ABSTRACT
Two of the most ‘monarchical’ theories of modern times have posited respectively survival and pleasure as the basic overriding goals. The shortness of the neck here is the crucial stimulus, the other features of the bird can vary without apparent result. Thus the notion of goal or purpose must be distinguished from that of function or survival value. The problem of explaining adaptation through evolution is, of course, not restricted to that of accounting for the coincidence of goal and function. Once the survival theory has been shifted to the evolutionary context, the other major monistic theory, that of hedonism, begins to look more plausible. Pleasure is thus not a separable end-state, but is non-contingently linked with the source of pleasure. Thus there is some empirical sense in hedonism even in its shorn form. A non-teleological theory has been developed by the German ethologists (notably, Lorenz and Tinbergen).
