“Pleasure and pain moreover supply the motives of desire and of avoidance, and the springs of conduct generally. This being so, it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only as being a means to the attainment of a life of pleasure. But that which is not itself a means to anything else, but to which all else is a means, is what the Greeks term the telos, the highest, ultimate or final Good.”
William Temple was a priest in the Church of England. He served as Bishop of Manchester (1921–29), Archbishop of York (1929–42), and Archbishop of Canterbury (1942–44).
A renowned teacher and preacher, Temple is perhaps best known for his 1942 book Christianity and Social Order, which set out an Anglican social theology and a vision for what would constitute a just post-war society. Also in 1942, with Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, Temple jointly founded the Council of Christians and Jews to combat anti-Jewish bigotry.