2/ The Concept of Finality

Aristotle shares in the Platonic ambiguity, as he too raises the question of values using the term agathon (good). In the opening of the Nicomachean Ethics, for instance, when he states, Every art and every inquiry […] is thought to aim at some good ¹, it is not clear whether he means: all art tends towards morality, or towards the advantageous, or towards something that has value in itself, or towards happiness.

However, Aristotle attempts to resolve the ambiguity of the concept of agathon by defining it in terms of finality. In the passage just quoted, rather than dwelling on the term 'good', we should attend to the phrase that precedes it: 'to aim' (at the good).
Aristotelian ethics rest fundamentally on the concept of 'end', for it is through this concept that Aristotle defines 'good': Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim ².

We need to consider the profound reworking of axiology that arises from thinking of it in terms of the concept of the end. Plato had already suggested this idea: Because, you know, Polus and I, if you recollect, decided that everything we do should be for the sake of what is good. Do you agree with us in this view—that the good is the end of all our actions, and it is for its sake that all other things should be done, and not it for theirs? ³.
For Plato, however, this was only one characteristic of the good, whereas Aristotle makes it the essential predicate: purpose is the concept through which Aristotle addresses the problem of values. The axiological problem may then be reformulated as the challenge of determining the true hierarchy among beings, even if this leads to the conclusion that no such hierarchy exists. Finality itself provides a basis for establishing one.

First, it should be noted that there are multiple ends: Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are many; the end of the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth… ⁴.
Second, these ends imply one another through hierarchical relationships: But where such arts fall under a single capacity- as bridle-making and the other arts concerned with the equipment of horses fall under the art of riding, and this and every military action under strategy, in the same way other arts fall under yet others- in all of these the ends of the master arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is for the sake of the former that the latter are pursued ⁵.

The ends thus arrange themselves into a hierarchy. Above all, they point to the need for a summit—an end to the chain of ends, or in other words a supreme end: At that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain ⁶.
This hierarchy of ends appears to coincide with a hierarchy of beings; to find the supreme end is therefore to find the supreme good: Clearly this [supreme end] must be the good and the chief good ⁷.
We must now ask whether this axiological inquiry, pursued through the concept of 'end', enables us to address the problem of values without distorting it.

1. Nicomachean Ethics, I, 1
2. Ibid.
3. Gorgias, 499e
4. Nicomachean Ethics, I, 1
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., I, 2
7. Ibid.