teleological suspension of the ethical See KIERKE -. GAAR. teleology, the philosophical doctrine that all of nature, or at least intentional agents, are goaldirected or functionally organized. Plato first suggested that the organization of the natural world can be understood by comparing it to the behavior of an intentional agent – external teleology. For example, human beings can anticipate the future and behave in ways calculated to realize their intentions. Aristotle invested nature itself with goals – internal teleology. Each kind has its own final cause, and entities are so constructed that they tend to realize this goal. Heavenly bodies travel as nearly as they are able in perfect circles because that is their nature, while horses give rise to other horses because that is their nature. Natural theologians combined these two teleological perspectives to explain all phenomena by reference to the intentions of a beneficent, omniscient, all-powerful God. God so constructed the world that each entity is invested with the tendency to fulfill its own God-given nature. Darwin explained the teleological character of the living world non-teleologically. The evolutionary process is not itself teleological, but it gives rise to functionally organized systems and intentional agents.
Present-day philosophers acknowledge intentional behavior and functional organization but attempt to explain both without reference to a supernatural agent or internal natures of the more metaphysical sort. Instead, they define ‘function’ cybernetically, in terms of persistence toward a goal state under varying conditions, or etiologically, in terms of the contribution that a structure or action makes to the realization of a goal state. These definitions confront a battery of counterexamples designed to show that the condition mentioned is either not necessary, not sufficient, or both; e.g., missing goal objects, too many goals, or functional equivalents. The trend has been to decrease the scope of teleological explanations from all of nature, to the organization of those entities that arise through natural selection, to their final refuge in the behavior of human beings. Behaviorists have attempted to eliminate this last vestige of teleology. Just as natural selection makes the attribution of goals for biological species redundant, the selection of behavior in terms of its consequences is designed to make any reference to intentions on the part of human beings unnecessary.
See also MECHANISTIC EXPLANATION. D.L.H.