ABSTRACT
If we pursue the system-oriented approach to biological teleology described in the previous chapter, a central question we face in attempting to provide an account of biological teleology is this: Given that organisms are products of natural selection, what is it that we can non-arbitrarily point to as constituting working or proper functioning for organisms, in relation to which the biological functions of organic parts and features are to be understood? What is it that organisms have, as it were, been “designed” by natural selection ultimately to do, this being their work in the functional sense?
