Hypothetical Necessity and Natural Teleology
John M. Cooper
In Gotthelf and Lennox, eds., Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology
Cambridge, 1987

"[T]he hypothesis relatively to which a hypothetical necessity, in Aristotle's usage, is necessary is always a goal posited or set up (hupotethen) as something to be archieved. [fn2: Thus Aristotle regularly expresses the hypothesis in relation to which something is hypothetically necessary in the future tense: 'if this is to be' (see PA 642a32; similarly 639b27, 642a13, Physics  200a12, De Somno 455b26-27).]" (COOPER-1987, p. 243)

"[N]ot everything that is necessary if a goal is to be attained will qualify as necessitated hypothetically.... That is because hypothetical necessities are conditions sine qua non [PSA: perhaps "indispensable preconditions"] for ends (Physics 200a5-6, PA 642a8), which is to say that they are things not already included in the end in view, but rather things that are needed as external means to its realization. Aristotle warns in the Eudemian Ethics (1214b14-27) against the error of counting things like breathing or being awake, that are merely conditions sine qua non for human flourishing, as actual parts or constituents of the human good, and here the reverse error must be avoided, that of counting as merely a condition sine qua non what is in fact something essential to the animal nature in question." (COOPER-1987, pp. 253-254)

"Thus the *necessity* involved in hypothetical necessity is contributed by matter, and can therefore be called material necessity; but this necessity only produces its effects given that there are to be the various kinds of living things that constitute the goals of natural production." (COOPER-1987, p. 255)

"Aristotle distinguishes between saying 'altogether that it cannot be otherwise' and 'that it is at least good thus' (640a36-b1).... Here there is the same end in view in both classes of means - namely, the good which consists in human beings living a human life - but only those means to this end that are also indispensable for its being achieved at all count as hypothetically necessitated. The others, which allow this goal to be achieved more efficiently or commodiously, though equally means to the end, are not indispensable for its being achieved, and so are not hypothetically necessitated." (COOPER-1987, p. 256) [PSA: how does this distinction apply to, say, some level of wealth as an external good and enabler of certain kinds of virtuous activity?]

"[B]ecause the animal nature is responsible for what happens in the course of an animal's development y [CHECKTHIS] functioning as the end or final cause of what happens, it is the completed animal nature as end that bears the ultimate responsibility." (COOPER-1987, p. 268)

END