Living for the Sake of an Ultimate End
Susan Sauvé Meyer
In Miller, ed., Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: A Critical Guide
Cambridge, 2011

"The ethical life, as Aristotle conceives of it, involves the pursuit of a wide range of objectives.... In also pursuing them 'for the sake of the kalon,' the ethical person is regulating his pursuit of them in the light of his unwavering commitment to doing what is kalon and avoiding what is aischron. His pursuit of the kalon as an end therefore structures and regulates his pursuit of these subordinate objectives, while at the same time being constituted by those pursuits." (MEYER, p. 55)

"The kalon, for Aristotle's virtuous person, is a genuine goal of the activities whose pursuit it regulates." (MEYER, p. 56)

"The pursuit of the kalon as an ultimate goal leaves open a very wide range of options in life, large-scale and small, which are indifferent with respect to their bearing on the kalon. We may call this the 'space of permissions' left open by that ultimate commitment. A life devoted to the pursuit of the kalon may therefore involve the pursuit of a wide variety of other goals that are valued and pursued for their own sakes, as long as a person's pursuit of them is regulated or limited by ... commitment to the kalon." (MEYER, pp. 58-59)

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