A Function, Not a Purpose

Aristotle (385-323 BCE)

Atheists properly balk at the question Why are we here? because unless this is a request for a description of human reproduction, the question implies that a transcendent intelligence placed us here for a reason--a most flagrant case of question-begging. On the other hand, Aristotle and his fellow Greek philosophers had a notion that human beings, as creatures with a nature significantly different from other living and nonliving things, had a proper way of to live appropriate to that nature; that is, a function. He used the term final cause in this respect,  by which he meant the ultimate end, or telos, toward which a thing tends under normal circumstances precisely because it is the kind of thing it is. 

Think of the relationship between an acorn and oak tree, though unlike a human being, an acorn does not act to fulfill its function. Think further of the relationship between the eye and sight. These are not evidences of intelligent design; they rather are examples of the law of identity. How could things be otherwise?

If you think this idea of telos makes no sense, you would have to regard health and disease as mere arbitrary social constructs, which I'm sure would be hard to maintain. And if you think telos would require a god, then you'll gain much from reading Aristotle.

I thought it would be useful to lay out Aristotle's notion of the human being's proper function, which he sums up as: living (that is, striving to act in all ways) intelligently, excellently, or virtuously.

In the Nicomachean Ethics (Book 1) Aristotle, after noting that all people pursue what they regard as happiness, wrote:

To say however that the Supreme Good is happiness will probably appear a truism; we still require a more explicit account of what constitutes happiness. Perhaps then we may arrive at this by ascertaining what is man's function. For the goodness or efficiency of a flute-player or sculptor or craftsman of any sort, and in general of anybody who has some function or business to perform, is thought to reside in that function; and similarly it may be held that the good of man resides in the function of man, if he has a function.

Are we then to suppose that, while the carpenter and the shoemaker have definite functions or businesses belonging to them, man as such has none, and is not designed by nature to fulfil any function? Must we not rather assume that, just as the eye, the hand, the foot and each of the various members of the body manifestly has a certain function of its own, so a human being also has a certain function over and above all the functions of his particular members? What then precisely can this function be? The mere act of living appears to be shared even by plants, whereas we are looking for the function peculiar to man; we must therefore set aside the vital activity of nutrition and growth. Next in the scale will come some form of sentient life; but this too appears to be shared by horses, oxen, and animals generally. There remains therefore what may be called the practical life of the rational part of man....

If then the function of man is the active exercise of the soul's faculties* in conformity with rational principle, or at all events not in dissociation from rational principle, and if we acknowledge the function of an individual and of a good individual of the same class (for instance, a harper and a good harper, and so generally with all classes) to be generically the same, the qualification of the latter's superiority in excellence being added to the function in his case (I mean that if the function of a harper is to play the harp, that of a good harper is to play the harp well: if this is so, and if we declare that the function of man is a certain form of life, and define that form of life as the exercise of the soul's faculties and activities in association with rational principle, and say that the function of a good man is to perform these activities well and rightly, and if a function is well performed when it is performed in accordance with its own proper excellence—from these premises it follows that the Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them. Moreover, to be happy takes a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy.

This seems to imply a universal character for ethics, and indeed it does. But since ethics is a practical matter--that is, it is about how to act and not merely, like physics or biology, about what is true--it also has a contextual character. In other words, an inquiry into the right thing to do must always take account of the complex circumstances in which one acts. And one may not appreciate one's circumstances until one confronts them. As Henry B. Veatch wrote in Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation:

...Aristotle explicitly denies that ethics is an exact science, certainly not like mathematics, and not even like physics or metaphysics. Insofar as ethics is properly a science or knowledge at all--for it is indeed that, Aristotle would insist--it is a knowledge that bears on the particular concrete case.... Now obviously in concrete, particular matters..., Aristotle would say it is impossible that my judgment as to what ought to be done should be either universal or necessary or certain.

So ethics is at once universal and particular, the artful application of rational principles to specific situations. Veatch called ethics "the art of living." 

Human beings as such, then, have a function but not a purpose--except for their chosen purposes. That state of affairs ought to satisfy anyone.

*By soul Aristotle did not mean what religious people mean. One commentator interprets Aristotle's meaning as the "vitality of any living creature."