Student Question: What is human telos?

[Aimee Horsley]

Hi once more
I am just going over Natural Law, and in your revision podcast you say eudaimonia is human flourishing, and it is not an end goal. Am I righti n thinking Godlike perfection is the end goal? And eudimonia is our telos? I m confised in the difference betwene telos (I thought that meant end/purpose), and end goal. Also, in my text book from school it says that for Aquinas, true happiness is acheiving heaven. For Aquinas the true telos of humans is not, as Aristotle suggested, realising their potential in this world. For Aquinas, heaven is the destiny for ll human beings’ souls. He did not believe all will eventually be sabed, and that God grants te gift of eternal life to those who love God and therefore gollow Natural Law. I guess my real question surrounds telos, eudaimonia, and Godlike perfection.

So is it correct that Aritotle talks of out telos as being eudaimonia, however for Aquinas our telos is Godlike perfection. For Aquinas, the telos of a thing is related to its final end which is eudaimonia for humanity. But then isnt this saying our telos is eudaimonia? FOr Aquinas true happiness is acheiving heaven. Is it saying that we act towards a state of eudaimonia in order to acheive Godlike perfection and go to heaven which is our end telos, and if we follow natural law we will go to heaven
Does Aquinas say everything has a telos? Are all human telos’ the same- to achieve Godliek perfection. In the textbook, in a criticism of the concept of telos in natural law ethics, it says people disagree on what people ought to become because society might have changed eg might have one time thought women should only be housewives.
Thanks so much

[Aimee Horsley]

Hi,
Eudaimonia is Aristotle’s concept of human flourishing. This is linked to his Virtue Ethics and is just the aim/ purpose for humans. As Aristotle did not believe in an afterlife, this was achievable in this life. Aquinas was influenced by Aristotle, took this idea of human purpose and said our purpose is God Like Perfection. This is the ultimate goal and what we are always aiming to achieve. Therefore this is our final purpose and the reason for following conscience, hierarchy moral code etc. So we have other purposes through life e.g. reproduction (following the other primary precepts) and this is all inline with achieving our ultimate telos of GLP.
Everything has a telos and what the text book is criticising is where our feelings of purpose come from so e.g. the need to reproduce is this just a societal thing rather than the need to achieve our ultimate telos of GLP. I hope this helps clarify a few things 🙂

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