Abstract

This dissertation argues that individuals can rationally establish, specify, and reconcile their ends. It constructs an account of deliberation distinct from the dominant means-ends models, defends this alternative's claim to rationality, and extends it to cover ultimate ends--defined as ends valued solely for their own sake. The ethical theories of Aristotle and Kant provide the primary material for the proposed theory of deliberation of ultimate ends, which the dissertation develops in stages. ;The first stage describes how, in deliberating, one can rationally specify ends. It is often helpful to specify an end more concretely before trying to act upon it. Since other ends, perhaps conflicting, are relevant to how best to specify any end, specification is not always easy. How does one avoid specifying arbitrarily? I reconstruct Aristotle's notion of phronesis to show how one can deliberatively elaborate a guiding end in a rational way. The central idea is that one should specify it so as to yield the best fit among all of one's ends, of which one's trained perception of the situation of action helps make one aware. I defend the rationality of this specification according to fit. ;The context in Aristotle's ethics of this simple holistic account of deliberative specification of ends indicates how to extend it to the deliberative specification of ultimate ends. Since Aristotle's ethical method is itself holistic , deliberation of ends along the holistic lines set out in the first stage, I argue, can embrace the way the Nicomachean Ethics dialectically establishes and elaborates the ultimate end. ;The final stage contends that this theory of deliberation of ultimate ends does not depend upon these ends being Aristotelian. I develop this theory along Kantian lines, focussing on Kant's conception of obligatory ends in the Doctrine of Virtue. After showing that, contrary to popular impression, a conception of objective ends has an essential place in a Kantian theory, I sketch a holistic Kantian theory of ultimate ends. ;That the holistic conception of deliberation of ends can extend to ultimate ends in both an Aristotelian and a Kantian way suggests its relative independence from Aristotle's and Kant's broader philosophical views, deepens its claim to rationality, and emphasizes its viability.