These academic thought patterns quickly seep into your personal life. To be asked the reasons for personal decisions is to entertain the possibility that such reasons exist. Another author of our syllabus, Thomas Aquinas, calls the reason, the orienting point for all your other reasons, the “end goal”. Those who discover that they have such an end goal, and learn to appreciate it, see their way out of the delightful house of arbitrary decisions in which young people are often confined.
The number of final ends is not infinite. Aquinas usefully suggests that the ultimate objects of human longing can be grouped into eight enduring categories. I have. Are you interested in this opportunity because it will lead to wealth or are you aiming for praise and admiration? Do I want lasting glory? Or power—to “influence”? Is my goal to maximize my pleasure? do i want health? Do I seek “soul goodness” such as knowledge and virtue? Or is it my ultimate yearning to face God?
Most students, to their surprise, can find their desires in this old map. This does not make students feel restrained, as they are often guided by fear. They feel empowered, like the wanderer suddenly recognizes the direction of the landscape.
Like a good map, Aquinas’ rational analysis of human goods tells us where we’re going before we get there. For example, we start on the road to wealth. Because it is a universal means for almost all purposes. But wealth is never the ultimate goal in life. Satisfaction can only be obtained if it is exchanged for something else. Praise shows that people think we are doing something well. However, it is often given by others’ erroneous judgments and can lead you astray.
Most students are grateful to have discovered this art of choice. Learning to reason about happiness, as Socrates puts it, awakens “the power immanent in the soul.” So why do liberal arts institutions seldom teach it? In some cases, faculty are encouraged to focus on professional studies rather than thinking about the good life. Others share the conviction that reason is merely an extension of the quest for dominance, and the Rousseauian belief that emotions are a better guide to happiness than the mind.
But most fundamentally, the dominant model of liberal education — which opens doors without helping you think about what lies beyond — is gaining ground because of its successful modern formula. because it reproduces. Agnosticism about human ends, combined with the endless proliferation of means and opportunities, has proven to be a powerful organizing principle of our political and economic life. It has contributed to the creation of the astonishing peace, prosperity and freedom it has enjoyed over time.