[Serious] The Good

[Belacqua]

If, as I say, there are no final causes, and there aren't, then nothing has a necessary or intended function, and the non-theistic case for the good essentially collapses.  Do you have another way of conceiving of the good which doesn't rely upon your particular, in my view mistaken, understanding of the nature of final causes, function, and teleology?

I disagree entirely with your characterization of what a Final Cause is. 

In nature it has nothing to do with intention, conscious or otherwise. It is in no way a metaphysical force. It is the end toward which a thing points. A rock, at the top of a ledge, has as its final cause being at the bottom of the ledge. The efficient cause is gravity. The rock has no conscious intention, no plan. 

I suppose that the word "cause" may be tricky. It doesn't mean that some pre-determined future ghost is "pulling" the thing in the desired direction, causing the thing to happen. It just means that the potentiality in the acorn is aimed or pointed toward that particular end. Of course if the acorn is in space, or gets eaten, or burns up, or something (I have an acorn I took from a Barbizon painter's garden) it doesn't end up making it to the thing it points to. But can you explain what an acorn is to a student without mentioning that trees grow from them?

In living things, the heart most certainly does have a purpose. Nobody ever consciously decided to make one, but the animal is quite a bit better off than if it didn't have one. Again, try explaining to students what a heart is without explaining what it's for. The material cause is the tissue, the formal cause is in the DNA, the efficient cause is the parents and growth of the animal. Nothing intentional or metaphysical is required. 

From the Stanford Encyclopedia:

Aristotle’s reply [to those who deny final causality in nature] is that the opponent is expected to explain why the teeth regularly grow in the way they do: sharp teeth in the front and broad molars in the back of the mouth. Moreover, since this dental arrangement is suitable for biting and chewing the food that the animal takes in, the opponent is expected to explain the regular connection between the needs of the animal and the formation of its teeth. Either there is a real causal connection between the formation of the teeth and the needs of the animal, or there is no real causal connection and it just so happens that the way the teeth grow is good for the animal. In this second case it is just a coincidence that the teeth grow in a way that it is good for the animal. But this does not explain the regularity of the connection. Where there is regularity there is also a call for an explanation, and coincidence is no explanation at all. In other words, to say that the teeth grow as they do by material necessity and this is good for the animal by coincidence is to leave unexplained the regular connection between the growth of the teeth and the needs of the animal. Aristotle offers final causality as his explanation for this regular connection: the teeth grow in the way they do for biting and chewing food and this is good for the animal. (See Code 1997: 127–134.)


One thing to be appreciated about Aristotle’s reply is that the final cause enters in the explanation of the formation of the parts of an organism like an animal as something that is good either for the existence or the flourishing of the animal. In the first case, something is good for the animal because the animal cannot survive without it; in the second case, something is good for the animal because the animal is better off with it. This helps us to understand why in introducing the concept of end (telos) that is relevant to the study of natural processes Aristotle insists on its goodness: “not everything that is last claims to be an end (telos), but only that which is best” (Phys. 194 a 32–33).
Once his defense of the use of final causes is firmly in place, Aristotle can make a step further by focusing on the role that matter plays in his explanatory project. Let us return to the example chosen by Aristotle, the regular growth of sharp teeth in the front and broad molars in the back of the mouth. What explanatory role is left for the material processes involved in the natural process? Aristotle does not seem to be able to specify what material processes are involved in the growth of the teeth, but he is willing to recognize that certain material processes have to take place for the teeth to grow in the particular way they do. In other words, there is more to the formation of the teeth than these material processes, but this formation does not occur unless the relevant material processes take place. For Aristotle, these material processes are that which is necessary to the realization of a specific goal; that which is necessary on the hypothesis that the end is to be obtained.

The part you added later:

Acorns in space didn't evolve that way.

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Good does not always need intent/motivations/morals, evil more often does. 

Why is that? 

The premise that loss of function is evil is just silly.

Please give the argument by which you decided this. 

What if we restated it by saying that one way to be evil is to deprive someone (unjustly) of function, would that be OK?