Four Teleological Orders of Human Action

Published in: Philosophical Topics, Vol. 12, No. 3., Winter 1981, pp. 312-335.

The subject of this essay is four of the teleological orders of human actions. By “teleological orders” we mean the kinds of relations that obtain among the aims of our actions. The four teleological orders that shall be described are the relations of one aim to another as (1) a “means to” it, (2) a “part of” it, (3) a “concretion” of it, and (4) as “subsumed” under it.

These teleological orders interconnect three different types of aims: (1) ends, (2) goals and (3) purposes.[1] The clearest way to explain these teleological orders is to divide this essay into three sections, with each section being devoted to one of the three types of aims. The explanation of the particular teleological orders that obtain among each of these types of aims will be undertaken in the relevant section.

We shall use the term “ends” to refer to the aims that are directly pursued in voluntary actions. Ends are terms of one or both of the teleological relationships that we are designating as the “means to” relationship and the “part of” relationship. The ends that are terms of these relationships are either physical ends, mental ends, or interpersonal ends. In this section we shall first explain (a) these three types of ends, then (b) the “means to” order between ends, and finally (c) the “part of” order between these ends.

By “voluntary actions” we mean the actions that are willed to be done in a prior volition, and which are realized by our own power, rather than by an external force. Running up the slope of a hill for exercise is a voluntary action, but falling down the slope is not. The volition, or the “decision” to undertake an action, may be the outcome of a deliberation about which of several actions to undertake, or it may be a spontaneous decision to engage in a certain action, without being preceded by a deliberative process.

The actions that are willed in the prior volition are accompanied by a “feeling of striving.” The voluntary actions and feelings of striving can be differentiated into three types, corresponding to the three types of ends: physical, mental and interpersonal. This classification of ends, actions and feelings of striving is not, and cannot be, a rigid one, as many of the concrete instances of these phenomena are mixtures of physical, mental or interpersonal aspects. Thus “writing several pages of philosophy” can be classified as a mental action, as it primarily involves the mental activity of “thinking about what I am writing and about what I am going to write next,” but it also consists of my hand’s physical activity of “forming the words I am writing with a pen.” If we remember that many such actions, feelings and ends are mixtures of the three types in our classification, we can define these types as follows:

(i) Physical ends are either to alter the physical structure of my surroundings (such as to saw a branch in half), or to alter and move my body for its own sake (as is the case when I engage in exercise). Physical actions consist of movements of my body. Physical feelings of striving are feelings of muscular effort, which are either localized in one part of my body or diffused throughout my “lived—body” as a whole (as when my whole body is straining to push a bureau against a wall).

(ii) Mental ends are not to change the physical environment or my body, but to “bring to my mind” ideas, images or memories. Examples of mental ends are “to solve a mathematical problem,” “to recall a person’s name,” “to read a poem,” and “to conceptualize in an accurate manner a vague insight.” Mental actions are those involved in “trying to figure out the solution to the mathematical problem,” “searching my memory for the person’s name,” and “attempting to conceptualize the vague insight.” The mental feelings of striving are in their essence feelings of “concentration” (in the widest sense of “concentration”).

(iii) Interpersonal ends are to influence or affect the consciousness of another person. Influencing his consciousness may consist of informing him of some idea, giving him some practical directives, inducing some emotional response in him (such as to make him “feel at home” or to “feel intimidated”), and altering his awareness in other ways. The interpersonal activities and feelings of striving belong to the voluntary modes of conduct I adopt when relating to another person. Such social roles and poses as “formal politeness,” “being a gracious host,” “adopting a stern manner,” etc., are examples of these modes of conduct. The interpersonal activities that belong to these modes of conduct are activities of speaking, listening, and adopting bodily poses. (It may be possible to reduce these activities to mental and physical activities, but in order to demarcate a special sphere of activities that are involved in relating to other people, and which are conjoined with interpersonal ends and feelings of striving, we shall refer to them as “interpersonal” activities.) The interpersonal feelings of striving are my voluntary modes of affectively “comporting” myself towards another person, such as adopting the affective expressions of a “gracious host,” a “friendly neighbour,” a “stern authoritarian,” or of a “deferential subordinate.”

The ends pursued in voluntary actions are One of two types: subordinate ends and ends-in-themselves. Subordinate ends are “means to’’ the ends-in-themselves, whereas the ends-in-themselves are realized for their own sake. The subordinate ends are “subordinated” to the ends-in-themselves through being “means to” their attainment, whereas ends-in-themselves are “in themselves” inasmuch as they are pursued for “themselves,” and not for the sake of a further end. The ends-in-themselves are the final ends of voluntary actions, such that with their attainment the voluntary actions and feelings of striving cease. The subordinate ends are often pursued prior to the ends-in-themselves, but it would be a mistake to adopt the customary view that ends which are means to other ends are always realized prior to these ends. It is sometimes the case that subordinate ends are realized contemporaneously with ends-in-themselves. The end-in-itself of “reading a poem” may, for example, be realized contemporaneously with another end that is subordinated to it. The end of “holding the poetry book up to the light” is a “means to” the end of “reading the poem that is printed in the book,” and is realized at the same time that the latter end is realized.

Subordinate ends can not only be prior to and contemporaneous with the ends-in-themselves, but also “interspersed with” these ends. This occurs when the end-in-itself and the subordinate end are attained in a series of stages, with each stage of the end-in-itself being preceded by a corresponding stage of the subordinate end. If my end-in-itself is to eat a whole leg of meat, this end is attained in a series of stages, each of which being to “eat one slice of meat.” The subordinate end that is ordered to eating the leg of meat is the end of cutting off slices of meat and lifting them to my mouth. The attainment of each stage of the end-in-itself (each stage being to eat a slice of meat) is preceded by the attainment of a corresponding stage of the subordinate end (each stage being to cut off one slice of meat and lift it to my mouth). Thus the attainment of the different stages of the end-in-itself is interspersed with the attainment of the different stages of the subordinate end.

The interspersion of a subordinate end with an end-in-itself is a different relation of the subordinate end to the end-in-itself than the aforementioned relation of being prior to the end-in-itself. The latter relation is such that the subordinate end as a whole precedes the end-in-itself as a whole. First the entire subordinate end is attained, and then, after the attainment of this end is completed, the end-in-itself is attained. This “means to” relation where the subordinate end is prior to the end-in-itself, is exemplified in the pursuit of the interpersonal end-in-itself of “having the pianist in the room play a work by Stockhausen for me.” The interpersonal action and comportment of “asking the pianist in a polite tone of voice to play a work by Stockhausen” is here the subordinate end that is a “means to” the end-in-itself of the pianist playing a work by Stockhausen for me. This subordinate end of requesting the pianist to play Stockhausen precedes in its entirety the end-in-itself of the pianist playing his music.

It must be noted that not all voluntary actions possess subordinate ends. Some actions begin with the pursuit of the end-in-itself, without having to attain another end that is a “means to” it. For example, when I am walking up a hill, I may spontaneously decide to “run the rest of the way.” “Running up the hill” is an end-in-itself which does not require any subordinate ends. I do not have to do anything first in order to start running (unless of course I have to tighten my shoelaces or something of the sort), and I do not have to do anything in order to keep running.

Ends, whether they be subordinate ends or ends-in-themselves, can either consist of my voluntary actions and feelings of striving, or they can be the result of my actions and strivings. Ends such as “running up the hill for its own sake” and “reading a poem” consist of certain physical and mental activities, and their accompanying feelings of muscular effort and concentration. These activities and strivings are ends-in-themselves: they are realized for their own sake. Other ends-in-themselves maybe the result of my activity and striving. The end-in-itself of “having the pianist play Stockhausen” is the result of my activity and comportment of asking him politely to play Stockhausen.

Subordinate ends can also consist of or be the result of my actions and strivings. The subordinate end of “asking the pianist to play Stockhausen” consists of the speaking and affective comportment involved in making the request. And the subordinate end of “having the room illuminated,” which is a “means to” the end of reading a book in the room, is the result of the physical activity and effort of “flicking the light switch on the wall.”

The determination of a given phenomenon as an end is, to some extent, a relative matter. Within a voluntary action, it is possible to distinguish anywhere from one or two ends to several dozen or several hundred ends. The number of ends distinguished is relative to the size of the scale used to demarcate one end from another. The larger the scale, the fewer the number of ends that will be distinguished, and the smaller the scale, the greater the number of ends. What makes the usage of such a scale necessary is the “part of” order between ends. This “part of” order has a twofold aspect: (1) It obtains between a smaller end and a larger end. This is such that the smaller end is related to the larger end by being a “part of” it, and the larger end is related to the smaller end by being a “whole” of which the smaller end is a “part.” (2) This “part of” order also holds between the different parts of the larger “whole.” One end is related to other ends as a “part of” the same “whole” end that these other ends are also “parts of.” This relation is of one “part of” a whole to the other “parts of” the same whole.

This order between ends determines the distinction of one end from another to be relative in that virtually any end can be considered as a “whole end” by itself or as a “part of” some larger end. For instance, the voluntary action of “writing several pages of philosophy” can be divided into “different” ends of virtually any “size.” As the largest size, there is the “whole” actional end as such, which is to “write several pages of philosophy.” This can be divided into several “part ends”: “writing each page” can be considered as the “parts of” this “whole end.” The ends of “writing each page” can in their turn be considered as “whole ends” that consist of smaller ends as their “parts.” “Writing a page” is a “whole end” that is comprised of the smaller ends of “writing each paragraph.” These latter ends can also be considered as “whole ends” that consist of the “part ends” of “writing each sentence of the paragraph.” These can be divided into the ends of “writing each word,” and further into the ends of “writing each letter,” and into “writing each part of the letter” and so on until one reaches the limits of conscious experience. One must reach a limit, for this division cannot be infinite. We are dealing here with the phenomena of ends, and I cannot be conscious of an infinity of ends in any given voluntary action. The division of ends into smaller and smaller ends must terminate at a level which will represent the threshold of conscious awareness.

This signifies that voluntary actions can be defined as having a variable number of subordinate ends and ends-in-themselves, the number of which depending upon how far one wishes to carry the division of each end. For example, the action of “preparing to write and writing several pages of philosophy” can be described as having one end-in-itself (“writing several pages of philosophy”), several ends-in-themselves (the ends of “writing each page”), up to several hundred ends-in-themselves (the ends of “writing each part of each letter”). The subordinate end of this action, considered in its greatest breadth, is the single end of “preparing to write several pages of philosophy.” This end consists of the “parts” of “walking to the desk,” “sitting down,” “opening the notebook,” “picking up the pen,” etc. Each of these subordinate ends in turn is made up of smaller parts. For instance the subordinate end of “picking up the pen” consists of the smaller subordinate ends of “reaching out my hand,” “grasping the pen,” and “bringing the pen into a writing position between my thumb and fingers.”

The complete subordinate end of a voluntary action, and the complete end-in-itself of a voluntary action, together form the complete “actional end.” The subordinate end in its greatest breadth, and the end-in-itself in its greatest breadth, are the two “parts of” the “whole” actional end as such. (In actions that possess no subordinate end, the end-in-itself as a whole is the complete actional end.)

It is this teleological order of a part to a whole that enables voluntary actions to be distinguished from one another. One voluntary action differs from another if its complete actional end is posited as a “whole end” that is not a “part of” a larger end that the other actional end is a “part of.” The complete actional end of each voluntary action constitutes a different and separate “whole end,” such that the different actional ends are not related to each other as “parts of” some larger end. Thus the action of “writing several pages of philosophy” is a different “whole end” than the actional end of “obtaining and drinking a glass of water,” if “writing the philosophy” and “drinking the water” are not posited as “parts of” a larger end to which they would both belong.

This distinction between “whole” actional ends is not a relative one, in contrast to the distinction of the different ends within a “whole” actional end. The ends within an action are relative because each of them is posited (unthematically) as consisting of smaller ends, and each of them is posited as belonging to larger ends (and ultimately to the complete actional end as such). On the other hand, while a complete actional end is posited as consisting of smaller ends, it is not posited as belonging to a larger end. Thus different complete actional ends can be distinguished (phenomenologically) by discovering which ends are not posited as belonging to a larger end.

There is another criterion that enables complete actional ends to be distinguished from each other. If two actional ends follow upon one another, they will be separated by an act of volition, which wills the second actional end to be realized. For example, after I have finished writing several pages of philosophy, I may will (i.e., decide) to “obtain and drink a glass of water.” This volition precedes the action of “obtaining and drinking a glass of water.” As such, it divides the prior actional end (“writing philosophy”) from the subsequent actional end (“drinking the water”). This division enables one to differentiate the prior actional end from the subsequent one.

Hence the demarcation of one voluntary action from another is achieved through (1) determining which ends are not posited as “parts of” a larger end, and (2) determining which ends are separately posited by a prior act of volition.

The teleological orders of “means to” and “parts of” not only obtain between the different ends within a voluntary action. These teleological orders also interconnect our actions on a larger scale. They connect the ends of our voluntary actions to our more fundamental aims, namely, to our goals.

Goals differ in essence from ends in that they are mediate aims of voluntary actions, whereas ends are immediate aims of these actions. An end is immediately and directly attained by an action: it is the volitional activity and striving that either are the end itself, or that bring about the end as their direct result. A voluntary action, however, cannot immediately attain a goal. A goal must be attained by a series of voluntary actions, such that they become attained only through the attainment of a series of complete actional ends. In this sense the attainment of the goal is mediate: it is mediated by the attainment of a series of actional ends.

Goals are formally defined as aims that are constituted by two or more ends. The smallest scale goals are constituted by the fewest ends, such as the goal of “reading a novel” or “climbing Mt. Washington over the weekend,” and the largest scale goals are constituted by thousands of ends, such as Richard Wagner’s goal of composing the Ring cycle, and Napolean’s goal of achieving power over Europe.

The explanation of this definition of goals involves a distinction of goals from complete actional ends. Complete actional ends differ from goals in two respects. Complete actional ends are such that (1) they are continually posited from the moment they are willed by a volition until the moment they have been completely attained by the subsequent voluntary action. This entails that these ends (2) are pursued in a continuous and uninterrupted action and striving, such that I act and strive without intermission from the moment I will the end to be attained until the moment I attain it. Goals, on the other hand, (1) are not continually posited from the moment they are willed until the moment they are attained. Rather they are posited as my aims at different times. The pursuit of a goal is interspersed with modes of behavior that do not aim at attaining the goal; these modes of behavior may be actions that aim to attain other goals, or they may be non-actional modes of behavior, such as passions, moods, periods of day-dreaming, sleeping, etc. (2) Corresponding to this discontinuous positing of the goal, the voluntary activities and strivings that aim to realize the goal are engaged in at different times.

The different periods when I actively pursue a goal are represented by different voluntary actions which have as their mediate aim the attainment of the goal. Each of these actions has its own immediate aim, which is the complete actional end, but at the same time it posits this complete end as an aim that is ordered to the realization of the mediate aim: the goal. Each complete actional end is ordered to the attainment of a goal, and is pursued for the reason that it is ordered to this goal. In this sense, goals are more important and basic aims of my actions than are ends.

Our definition of goals indicates that they differ from ends in the manner in which they are posited and pursued. They do not necessarily differ in their contents (although they usually do). This occasional similarity between their contents is apparent in the smallest scale goals and the complete actional ends. At one time I may pursue and attain one aim in a single voluntary action, and at another time I may pursue and attain a similar aim in two or three different actions. In the first case, since the aim is attained in a single action, it is nothing more than the complete end of this action. In the second case, it is the mediate aim of several actions: it is the goal to which the several actional ends are ordered. For instance, my aim may be to read The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. If Tread this book all in one sitting, then “reading this book” is the complete end of my action. However, if my aim is to “read one chapter at a time,” then “reading the whole book” will be a goal that I pursue in different actions. Each night I will engage in an action of “reading one chapter of the book,” and each of these actional ends will be posited as ordered to the goal of “reading the whole book.”

This distinction between ends and goals enables us to note a fundamental difference in kind among the various aims of actions. This difference is usually overlooked. For example, Sartre does not distinguish between the different kinds of aims we empirically desire. For Sartre, “drinking a glass of water” and “conquering Gaul” are undifferentiated instances of the aims we can empirically desire.[3] However we believe there is a fundamental difference in kind between these two aims. The aim of “drinking a glass of water” is achieved in a single and continuous action, whereas the aim of “conquering Gaul” is achieved by a vast number of such actions. The former aim is an end, the immediate aim of one action, whereas the latter aim is a goal, the mediate aim of a number of actions.

We stated above that goals are constituted by ends. This means, specifically, that goals are nothing more than the structural wholes whose parts consist of ends. Ends are ordered to goals as “parts of” them. Thus it may be my goal to “build myself a cabin.” This goal consists of all the individual ends that are involved in building the cabin: hammering this nail into the plank, placing this log on top of the one beneath it, putting mud in this crack, etc. Each of these ends are posited as a “part of” the goal of “building the cabin.” While Tam engaged in hammering a nail, or in tying a log securely to another log, I have an unthematic awareness that this end is a “part of” my goal of “building the cabin,” and it is this awareness that gives the sense to my activity of hammering the nail or tying the log.

Goals can be composed only of the ends—in—themselves that belong to complete actional ends (as is the goal of “writing a book manuscript,” which is composed only of the ends—in—themselves involved in the actual writing of the manuscript); or goals can be composed of both subordinate ends and ends—in—themselves (e.g., “building a cabin” consists of all the activities that I engage in while building it; thus both the subordinate end of “carrying a small log to the cabin site” and the end—in—itself of “laying the log on the log beneath it and tying it securely” are “parts of” my goal of “building the cabin”).

The constitution of goals by ends can be made clearer by further examples: Adolf Hitler’s goal of achieving and maintaining power over Germany as long as he lived is composed of all the ends involved in giving speeches, in engaging in negotiations with other politicians (Hindenburg, von Papen, etc.), in conferring with and “winning over” the industrial leaders and the military, in giving orders to his subordinates concerning party policy, and so on.

The goal of “maintaining physical fitness through exercise” consists of all the ends I pursue in “jogging two miles every day,” “doing push-ups and sit-ups before I go to bed each night,” etc.

The goal of “being successful as the resident opthalmologist at the Good Samaritan Hospital until I retire” is comprised of the ends of “operating successfully on this patient,” of “correctly diagnosing that patient,” of “prescribing the right medicine for the other patient,” etc.

The goal of “maintaining a good love relationship with Beatrice for the rest of our lives” is constituted by the plurality of ends involved in talking with her, in expressing affection and concern for her, in doing things for her, and so on.

Ends are not only ordered to goals as “parts of” them; ends can also be “means to” the attainment of goals. In this case, the ends are “means to” a subsequent series of ends that are the “parts of” the goal. For example, the ends of buying pens, paper, a new typewriter, and in procuring a quiet house in the country, are “means to” the series of ends that constitute the goal of “writing a novel.”

Goals are ordered to each other by the two relations of “part of” and “means to.” Most goals are “parts of” larger goals. The goal of “making a successful business deal with Akron Company” is a “part of” my larger goal of “making successful business deals in my position as the vice—president of the Sales Division.” The relationships of “whole” and “part” that obtains between goals determines the distinction of one goal from another to be relative to the “scale” used in viewing goals. I can conceptualize my goals in terms of larger or smaller scales: I can conceptualize my goals of reading philosophy on the level of “reading Russell’s The Principles of Mathematics,” “reading his Principia Mathematica,” etc., or I can conceptualize them on the larger scale of “reading the philosophical works of Russell,” “reading the philosophical works of Moore,” etc., or even on the larger scale of “reading the works of the twentieth century analytical philosophers,” “reading the works of the twentieth—century phenomenological philosophers,” etc.

Goals can also be “means to” other goals: the goal of “learning the German language” can be a “means to” the goal of reading the untranslated works of the German philosophers. The “means to” order between goals culminates in goals-in-themselves. Goals-in-themselves are goals that are pursued for their own sake, and are not “means to” any further goals. For instance, the goal of “maintaining a good love relationship with Beatrice as long as Beatrice and I live” can be posited as a goal-in-itself. Other goals may be a “means to” this goal, but I do not aim to maintain a good love relationship with her in order to attain some further goal.

The goals we have described can be further elucidated if we contrast them with the “where to” (the work to be produced) described by Heidegger.[4] Heidegger’s “where to” is an instrumental construction whose referential ordering to another “where to” belongs to the order of the world, not to the teleological order of my existence (although it may partially overlap the teleological order of my existence). Heidegger states, with regard to the “relational-whole’ [Bezugsganze] to which the order of one “where to” to another “where to” belongs, that “this relational-whole . . . is what makes up the structure of the world.”[5] If one instrument is produced as a means to the operation of another instrument, such as a tire which is produced so that a car may run, this “referential relation” belongs to the instrumental structure of the world; it is not a “means to” relation between the goals of my existence. If I am a worker in a rubber factory, the “where to” of my activity is the rubber that is to be produced. This “rubber to be produced” is ordered to the further “where to” of “tires that are to be produced,” which itself is ordered to the “where to” of the “cars that are to be produced,” which themselves are produced for Dasein (the “for whom”).[6] Now these referential relations belong to the world, not to my existence. In terms of my existence, the “where to” of the “rubber to be produced” concerns me insofar as I posit it as the goal of my job (this goal, however, will be posited as a specific one: it may be the particular goal of my job to operate the loading ramp where the rubber is loaded). I aim to attain this goal, not because it is ordered to the “where to” of the “production of tires,” but because it is a “means to” a further goal of my existence, namely to “earn enough money to support myself and my family.” Accordingly, while the “production of rubber” is ordered, in its “worldly” and instrumental teleological structure, to the “production of tires,” and ultimately to the “production of cars for Dasein,” this “where to” belongs to the teleological structure of my existence in a different fashion. For me, in my life, the “production of rubber,” which is what I directly or indirectly aim to do in my job, is ordered to my goal of “supporting myself and my family.”

The relation of goals to purposes is different in kind than the relation of ends to goals. Goals are neither “means to” nor “parts of” purposes, but “concretions” of purposes. Goals “make concrete” the “abstractions” that are purposes. Specifically, goals are the concrete determinations of undetermined instances of universals. It is the nature of purposes to be undetermined instances of universals, and it is the nature of goals to be the particular determinations of these instances.

What is an “undetermined instance of a universal”? It is clear, to begin with, what a “universal” is, and what an “instance of a universal” is. A universal is exemplified by such abstract concepts as “friend,” “beloved,” “scientist,” “writer,” “businessman,” “powerfulness,” “goodness” and “famousness.” The instances of these “abstract” universals are “concrete” phenomena, such as “my friend Alex Barth,” “my beloved Beatrice, Simpson,” “my power over the German people,” “my goodness” to the people who come to my welfare office for aid,” etc. An undetermined instance of a universal is the idea of an unspecified instance of the universal. It is the idea of “an instance,” but not of this or that particular instance. Thus the idea of an instance of the universal, “beloved,” is the idea of “a beloved.” It is not the idea of a determinate instance of this universal, e.g., of “my beloved, Beatrice Simpson.” Similarly, the idea of an undetermined instance of the universal, “friend,” is the idea of “a friend,” whereas the idea of “my friend, Alex Barth” is the idea of a determinate instance of this universal. In these expressions, the common nouns (e.g., “beloved,” “friend”) refer to the universals. The indefinite articles (“a” or “an,” as in “a friend”) refer to the undetermined instances of the universals. And the identification of an individual phenomenon (e.g., “my friend Alex Barth”) refers to the concrete and determinate instance of the universal.

Purposes are not universals, but undetermined instances of universals. It is not my purpose to be “human goodness” (a universal), but to be “a good human” (an undetermined instance of this universal). What I aim to be is not the universal, but some instance of the universal. In this sense I say that “it is the purpose of my life to be a good person.”

To realize this purpose, I must “concrete” it in determinate goals. I can become “a good person” only if I engage in the appropriate goal-directed actions. It is by pursuing such goals as the following that I realize the purpose: “being helpful to the clients I have in my job as a welfare worker in the Boston branch office at 312 Brighton Avenue,” “being considerate and kind to my wife, Beatrice,” “bringing up my children, Shaun and Jill, to value moral integrity and justice,” “being helpful to my friends, Thomas, Ezra and William, when they are in need of it,” “giving 1/10 of my salary to charity every year,” and similar goals. My purpose of “being a good person” is being attained insofar as these goals are being attained. It is through being “embodied” in these goals that my purpose can be pursued, and accordingly it is the success or failure of these goals that determines the success or failure of my purpose.

Goals are the “concretions” of a purpose in the sense that they are aims involving particular and “concrete” phenomena in the world. A purpose by itself is “abstract”: it is not an aim that relates to some particular phenomenon in the world. For this reason it cannot be pursued in terms of itself. It can only be pursued in terms of “concretions” of itself, that is, in terms of aims involving particular phenomena. The purpose of “establishing and maintaining a love relation with a woman” cannot be pursued as such, because it does not involve a concrete and particular woman, such as Beatrice or Anna. I cannot pursue a love relation with an abstraction—with the undetermined instance “a woman.” To fulfill this purpose, it must be “concreted” in goals that involve individual women. I pursue this purpose by pursuing the goals of “becoming acquainted with Beatrice,” “becoming acquainted with Anna,” and with other suitable women in my environment. Once these goals are attained, I pursue the further goal of developing and maintaining a love relation with one of them, e.g., with Beatrice. It is only once I have established and am maintaining a love relation with Beatrice that I am fulfilling my purpose of “establishing and maintaining a love relation with a woman.” The purpose is realized through the realization of these goals.

It is not the purposes of our existence, but its goals and ends, that constitute the individual uniqueness of our aims. Each person’s goals and ends are necessarily peculiar to that person alone, and can never be pursued by another person. The reason for this is that these aims involve individual phenomena, and they involve these phenomena in an individually unique respect. The goal of writing A La Recherche du Tern ps Perdu could only have been the goal of one person, namely Marcel Proust. Two or more people may pursue goals that involve the same phenomenon, e.g., two people may pursue goals of “becoming friends with Alex Barth,” but the various ends that constitute these goals will be different. The two people will both relate to Alex Barth in different ways, talk to him about different things, and engage in different activities with him.

Purposes by their nature are not individually unique. Proust, Joyce, Robbe-Grillet and Pynchon all had the same purpose of “being a writer”[7] and the difference in their aims lay in the goals and ends they pursued. Each of them aimed to be “a writer,” but each wrote different books. The uniqueness of their aims lay in the different ways they “concreted” the purpose of being “a writer.”

Whereas ends and goals constitute the unique individuality of our actions, purposes are the unconditioned meanings of our actions. They are the ultimate “reason” or “what for” of our actions. If it is asked why or “what for” a person is engaging in an action, the final reason he can give is that he is doing it in order to realize a purpose. While goals are the meaning of ends, in that ends are pursued for the reason that they realize goals, purposes are the meaning of goals, for purposes are the “reason why” we pursue goals. The “meaningfulness” of purposes is not conditioned by any further type of aim, as they are not “ordered to” a higher level of aims. Because of this, they are the final and unconditioned “meanings” of our actions. (This is not to deny, however, that in an even more fundamental respect our actions could be meaningless. The question “Why do we exist as beings who pursue purposes?” could be answered: “For absolutely no reason at all.”)

As the ultimate meaning and sense of our actions, purposes orient our choice and pursuit of actions. The pursuit of particular ends and goals is determined by which purposes we wish to attain. Marcel Proust pursued the goal of writing A La Recherche du Tern ps Perdu, and the numerous ends involved in writing this novel, because he wished to realize the purpose of “being a writer.” If he desired to attain another purpose, such as “being a politician,” he would have pursued different goals and different ends.

The orientation of our actions by purposes is achieved implicitly on the unreflective level, and explicitly on the reflective level.

In the unreflective pursuit of actional ends and their goals, the purposes to which the actions are directed are implied in the positing of the ends and goals. As Proust was engaged in writing the different sections of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, he was not explicitly thinking to himself that “I am writing this section of the book because the purpose of my existence is to be a writer.” Rather this purpose, instead of being explicitly posited as such, is implied by the ends and goals he did posit. The implied meaning of his end of “writing this particular section of the novel” is to realize his purpose of “being a writer.” Without the tacit awareness of this purpose, Proust would be “disoriented”: he would not know why “for the life of him” he was engaged in writing this book, rather than doing something else or nothing at all. It was the implicit awareness of this purpose which provided him with the ongoing and background sense of the meaning of his everyday activities.

The consciousness of purposes becomes explicit in reflection. A person thematically posits his purposes when he is deliberating about them and deciding which purpose to pursue. This “deliberation about the choice of” purposes does not occur in a single and isolated “practical syllogism” that is logically formulated. Rather the formation of the choice of a purpose is a slowly developing process that often involves many periods of “meditative thinking about one’s purpose in life.” This usually happens in a person’s formative years, when he is trying to decide “what he wants to do in life.” The choice of career purposes, the commitment to religious and moral purposes, to artistic and theoretical purposes, and the decision to raise a family, etc., occur during this time. This gradually formed choice of a purpose determines which goals the person will choose. For instance, if a person eventually decides that “he wants to be a lawyer,” this will lead him to decide to pursue the goals of going to college, of majoring in an appropriate subject, such as political science, of studying diligently so as to receive marks which are sufficient to be accepted into law school, and so on.

The reflective and thematic consciousness of purposes also frequently occurs during times of great success or failure in the pursuit of one’s goals. During the breakdown of a love relation, the partners in the relation may reflect in their solitary moments of depression and anguish that they are failing to fulfill their purpose of “maintaining a love relation with another person.” And a physicist, upon discovering the solution to a specific problem in quantum mechanics, may joyfully reflect that he is fulfilling his purpose of “discovering new truths about the physical universe.”

Purposes are also reflected upon when one is considering changing one’s purpose in existence. A priest who is growing dissatisfied with his purpose as “a servant of God” may begin thinking about abandoning his vocation as a priest. After a period of doubt and despair about his lack of commitment to any purpose, such a person may finally resolve upon a new purpose: he will devote the remainder of his life to being a teacher.

Purposes possess a peculiar way of being ordered to each other, which is not shared by the goals and ends that “concrete” them. This is a fourth type of teleological order: the order of “subsumption.” One purpose is ordered to another by being “subsumed” under it. One or more purposes are “subsumed” under another purpose if the latter purpose is more general in its nature than the former purposes. Since purposes are indeterminate instances of universals, the indeterminate instances of the less general universals are subsumed under the indeterminate instances of the more general universals. They are subsumed under the instances of the more general universals by way of being their specific types. We can imagine a person whose purposes include the following: “to maintain a successful love relation with another person,” “to maintain a good filial relation with children (of his own),” “to maintain an agreeable relation with social friends and neighbors,” and “to maintain a harmonious relation with colleagues at work.” These four purposes are subsumed under the more general purpose of “maintaining a positive relation with other people.” And this purpose is itself subsumed under an even more general purpose. Let us assume the person in question, besides having these purposes relating to people, also has the additional physical purposes of “enjoying eating some tasty foods,” “enjoying drinking some alcoholic beverages,” “enjoying some sexual stimulation and gratification,” and “enjoying relaxing on some comfortable artifacts.” These purposes are subsumed under the more general purpose of “enjoying some pleasurable bodily activities and feelings.” Now both this physical purpose and the interpersonal purpose of “maintaining a positive relation with other people” are subsumed under a further purpose that is more general than either of them. This is the purpose of “maintaining an agreeable relation between himself and his environment.” This purpose includes both maintaining an agreeable relation between himself (qua personality) and other people, and between himself (qua body) and the physical phenomena that can provide pleasure. But the subsumption order between this person’s purposes does not terminate here. His purpose of “maintaining an agreeable relationship with his environment” is subsumed under a more general purpose, the most general purpose a human being can possibly have. The “most general” purpose is the supreme purpose in the order of purposes. All other purposes are subsumed under this purpose, and it is subsumed under no further purpose. This purpose can be nothing other than the empty and contentless purpose of “attaining some purpose.” By definition this is the most general purpose a person can have, as it is evident that “attaining some purpose” cannot possibly be subsumed under any other purpose. Moreover, this is a real purpose, and not a mere theoretical abstraction, for if a person did not decide (implicitly) to “attain some purpose” he would not engage in any voluntary action. He would remain inert and passive in face of the world.

The description of this “subsumption” order between purposes completes our account of the four teleological orders we intended to discuss. By way of a concluding remark, we shall briefly point out that these teleological orders exhibit a five-levelled teleological structure of human action.

Ends, goals and purposes, as they are interrelated by the four teleological orders, constitute a teleological structure of voluntary actions. This structure has five levels, each level being an interrelationship between some of these aims. The relationship between ends and other ends constitute the level that lies at the basis of this structure: the “part of” and “means to” order between ends is the irreducible foundation of voluntary and aim—directed action. Founded upon this basic level of the interconnection of ends, there is a second level consisting of the “part of” and “means to” relations between ends and goals. And upon this level there is based a third level: the “part of” and “means to” relations that connect goals to other goals. These relations serve as the foundation for a fourth level of this teleological structure: the “concretion” order that links goals to purposes. Upon this level there is built the uppermost level, which is the “subsumption” order that connects purposes to other purposes. The final purpose in this “subsumption” order is the empty purpose of “attaining some purpose.” This is the most general aim of voluntary action, and with it the teleological relationships terminate. Any phenomenon that is to become an aim of human action can only do so through being integrated in an immanent fashion within this interconnected teleological structure.

[1] There are no terms in ordinary language that express exactly the teleological differentiations we are making. Thus we must give the terms “aims,” “ends,” “goals,” and “purposes” a more technical and exclusive meaning than the roughly equivalent meanings they have in ordinary language.

[2] I am indebted to Susan Ament for her aid in formulating the ideas in this section.

[3] These examples are given on pages 146—47 and 524—25 of L’Etre et le Neaot (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1943). Sartre did make a threefold distinction among empirical aims, fundamental and concrete aims, and the abstract aim of human reality as such (see p. 654), but he did not make the above distinction between ends and goals which falls within his class of empirical aims.

[4] Cf. Sein und Zeit (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1972), p. 70. “Where to” is a translation of Wozo.

[5] Ibid., p. 87.

[6] Heidegger asserts that every “where to” (Wozo) relates ultimately to a “for whom” (Worum—willen), the latter being Dasein itself. Cf. Ibid., p. 84.

[7] “Being a writer” is an expression of their purpose in its aspect as a mode of being of their self. This purpose, expressed in its aspect as a mode of activity, would be “to write.” For the sake of simplicity, we employ the former way of expressing purposes in the ensuing discussions.