessary that there be a first efficient cause not itself caused upon which all others depend, so in the order of finality it is repugnant to have an infinite series of ends subordinated to one another, but it is necessary to admit an ultimate end that subordinates to itself all ends without being subordinated to a further end. The end is also a moving cause and is therefore called a motive; to explain, then, the final motion of human action, it is necessary to admit the influence of a motive that is not itself motivated but has its motivation within itself; to push the motive of human action to infinity is to deprive it of any motive and thus of all meaning. A man who cannot concentrate and fix his aspirations upon at least a provisionally ultimate goal, but who indefinitely seeks a further goal, is like one who will never decide to move because he has not fixed where to go. The very names of end and term contain the idea of ultimacy, at least relative. But a merely relatively ultimate end, while closing the series of means subordinated to it, is itself a means subordinated to a further end. Hence an infinite series of ends subordinated to one another is equivalent to an infinite series of means, or may even be considered globally as a single means. Now the means, as such, is possible and intelligible, both metaphysically and psychologically, only in relation to an end. The finalism of human action therefore necessarily demands an absolutely ultimate end.
2) The general orientation of human action toward its ultimate end is not freely chosen by man, but is naturally congenital to him.
For if the existence of an ultimate end is posited, it follows that the total series of all human operations will have its point of departure and, as it were, its driving force in the intentional directive toward the ultimate end. Such a directive cannot come from anything other than nature itself, since if it proceeded from a free act of man, it would not be the primordial act, for that free act in turn presupposes the intention of an end. What, more or