The “locus” of the current crisis

It seems that for a classical thinker like Aristotle – a common sense philosopher who understood what reality is all about – it is self-evident that there is some all comprhensive end for the sake of which we act, an end sought own for its own good, and not for the interests of something further. It is because, if there were no such ultimate end, no act would make sense since every act would be ordered to some further end and.

I have been thinking about this Aristotelian claim lately after listening some public figures suggest that, the root of all these evils is a moral crisis o crisis in values. There are many social ills as a result of the moral crisis or, the lack of morality, of Christian or Judeo-Christian morality. I am sure these speakers are well-intentioned, but the root of these maladies is misplaced. That this country is going through a serious of crisis, violence, war and terrorism, illegitimacy, and the like, is beyond dispute.

But, I believe, that, ethics and morality is not the “root” but the playground where this crisis is quite noticeable. The “source,” it seems, is the lack of awareness of ultimate end on the part of so many citizens. It is the lack of meaning in their lives.

What does this meaning consist? Reality as it is. Truth as revealed by Christ. People do not act as they ought because they do not see this wonder in their lives. Wouldn ‘t be then be the case, which the crisis we are going through, is rather a crisis of ultimate end rather than of morality?

That the former, morality, follows the latter, ends or happiness, rather than the other way around, seems a good Aristotelian observation.