every text is not only an argument by an author about a subject matter, it is also for the sake of some end or purpose or function…An end or purpose or function is present in the text so far as the text has within it something that causes it to function, a principle of its functioning. such internal principles functioning can be called principles in a distinctive sense…a principle can be either relatively or absolutely first; that is, it can cause functioning, and itself be caused, or it can be an uncaused cause of a functioning, a first principle. God, if He is a principle at all, is ordinarily first principle…there may be an ordered set of actions, but unless, there is some reason for action the text cannot function as an ethics. or imagine a tragedy that lacks any engagement of feeling. there may be an ordered sequence of actions and events, but without feeling the text cannot function as a tragedy…(architectonics of meaning, p.101, walter watson,)

An action is right if it is well adapted to the circumstances, resources, needs, and purposes of the agent, that is, if it is well done; an action is right if it improves the circumstances, realizes the potentialities of available materials, orders needs, and develops the abilities and interests of the agent, that is, if the end achieved is good. All actions, even erratic and neurotic actions, are reasonable, since they have discoverable causes of which the agent is frequently explicitly conscious. An action is rational when it is well adjusted to the character of a person and his purposes under the circumstances; an action is rational when the reasons for the action and the values achieved by it have been examined and judged. Good skills and good habits may be badly used, but they have the rightness and rationality of actions well performed; and such actions are put to good uses when they conform to rules of reason and norms of rightness, which need not be reviewed in each action or by each agent.[Richard Mckeon, Character, the Arts and Disciplines]