Teleology and the normal/abnormal distinction

Believers in teleology also tend to believe in a distinction between the normal and the abnormal. I think teleology can be prised apart from a normal/abnormal distinction, however, if we do something that I think we should do for independent reasons: recognize teleological directedness without a telos-to-be-attained, a target to be hit. An example of such teleological directedness is an athlete trying to run as fast as possible. There isn’t a target telos: for any speed the athlete reaches, a higher speed would fit even better with the athlete’s aims. But there is a directional telos, an aim tlos: the athlete aims in the direction of higher speed.

One might then say the human body in producing eyes has a directional telos: to see as well as possible. Whether one has 20/20 or 20/15 or 20/10 vision, more acuity would fulfill that directional telos better. On this view, there is no target telos, just a direction towards better acuity. If there were a target telos, say a specific level of acuity, we could identify non-attainment with abnormalcy and attainment with normalcy. But we need not. We could just say that this is all a matter of degree, with continuous variation between 20/0 (not humanly available) and 20/∞ (alas humanly available, i.e., total blindness).

I am not endorsing the view that there is no normal/abnormal in humans. I think there is (e.g., an immoral action is abnormal; a moral action is normal). But perhaps the distinction is less often applicable than friends of teleology think.