Whether Intention Is Within the Competency of Irrational Animals?
Objection 1: It would seem that irrational animals intend the end. For
in things void of reason nature stands further apart from the rational
nature, than does the sensitive nature in irrational animals. But
nature intends the end even in things void of reason, as is proved in
_Phys._ ii, 8. Much more, therefore, do irrational animals intend the
end.
Obj. 2: Further, just as intention is of the end, so is enjoyment.
But enjoyment is in irrational animals, as stated above (Q. 11, A.
2). Therefore intention is too.
Obj. 3: Further, to intend an end belongs to one who acts for an end;
since to intend is nothing else than to tend to something. But
irrational animals act for an end; for an animal is moved either to
seek food, or to do something of the kind. Therefore irrational
animals intend an end.
_On the contrary,_ Intention of an end implies ordaining something to
an end: which belongs to reason. Since therefore irrational animals
are void of reason, it seems that they do not intend an end.
_I answer that,_ As stated above (A. 1), to intend is to tend to
something; and this belongs to the mover and to the moved. According,
therefore, as that which is moved to an end by another is said to
intend the end, thus nature is said to intend an end, as being moved
to its end by God, as the arrow is moved by the archer. And in this
way, irrational animals intend an end, inasmuch as they are moved to
something by natural instinct. The other way of intending an end
belongs to the mover; according as he ordains the movement of
something, either his own or another's, to an end. This belongs to
reason alone. Wherefore irrational animals do not intend an end in
this way, which is to intend properly and principally, as stated
above (A. 1).
Reply Obj. 1: This argument takes intention in the sense of being
moved to an end.
Reply Obj. 2: Enjoyment does not imply the ordaining of one thing to
another, as intention does, but absolute repose in the end.
Reply Obj. 3: Irrational animals are moved to an end, not as though
they thought that they can gain the end by this movement; this
belongs to one that intends; but through desiring the end by natural
instinct, they are moved to an end, moved, as it were, by another,
like other things that are moved naturally.
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