Degrees of Finality and the Highest Good in Aristotle
Henry S. Richardson
Journal of the History of Philosophy 30 (3):327-352 (1992)

Richardson explains that in ancient philosophy there are "two ways of conceiving the ultimate end. One, developed especially by Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophers, is to regard it as the source of value. The ultimate end is unconditionally good itself; and everything else that is good is so either because it contributes to or participates in the ultimate end. The contrasting way of understanding the ultimate end is to focus more on its action-regulating and soul-regulating roles, viewing it as the aim of our strivings.... Aristotle's conception of the ultimate end in the Nicomachean Ethics is built around the idea of guidance and regulation and does not imply that it is a source of value." (RICHARDSON-1992a, pp. 328-329) [PSA: this is connected with the primacy of energeia, the human ergon, and eidos as a way of being.]

"[A] proper understanding of the degrees of finality both explains how the highest good is not a maximand and allows ... for a textually grounded explanation of how the ultimate end as guiding aim can embrace within itself both moral virtue's ordering of the soul and a potentially preeminent place for the perfect good of contemplative activity." (RICHARDSON-1992a, p. 329)

"[W]e choose something for its own sake only if we would be glad to have it even if no advantage resulted from it (1097b4).... For example ... we would exercise virtue even if happiness would not result from so doing." (RICHARDSON-1992a, p. 330) [PSA: but eudaimonia is not a kind of advantage or gain, as for instance wealth is; arete is in fact a constituent of eudaimonia, so means-end reasoning isn't the right way to think about the causal relationship between arete and eudaimonia.]

"[P]leasure, virtue, and reason are sought for their own sakes and *also* for the sake of eudaimonia.... they *would* be sought solely for themselves and would *also* be sought solely for the sake of their contribution to eudaimonia. These counterfactuals reveal not so much facts about the source of value as facts about the ways in which these ends guide action." (RICHARDSON-1992a, p. 335)

"The short answer to how there can be non-final ends is that something is an end of action, for Aristotle, just in case it is pursued.... We must distinguish between that for the sake of or towards which an action is done, viz. an end, from [sic] that for the sake of which an end is pursued, viz. itself if it is a final end or something else if it is not. The former is typically expressed by heneka or charin, the latter by dia or kata." (RICHARDSON-1992a, pp. 335-336)

"The connection between end and limit (peras) is of pervasive importance in Aristotle's thought.... something that is not unqualifiedly final or complete (haplos teleios) does not include all its boundaries or limits. Since a further sense of 'limit' is simply that of 'the end of each thing' (1022a6), we are certainly licensed to draw on the notion of a limit in attempting to understand the degrees of finality." (RICHARDSON-1992a, p. 340)

"[T]he fine 'delimits' the virtue of generosity, not by overriding it, but by helping specify that wherein generous action consists. A rough account of generosity might refer only to moderate donation of money; but moderate donation that ignored the limits set by the fine would not, it appears, be truly generous. Such qualitative reguation of virtuous action by reference to the fine is pervasive in Aristotle." (RICHARDSON-1992a, p. 341)

"Although the pursuit of the highest good obviously needs no delimitation in terms of some further end, this does not mean that it is to be pursued limitlessly (eis apeiron).... the highest good is 'self-limiting'.... the highest good is unqualifiedly complete or final in that it already contains all appropriate boundaries or limiting principles. As the late D.M. Balme argued, the idea of self-limitation is a fundamental feature of living beings as Aristotle conceived them. [fn36: D.M. Balme, "Teleology and Necessity"] Every organism's final end is bound up with its becoming [PSA: and *being* i.e. living as] the kind of organism that it is.... As self-limiting, the role of the ultimate end is to impose structure on our conception of the good rather than simply licensing maximization.... It qualifies as an ultimate end not because it is such as to be maximized but because it is such as to require no delimitation. By definition, the content of the ultimate end is such that all necessary limits are already implicit in it." (RICHARDSON-1992a, pp. 342-343) [PSA: the highest good is a *life*, not an external source of value for that life.]

"A maximand - some end that is to be limitlessly pursued no matter what the circumstances because it is supremely desirable - is emphatically not what Aristotle means by an ultimate end." (RICHARDSON-1992a, p. 344)

"The problem with an end that is not self-limiting ... is that it does not comprehend the principles that should limit its own pursuit. A self-limiting or unqualifiedly final end, by contrast, somehow contains within itself at least an implicit explanation of its own limits." (RICHARDSON-1992a, p. 348)

"The highest good, therefore, is an ultimate end that by itself makes life choiceworthy and lacking nothing.... As ultimate end, it regulates the soul (via the virtues) and guides our progress (as an aim). As self-sufficient (and as concerning activity 1095a19, b31-33), it also constitutes a form of activity valuable in itself." (RICHARDSON-1992a, p. 349) [PSA: if the highest good is a *life*, i.e., the best life, then that life would making living valuable ("choiceworthy") and thus guide the activities that make up the best life.]

"If my analysis of degrees of finality is correct, however, more subtle forms of inclusivism are possible. In particular, the following is one possibility: virtue, honor, pleasure, and contemplation are each final ends; virtue, honor, and pleasure are also sought for the sake of contemplation; and each of the above is sought also for the sake of eudaimonia. That is, virtue, honor, and pleasure are each recognized as intrinsic goods, but each in a way regulated in degree and manner by a requirement of mutual support (by the fine) and by their contribution to contemplation. Contemplation, however, would be further regulated by reference to eudaimonia as a whole. What then would eudaimonia be, on this hypothesis? One answer would be: a life successfully actualizing this structure of pursuit." (RICHARDSON-1992a, pp. 349-350) [PSA: i.e., the examined life; and this living well.]

"[T]he suggestion that eudaimonia is a structured whole is hardly original. Alexander of Aphrodisias set out this idea using the following analogy: eudaimonia relates to other goods the way the polis relates to its citizens. A polis is not merely a collection of citizens, although one aspect of it is a collection of citizens (Pol 3.1274b39-43). Rather, it is a collection of individuals or villages capable of self-sufficiency, existing for the sake of the good life, and having a certain structure of government (Pol 1.1252b28-32; Pol 3.1276b1-13)." (RICHARDSON-1992a, pp. 350-351)

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