Darwin's dilemma 241 



" Good " means sometEing quite different in each case. There 

 is not a unique meaning here, but actually many co-ordinated 

 meanings. 



(2) Take an organ such as an eye or a tooth. We say that 

 eyes are for the sake of seeing, that incisors are for the sake 

 of cutting and molars are for grinding. When we say this are 

 we using metaphor? We can go way back to Empedocles who 

 said that we have eyes not for the sake of seeing but we see 

 because we have eyes. Another philosopher said that man is 

 the wisest of animals because he just happens to have hands. 

 It is far more thorough, I think, to hold that man has hands 

 in view of making. Why should one position exclude purpose 

 as a cause — I mean a good as " that for the sake of which "? 

 Nature acts for a purpose; of course, not exactly in the way we 

 do, since there is, after all, a radical difference between nature 

 and reason, but in a proportional way: there is a proportion 

 between the way we act and the way nature acts. There is no 

 true identity, but only a proportion, and an irreducible one, 

 between them. Can we accept this? It is not our problem here. 

 I merely want to show, in a dialectical way, what we are led 

 to when we deny that nature acts for a purpose, even in this 

 remote yet analogous sense of the term. 



Now, my question is about this struggle. Does that which 

 finally comes about after a certain activity possess the nature 

 of good? It is good to have the molars in the back (allow 

 me this example from Aristotle) and our cutting teeth in the 

 front. Is this disposition produced by a proportional cause or 

 by chance? Do we understand why the molars should be in 

 the back to gi-ind, why the grinding should go on there and 

 the cutting out in front? Do our teeth make sense? If their 

 disposition were reversed, it would be unreasonable, it would 

 be monstrous. That is how we distinguish monsters from non- 

 monsters. 



Now, if we allow that nature produces such end products 

 because they are good, we imply that nature acts for a purpose, 

 but in doing so we must be aware that we have extended the 

 meaning of " end " and " action " and " purpose.'* 



