Teleology is a philosophical idea where natural phenomena are explained in terms of the purpose they serve, rather than the cause by which they arise.
[1] Kant's moral philosophy is also concerned with ends but only in relation to humans,[i] where he considers it to be wrong to use an individual merely as means.
[citation needed] To support this initial claim of natural ends Kant illustrates it through an example.
As the character of the whole determines both the structure and the function of the parts Kant takes this relationship to mean that the tree is the cause of itself.
This normative distinction separates the idea of purposiveness from its prima facie requirement of a designer.
[9] Kant declares that it is “absurd for human beings…to hope that there may yet arise a Newton who could make conceivable even so much as the production of a blade of grass according to natural laws which no intention has ordered” (§75, 400), the fact that production of organisms cannot be explained in mechanical terms leads to a conflict which Kant calls “the antinomy of judgement”.
[10] Kant solution to "the antinomy of judgement" consists of the claim that the principle by which we should explain everything in mechanical terms and the principle that natural objects resist explanation in mechanical terms are both "regulative” and not "constitutive".
Rivers are necessary for grass to grow and thus they are indirectly helpful for humans as they produce fertile land.
Kant provides a negative argument as to how we may account for this system without appealing to purposes.
Kant does however reason that these natural objects, such as rivers, rocks and beaches do have a purpose in a relative sense.
[16] Furthermore, Walsh (2006) argues that Kant's characterisation of organisms as "natural purposes" ought to play a vital role in explaining ontogenetic development and adaptive evolution.
Walsh(2006) however believes that Kant's idea of organisms being natural purposes provides biological explanations.