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By making us more human, the natural moral law orients us toward attaining what is truly good. Human reason can conclude by examining human nature that the goal of human life is to attain what is good, what is true and what is beautiful. Even though we do not always accurately judge what is good and bad, none of us consciously pursues what we identify as bad or aversive. On the other hand, we go through great lengths to attain what we judge to be good and desireable. The human intellect is made for truth. Human beings reveal their thirst for truth not only in their curiosity (which some animals also show) but also in their need to find meaning in life's events. For example, human beings are the only creatures to ask why they suffer. Animals suffer, but they do not wonder why. For them, the experience of pain is an occurence of the present. For human beings, our suffering touches on eternity - we assume there must be some transcendent meaning to it. Finally, human beings are naturally though inexplicably drawn to what is beautiful. Not only does beauty bring us joy, it also draws our thoughts to the transcendent. Human beings seek out beauty, find comfort in it, and find meaning and purpose in it.

Every aspect of human life plays a role in attaining what is true, good, and beautiful. Human emotions, human actions, human freedom, and even human society are all oriented toward our quest.

Our sense knowledge helps us to use our senses to explore physical things and to identify which are good and which are bad for us.

The human intellect allows human beings to explore the non-physical world. Abstract ideas such as liberty, love, idealism, patriotism. and faith can be explored and valued by human beings. Non-phsical goods are very important for a complete human life. Furthermore, the human intellect means that we are

created to know truth. The intellect empowers human beings to consider the true nature of things and even the very meaning of existence.

When they are fully human, emotions motivate us to attain what we have identified as good and to avoid what we judge aversive. We experience desire for goods that we do not yet possess. We experience joy when we experience a good that we have attained. We experience disgust or fear toward things that we have judged to be evil but have not yet had to experience. When we experience an evil we experience sorrow or anger.

Once our emotions motivate us to attain a good or to avoid an evil, we act. The purpose of all human action is to attain a good or avoid an evil. Sometimes the good or evil is mundane, such as amusement that we attain from idle actions. However, every action has some goal (called an object).

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