"Ends . . . are real whether whether they are our purposes or not, whether they are favored or wanted things or not"

"Prudence as the techne, or skill, of producing consequences is the prudence of an economic, not a moral, agent.  In the perspective of such an agent end means a desirable consequence, a 'favored or wanted thing.'  Having been effected, a consequence which it was my purpose to effect is no longer an end, since it is no longer a 'favored or wanted thing.'  Again, this does no more than paraphrase Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 11:  'Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the latter.'  Ends, however, are real whether they are our purposes or not, whether they are favored or wanted things or not, and prudence, the knowledge of ends, is not the calculation of consequences in terms of costs and benefits.  Acts may have consequences which are high benefit plus low cost, but the act itself is destructive of the actuality of the actor as a fulfilled and completed human being.  Life is action (πρᾶξις), not production (ποίησις).  What profit does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?"

Francis Slade, "On the ontological priority of ends and its relevance to the narrative arts," in Beauty, art, and the polis, ed. Alice Ramos (Washington, DC: American Maritain Association, 2000), 63-64 (58-69).