Practical Reasoning, Human Goods and the End of Man

Our practical reasoning goes well and attains its truth when we identify ways of adequately getting or realising really desirable objectives. And our objectives are really desirable (good) when they either are really desirable in themselves, or are steps on the way to getting or realising some such intrinsically desirable objective or objectives. If there is but one such intrinsically desirable objective, our practical reasoning cannot go well unless we know what it is. If, as seems much more plausible, there are a number of intrinsically desirable objectives, our practical reasoning cannot go well unless we know whether there is some further objective to be attained or realised by or in the pursuit of some or all of these intrinsically desirable objectives, i.e. whether there is some further point to pursuing them; and if so, what that further point or objective (‘last end’) actually is. Some say that the true last end is some one of the intrinsically desirable human goods, say, the highest instantiation of the highest good attainable in this life, thus contemplation of God to the extent that God is knowable through His creatures. Others agree that it is some one human good, but place it beyond this life, and beyond merely human capacities, in the beatific vision and contemplation of God.