If we refer to the highest value as the 'supreme good' and arrive at it through the concept of the end, we presuppose something significant: namely, that this supreme value can be aimed at by individuals and, more broadly, by humanity as an end. Aiming at something as an end is only feasible if it holds some advantage for us—that is, in the broad sense, if it is neither harmful nor indifferent to us. This advantage may take various forms: moral (helping us to perfect ourselves), useful, pleasant, or even financial.
To regard something as an end for humanity implies that it is beneficial to the human species as a whole and to each individual. This is a self-interested assumption latent in any use of the concept of an end.

If we pose the problem of values in the form 'What is the supreme end?', we immediately load our question—ideally neutral—with a major presupposition: we assume that whatever occupies the highest place in the hierarchy, the supreme value, is useful, well-disposed, and beneficial to humanity. We do not entertain the possibility that the supreme value could be indifferent or even harmful to human beings.

Just as we once believed the cosmos revolved around us, this physical anthropocentrism finds its mirror in 'axiological anthropocentrism'—the view that supreme value is centred on humanity. But what if the supreme value has nothing to do with humanity—is of no benefit to us, has no connection with us, or is even harmful?
The idea of a supreme value that could simultaneously be our supreme end may be a wish or a cherished dream, one that may indeed prove true at the conclusion of our axiological inquiry; however, it cannot serve as a presupposition for that inquiry, still less as an unconscious assumption concealed within the very concepts we use to frame the question. In other words, using the concept of finality to pose the problem of values distorts it, since we unwittingly commit ourselves to an anthropocentric perspective.

One possibility remains: Aristotle may never have intended to pose the problem of values but rather to investigate what is best for human beings. Put differently, Aristotle may not have been asking whether a universal hierarchy of all beings exists, but rather what is most desirable and advantageous for humans—a pursuit quite distinct from the problem of values. He states this explicitly when he says, Clearly the virtue we must study is human virtue; for the good we were seeking was human good and the happiness human happiness ¹.

It is not surprising, then, that Aristotle considers happiness the supreme end: it is, obviously—and tautologically—what is most advantageous to us, what makes us happiest.
Aristotle notes that Verbally, there is a very general agreement [about supreme good]; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and many do not give the same account as the wise ². This consensus arises from the fact that it is a tautology, one that no one can dispute.

To sum up: either Aristotle does not pose the axiological question at all, contenting himself with asking about the human good—what has value for us—or he poses it in terms that betray it. From the outset, this approach dogmatically, and without examination, grants two assumptions about the greatest value: that it is desired by us and that it is an end for us.
We may conclude that the concept of finality is ill-suited as a foundation for axiology, and that any 'ethics of ends' can only be tautological or dogmatic, depending on the question it asks.
Above all, we must conclude that value and end are two irreducible concepts—distinct and non-interchangeable.

If value is neither the good nor the end, it becomes difficult to define what it could be. Perhaps we can settle on this minimal—and therefore solid—definition: value is the quality of a thing. Is not the search for a thing's value essentially the search for its qualities? This is the hypothesis we will now explore.

1. Nicomachean Ethics, I, 13
2. Ibid. I, 4