1. Some say that the meaning of life can only be subjective: any meaning or purpose your life has is one you give it. The theory says that the value of the goals one pursues — the goals in terms of which one's life assumes point and purpose — is due to the individual's valuations, and that these valuations are irremediably subjective and thus potentially different for different individuals. Accordingly, no goal is intrinsically worth pursuing or intrinsically more worth pursuing than any other goal. Becoming a nurse or a teacher may be worthwhile for a given person, but these goals are not intrinsically worthwhile, and becoming a prostitute or a drug dealer are not intrinsically less worthwhile than becoming a nurse or a teacher. The individual creates and maintains his own meaning and he creates it out of nothing or out of himself. Nothing is intrinsically worthwhile or the opposite.
2. The subjectivist theory is identitarian as opposed to eliminativist. The claim is not that there is no meaning, which would amount to nihilism, but that there is meaning but it is subjective by its very nature: objective meaning is incoherent. Thus E. D. Klemke speaks of being "free to forge my own meaning." (The Meaning of Life, 1st ed., p. 172) Klemke tells us that he finds his meaning in "knowledge, art, love, and work." (173) These are the things he values, but on his theory it is only his subjective acts of valuation that posit these things as valuable. Someone who valued ignorance, hatred, and sloth would not be evaluating incorrectly on Klemke's subjectivist theory but just differently. I would say that Klemke values the right things, but he couldn't agree with me, at least not without qualification. For by my lights, knowledge, art, love, and work are objectively valuable, valuable in themselves; this Klemke would have to deny. He would have to say something like: they are valuable, but only for me or those like me.
3. The subjectivist view of existential meaning strikes me as deeply incoherent. If the activities of my life have only the meaning that I give them, then this would have to hold also for the acts of meaning-bestowal whereby certain goals and activities become meaningful for me. Suppose knowledge is the central value from which depends the meaning of my life. On the subjectivist theory, the value and meaning of knowledge-acquisition derives from a subjective process of meaning-bestowal. This process, which is integral to my life, must be meaningful if my life is to be meaningful. But the process of meaning-bestowal cannot be intrinsically meaningful on the subjectivist theory: nothing is intrinsically meaningful on the subjectivist theory. So I must be the source of the meaning of my acts of meaning-bestowal if these acts are to have meaning. And this seems to lead to an infinite vicious regress. Suppose we spell this out.
Let A be an act of meaning-bestowal, M a meaning bestowed, and O an object on which meaning is bestowed. A is either meaningful, meaningless, or neither. Those are the only three possibilities.
If A is meaningful, and no meaning is intrinsic as per the subjectivist theory, then A can acquire meaning only if I freely bestow meaning on A by means of a distinct act of meaning-bestowal A*. Now if A* is meaningful, then its meaning must derive from a third act of meaning-bestowal A**. And so on into an infinite regress. The regress is vicious because every A is in need of a meaning that it cannot itself provide.
If A is meaningless, then the life of which A is a part is meaningless. For if a life is meaningful due to acts of meaning-bestowal, and these latter are meaningless, then the life as a whole is meaningless. Consider a person who organizes his life around the central goal of the alleviation of animal suffering. On subjectivism, this goal is worthwhile, not intrinsically, but only in relation to a a free decision on the part of the agent to give it meaning and value. But if this free donation of meaning and value is itself meaningless, then it is difficult to see how the person's life can be said to be meaningful. A meaningful life, one wants to protest, is one in response to objective values, where one's responding is itself an objective value. But the objectivity of value is precisely what the subjectivist will not countenance.
Could it be said that the acts of meaning-bestowal are themselves neither meaningful nor meaningless inasmuch as they are at the foundation of all existential meaning? Accordingly, when Klemke projects value upon knowledge, art, work, and love, the various acts of projecting are neither meaningful nor meaningless. But these acts of meaning-projection are integral to a life as meaningful. It is difficult to see how they could fail to be meaningful if the life of which they are parts is meaningful.
4. In nuce, the subjectivist appears to be astride the horns of a dilemma. Either the acts of meaning-bestowal are meaningful or they are meaningless. If the former, then a vicious infinite regress ensues. If the latter, then the life of which they are essential parts is meaningless.
5. Note that the objectivist avoids the above difficulties. Suppose I organize my life around the pursuit of knowledge. If the value of knowledge is objective, then this value does not depend on any value-positing acts of mine. My response to the value, my subjective apropriation thereof, is meaningful as a response to what is intrinsically worthy of pursuit. A value-response, as opposed to a value-positing, does not engender an infinite regress. A value-response is objectively valuable as the response to an objective value. But if values are subjective posits, then the value of the positing is a problem.
Two points regarding this argument.
(a) A similar argument applies I believe to any non-objectivist theory of meaning, whether such a theory pertains to the meaning of life, the meaning of utterances, the meaning of actions, etc. The reason is that any such theory views meaning as emerging from an act of some sort, as Bill calls it "meaning bestowing act". But in order for any such act to achieve this end it itself must be endowed with some meaning (even calling it an "act" is already bestowing on mere physical motion or behavior a meaning-laden aspect.)
(b) Can Bill's infinite regress be blocked?
I think the second step is the clue. He says:
"If A is meaningful, and no meaning is intrinsic as per the subjectivist theory, then A can acquire meaning only if I freely bestow meaning on A by means of a distinct act of meaning-bestowal A*. Now if A* is meaningful, then its meaning must derive from a third act of meaning-bestowal A**. And so on into an infinite regress."
The second step is the step when Bill inquires whether the act of meaning bestowal A* is meaningful. For now he can ask the question: And how does A* gets its own meaning? And so the infinite regress goes.
I would argue here that it is not so obvious that if x bestows property P on object a, then it follows that x must also feature or posses property P. The intuition is that bestowing certain something upon someone or something else demands that the bestower should in some form posses some or all of that property. But this is not necessarily the case.
E.G.
(i) Members of the electoral college have the authority to elect a president of the USA with certain authorities that none of them has individually or collectively. Thus in effect they endow an individual certain authorities they do not themselves enjoy.
(ii) The congress of the USA gives authority to the executive office to spend money in certain ways, an authority they themselves do not have.
(iii) A certain pattern or order may emerge due to the organization of certain elements none of which themselves features such an order or organization. A certain move with a certain piece in chess (Bill's favorite activity) may endow the player with a strategic advantage, given the position etc., of the other pieces which would be incoherent to endow to the piece itself, the move itself independently of the context of all other pieces etc.
(iv) The participation of O in H2O endows water with certain properties in combination with 2xH that the substance O alone does not possess.
So here we have some examples of the emergence of certain properties endowed by the contribution of elements that themselves do not feature these properties.
Just a thought.
peter
P.S. Good to think in this way again. Thank you Bill.
Ad (a). "even calling it an 'act' is already bestowing on mere physical motion or behavior a meaning-laden aspect.)" Good point. Perhaps it can be extended as follows. An act is an act of an agent. This seems to be a definitional truth. But an agent is a being with purposes, a being that intends or 'purposes' this or that. So acts or actions have meaning essentially.
Ad (b). Some nice challenging examples. Peter's suggestion is that meaningfulness might be an emergent property. A is an act of meaning-bestowal whereby an agent bestows meaning upon some activity such as writing philosophy. But what about the meaningfulness of A? Might it emerge from some combination of items that are neither individually nor collectively meaningful? If yes, them my regress argument collapses. That seems to be Peter's idea.
Well, what would those items be in the case of the meaning-bestowing act? For Peter to have a strong objection he would have to spell this out as he did in the other examples. Can my giving of meaning to the writing of philosophy be analyzed into parts which are not individually or collectively meaningful? What would those parts be?
Besides, emergence is a mysterious notion. It is easy to give examples of wholes that have a property that the parts do not have. And it is easy to label such properties 'emergent.' But this just names a phenomenon without explaining it. What is the mechanism of emergence? How do properties emerge? "They just do!" OK, but then I am entitled to say that meaning is a sui generis, irreducible phenomenon. It just is!
(i)Do houses, cars, chairs, tables, etc., exist?
(ii) According to one well known view of the world all these items and more do not really exist. Call this view X.
According to another world view of the world all these items and more really exist. Call this view Y.
Since X and Y appear to contradict each other, it seems that not both can be true.
So which view of the world, X or Y, is true?
(iii) I have repeated above a statement of the problem that can be found in many books on metaphysics. (I believe Weddington [I am not confident I got the name of the philosopher right] has a book that begins this way. It is a difficult problem.
(iv) The problem Bill raised, the problem of the meaning of life, is a special case of this problem. While all instances of the problem have much in common, they also feature their own peculiar way the problem is raised. One special feature of the problem of the meaning of life is that in addition to the fact that it involves intentionality it is also inherently value laden. Therefore, a non-objectivist attitude to values will promptly spill over to the same attitude towards this question.
(v) Bill notes that my proposal relies essentially upon the concept of emergence (it may be possible to also cast it in terms of supervenience). He is right! He also correctly points out that emergence (as well as supervenience) "is a mysterious notion" and promptly raises the right questions: "What is the mechanism of emergence? How do properties emerge?" etc. Once again he is right.
(vi) I wish to respond to Bill as follows. I do not know whether even a clear concept of emergence would offer an acceptable answer to Bill's problem from a subjectivist point of view. I have proposed it as a reasonable line to take. But I am reasonably confident that there are emergent properties; that the only acceptable solution to the question raised in (i) above essentially requires emergent properties; that the only way to reconcile the two world views stated in (ii) above, both of which appear to be quite reasonable, is by showing that the term 'really exist' has different meaning in X and Y. And that, I suspect, will involve essentially the concept of emergence.
(vii) So we better work hard to remove the mystery around the notion of emergence and so finally find out what is the meaning of life.
peter
By 'Weddington' I believe you intend Sir Arthur Eddington whose book The Nature of the Physical World -- which I have just pulled down from the shelf -- begins in the manner you describe. (The contents of the book were delivered as Gifford Lectures in March of 1927.) He speaks of two tables, in Wilfrid Sellar's jargon, the table of the Manifest Image and that of the Scientific Image. The crucial Sellars article, in which he mentions Eddington's two tables problem is "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man" reprinted in Science, Perception, and Reality. See p. 35 f.
The 'two tables' problem is this: You've got a homogeneously brown, solid, immobile table. This is the ordinary table of the Manifest Image. In what relation does it stand to the Scientific Table which is a chaotic swarm of tiny colorless particles moving at violent speeds through an almost completely empty region of space? Is the relation identity? If yes, then which of the tables exists? the manifest table or the scientific table?
There are various related problems. How is the phenomenal brownness related to its Scientific Image counterpart describable in terms of photons, wvaelength of EM radiation, etc.? How are sensory qualia, which are phenomenologically homogeneous related to underlying brain events which are not homogenous? Various 'grain problems' as they are called arise.
Is the problem of the meaning of life a special case of the 'two tables' problem? Or perhaps merely analogous to it? This should be explored in separate posts.
One way 'emergence' is used in the literature is as an equivalent of 'supervenience.' But there is a stronger notion of emergence in play as well.
The rough idea of strong emergence is that emergents have causal powers of their own which cannot be explained in terms of the causal powers of the parts of the whole from which the emergent (strongly) emerges.
An example might be an electromagnetic field surrounding a wire through which a current passes. The field depends on the wire and current but is not an epiphenomenon of it: it has causal posers all its own such as the power to attract metal objects.
But I rather doubt that any notion of emergence, no matter how defined, will shed any light on the question of the meaning of life.
Bill,
Yep! I did mean Eddington, just could not remember the name. Thanks.
"But I rather doubt that any notion of emergence, no matter how defined, will shed any light on the question of the meaning of life."
I have myself wondered above this question. However, I am less confident about this verdict prior to a far more thorough investigation. Here is why.
One of the standard interpretations of the "meaning of life" question is in terms of purpose:
What is the purpose of life in general and of human existence in particular?
Now theist enjoy the envious but perhaps too comfortable position of deferring this question to the purposes a deity might have for creating human beings. So the answer for theists is to be found in this or that religious manifesto. And it will be an objective matter whether God's purpose for creating human beings is this or that, whether we know it or not.
On a non-theist conception matters become muddy quickly and furiously. For now biological life itself not to speak of consciousness, intentionality, rationality, value, etc., all have to stand on their own and be explained without the benefit of a theistic God on whom we can hang these hats.
It is at this point that the concept of emergence/supervenience can be borrowed from the folks at the philosophy of science room. Life, consciousness, intentionality, choice, rationality, value, society, et all form a hierarchy of emergent properties (or entities) that once introduced into the world have their own causal powers (just like chairs, houses, etc, do).
And so goes for purpose. And if purpose can be so derived as an emergent property of consciousness together with perhaps rationality and value, then we got ourselves the start of an account how the meaning of life is a subjective matter.
Do I like the fundamental idea that the meaning of life is a subjective matter?
Yes! But then again no!
The "yes" part is motivated by the idea that we invent the purpose we should seek in life and, thus, it is our own responsibility to invest suitable resources in order to both do so and pursue such a purpose. Unlike the objectivist picture which imposes an antecedent purpose for our life spinning as it where out of a highly superior mind, here we chart our own course and choose to follow it (or not).
The "no" part is motivated by the idea that if there is no objective purpose to our lives then any purpose chosen appears to be just as good as any other, from an objective point of view. Who is to say that spending a lifetime counting sand on California beaches is somehow less valuable than creating a cure for cancer.
The above considerations supporting each of the above positions are of course standard opening salvos in this particular game of the meaning of life: I emphasize the word "openings" in order to make the point that I am not under the illusion that they have settled something in this conversation. They only provoke the conversation and in my case, for better or worse, they provoke it in two contrary directions.
peter
1)There are at least two important ways of thinking about the question "What is the meaning of life?":
(a) The word 'meaning' is interpreted in terms of purpose and the question is converted into an inquiry about the purpose of life.
(b) The whole question is transformed into a different question, namely:
What type of life constitutes a meaningful life?
2)One might argue that the transformation in (b) changed the original intent of the question to such an extent that it is no longer the same question. So we have two questions here. But suppose we do not take this line and agree that the best interpretation of the original question is given in (b).
3) (b) then becomes are primary focus. And now we can see the extent to which the question of what constitutes a meaningful life depends upon a variety of contextual considerations. A meaningful life of a farmer simply cannot be the same as a meaningful life of a scientist, politician, policeman, academic, kindergarten teacher, nanny, military person, chef, librarian, etc. And the same goes when we reflect upon any two items on this recent list as well as on many other cases I have not cited but could have. Moreover, social, cultural, geographic, temporal and other considerations may also impact the answer to the question what constitutes a meaningful life. It is hard to see how can we answer this question in the same way regarding our well to do neighbor here in USA and a person stuck in some refuge camp in Africa, say. While we may be able to dig out some broad similarities here and there, the huge contextual gaps will impose upon us the arduous task of factoring each element that is liable to make a significant contribution to these differences into the whole equation. And in order to get meaningful results, we will have to be guided by some principles that are not easy to formulate clearly. Hence, a meaningful life is a function of many factors that are specific to the person, their circumstances, and situation and station in the world. What else?
4) Objective reality contains a pool of meaningful life templates and whether a person lives a meaningful life depends upon whether they life happened to conform to one of these templates or not. The templates exist out there (perhaps created by a deity) independently from ones situation, context, abilities, dispositions, station, socio-economic situation, period in which they happen to live, etc.
How do we select a template for ourselves? Is it a subjective choice that each person has to make at some point in their life or does the soul of each person already contains the elements of the template (perhaps assigned by a deity)? And if the choice is subjective, then in what sense is the meaning so chosen an objective matter? And if the template has been chosen antecedently, then in what sense is it a meaning of my life?
I'm sure we will agree that in any serious philosophical discussion of the meaning of life the logically first task is to clarify the question. There is no point in considering candidate answers until we have clarified the question. It used to be maintained (by many who came of philosophical age in the 1st half of the 20th cent.) that the question is a pseudoquestion because a human life is not the sort of thing that can have or lack meaning. These gentlemen wanted to confine 'meaning' to the semantic domain. I reject this approach out of hand. Still, it is not easy to say what the question of the meaning of life aims at.
My starting point is that when we ask philosophically about the meaning of life we are asking about the ultimate and objective point, purpose, end, or goal of human willing and striving, if there is one. We are asking whether there is an ultimate and objective point, and what it is.
So 'purpose' is the key word here. And is is worth noting that 'Why do I exist?' is ambiguous as between 'What are the causes of my existence?' and 'What is the purpose of my existence?'
It is not clear what you intend with your (b) question. What do you mean by 'meaningful life'? A subjectively satisfying life? I would argue that one's life could be subjectively satisfying but objectively meaningless. Suppose a person passionately devotes himself to some utterly trivial pursuit.
So as I use 'meaningful life' it has a normative component. A meaningful life need not be a successful life, but it must be one animated by, and organized around, certain worthwhile ends, and perhaps one unifying worthwhile end.
I plan to pursue this in detail in a series of posts. There are many fascinating questions, e.g., Can one's life be said to have meaning if death is the utter end?
I remember that positivist move. Similar moves have been made regarding many other issues. Two lessons, however, are pertinent: first, the positive contribution of the positivists' move was to focus, as you note, on the question; the second lesson is that deep questions tend to survive philosophical fashion. And I do believe that the meaning of life question is among those that must be faced by philosophers.
What do I mean by (b); a 'meaningful life'? The principal point of (b) is to phrase the question in a manner that is as neutral as any question can be between objectivist and non-objectivist points of view. Just like a meaningful gesture need not necessarily imply that we have here a gesture that has an objectively assigned meaning, although of course we could construe matters that way, a meaningful life need not imply an objective meaning, although we might conclude that it does.
I have noted above that one of the attractive features of objectivism is that it is more likely to exclude certain apparently useless activities as contributing to a meaningful life (e.g., counting sand on the beach). But, as I have argued above, objectivism is also vulnerable in ways that are not that easy to resolve.
You claim that
"A meaningful life need not be a successful life, but it must be one animated by, and organized around, certain worthwhile ends, and perhaps one unifying worthwhile end."
I have raised in my previous post certain questions about this view. For instance:
(i) Do you hold that there is one unique worthwhile end that makes the life of every person regardless of their circumstances (social, economical, temporal, etc.,) worthwhile?
(ii) Do you hold that this objectively determined end that makes life meaningful is predetermined or can a person chose it?
I have stated in my previous post some of the ramifications of opting for one or the other alternative in (ii).
So these are some of the issues among many others that need to be addressed.
peter
With time stamps of 2:40 AM and 3:20 AM, you have been either getting up early, or staying up late, or burning the candle at both ends! On the same day you had time stamps of 2:40 AM and 6:20 AM. Insomnia?
i) Do you hold that there is one unique worthwhile end that makes the life of every person regardless of their circumstances (social, economical, temporal, etc.,) worthwhile?
(ii) Do you hold that this objectively determined end that makes life meaningful is predetermined or can a person chose it?
I have stated in my previous post some of the ramifications of opting for one or the other alternative in (ii).
As for (i), it is clear that the answer must be in the negative since as a matter of fact there is no one objectively worthwhile end that is taken as the purpose of life by every person. What you want to ask, however, is whether there is one objectively worthwhile purpose that ought to be taken as the purpose of every person (who knows about such a purpose and is capable of realizing it) such that failure to accept that purpose as his purpose would consign his life to objective meaninglessness.
To this question I am inclined to give an affirmative answer. Consider Richard's suggestion at the top of this thread: the objective purpose of life is to pursue one's own specific life-goals, to live one's life in one's own way. This purpose or meta-purpose is the same for all actual and possible agents and yet it accommodates the vast differences among them.
One cannot make the purpose of life too specific on pain of excluding people. It cannot be the objective purpose of human life to lead the bios theoretikos as Aristotle describes it. For this purpose is out of reach of many. But suppose we say this, which also has an Aristotelian flavor: the objective purpose of human life is to actualize to the highest degree possible the highest number of one's potentialities for good.
As for (ii), it seems obvious that nothing could be the purpose of a human life if it could not be subjectively appropriated by the agent (liver) of that life. And so although the purpose of life must be objective if life is to have a purpose at all in any serious sense, this objective purpose must also be subjectively appropriable by the individual: I must be able to make it my own purpose. So yes the purpose of life must be chosen by me, which is not to say that it is invented by me. I must freely accept the objective purpose and indeed with full awareness of what I am doing.
If you say that the meaning of life is something invented, then I say life has no meaning. Meaning = objective meaning. Talk of subjective meaning is nonsense. Analogy: talk of relative truth is nonsense. If truth is relative, then there is no truth.
But although the meaning of life, if there is one, cannot be invented by the individual, this meaning must be subjectively appropriable by the individual in freedom and awareness. I'll explain this in detail in a separate post.
Bill,
"Insomnia?"
I am still confused by the rapid time changes I experienced while on my trip throughout June.
Regarding Richard's meta-purpose suggestion. I am not convinced that this suggestion suits an objectivist view of the meaning of life. For now suppose that we accept your formulation of Richard's suggestion:
"the objective purpose of life is to pursue one's own specific life-goals, to live one's life in one's own way."
One of the attractive features of the objectivist view is that it renders certain pursuits as idle and objectively not worthwhile. I think that Richard's suggestion, while appears to strike a ballance between an objectivist and subjectivist views, it in fact concedes too much to the later.
Consider John Doe who lives his life in his "own way" by spending it counting sand on a California beach. According to this view, John doe pursues his "own specific life-goals"; namely, counting sand, and thus fulfills the objective purpose of life. So this proposal appears to defeat the central point of the objectivist view, for it cannot exclude in a principled way any subjectively chosen pursuit as objectively worthwhile.
Consider a similar move about truth. There is no objective truth except this one: all (other) truths are relative. I do not think that you would consider this view as your ally in holding an objectivist conception of truth.
One of the distinguishing characteristic of an objectivist conception of anything is that it insists upon a gap between what is an objective fact of the matter and one's opinions, beliefs, preferences, etc., about it. As a result on any occasion one can be wrong in one's opinions about the matter in question. But according to Richard's proposal this gap disappears in the case of the meaning of life. As long as one has a chosen life-pursuit, no matter what it is, one cannot be wrong about it for in so doing one fulfills the objective meaning of life to have one.
I shall address your response to (ii) in a separate post.
peter
I agree with your criticism of Richard's suggestion. The only reason I cited it is because it suggests a way to satisfy jointly two conditions of adequacy of any viable theory of the meaning of human life:
1. If human life has an objective meaning, this meaning (purpose) must be within reach of all human beings. It must be realizable by all. If it is not, then it cannot be the purpose of human life in general.
2. The theory must allow for the diversity of human talents and circumstances.
For Aristotle, the highest life is the theoretical life. But one couldn't say that the purpose of human life is to theorize, for only some are capable of it.
Joint satisfaction of (1) and (2) is necessary but not sufficient for a theory's being viable.
If the objective purpose of life actually is to theorize, or if it is to know God, or support the Japanese emperor or whatever, why is the fact that not all are capable of it a reason not to be able to posit it?
In other words, I am not sure why
If human life has an objective meaning, this meaning (purpose) must be within reach of all human beings. It must be realizable by all.
I also wonder: If there is an objective purpose to life, is there a necessity that man must be able to know it?
I am not arguing this to be the case, but seeking to understand the argument.
Thank you for your comment. I am trying to write an article on the meaning of life and I am exploring some of my ideas in this venue. My thoughts on the topic are still in a fluid state.
I'll start with your second question: If there is an objective purpose to life, is there a necessity that man must be able to know it? I would say yes. Suppose we have been created by some superintelligent race of extraterrestrial beings for a purpose. We are part of some vast experiment they are conducting, or perhaps they have in mind to eat us when our number reaches 10 billion. Human beings (human lives) would then have an objective purpose, an 'exogenous' purpose, one assigned from without, as opposed to an 'endogenous' purpose, one we invent, create, project, or posit. We would be to those extraterrestrials as our robots are to us.
And suppose we have no inkling (no knowledge) of this objective purpose for which the extraterrestrials created us, and no way of coming to know about it. Then their purpose could not possibly be our purpose. It seems self-evident to me that the purpose of human life -- assuming it has one -- must be knowable by us. For if we could not know our purpose, it would be nothing to us. If human life is to have a meaning/purpose, then it must be subjectively appropriable by us. That means that it must be knowable by us and livable by us.
Your second question: why is the fact that not all are capable of it a reason not to be able to posit it? Well, it seems evident to me that anything that could count as the objective purpose of human life in general would have to be a purpose that all human beings could participate in, subjectively appropriate, existentially realize, live, etc.
Suppose the purpose of human life is to attain nibbana/nirvana. And suppose that only some are able to attain it and that all the rest are forever barred from attaining it. If that were the case then human life as such would have no objective purpose. An objective purpose for human life AS SUCH (or in general) must be a purpose that could be attained by all sooner or later. And I think this is the case for some forms of Buddhism. The doctrine of rebirth assures that everyone attains the goal. The wheel of Samsara keeps turning until all sentient beings attain the Goal.
Feel free to counterrespond.
But this leads me to wonder about your second point. If a posited meaning is able to be subjectively appropriated, to be meaningful, then the possibility must exist for it not to be appropriated.
I think Aristotelians would assess those humans who choose not to pursue knowledge as less than human insofar as they do not realize the human ideal; this doesn’t change the ideal or location of meaning. Potentially everyone not handicapped can think.
I think the majority of approaches to meaning do not assume that all will participate in it; and from this it is but a small step to saying some won’t have the opportunity. (An opposite approach would rule out most theistic suggestions for meaning.) (The Buddhist idea of reincarnation you cite does resolve this.) In any case excepting reincarnation all the millions of children dying in natural or man-made disasters have not had the opportunity to realize potentials for good or much else.
From a theoretical point of view what is the difference between these children and starving sick adults and then between these latter and millions of people who for whatever reason, cannot realize a meaning of life?
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for taking the time and commenting on this important issue.
Your observations in the last post are very astute and they highlight the complexity of this question.
I have noted earlier that the principal attractiveness (for me) of an objectivist approach is that it rules out clear cases, cases that we all intuitively judge as a waste of a life;
e.g., earlier I have given the example of a person who spends their whole life counting the sand on a beach. The circumstances under which we would embrace such activity as meaningful are so outlandish that we might just as well consider it as a clear case of a meaningless life.
A theory about the meaning of life needs to have the resources to reject such cases and I do not believe that a subjectivist account is capable of doing so. On the other hand, an objectivist account is less capable theoretically to factor in contextual and other differences between people that require to accept a wide range of activities as legitimate cases of a meaningful life.
I think that the best starting point in a study of this question is a bottom-up approach. Let us ask why counting sand does not qualify as a worthwhile life. Let us ask why the pursuit of and contribution to some field of knowledge does so qualify (all else being equal, of course). Let us explore specific cases and try to discern the elements that influence our judgment one way or another. Once a reasonable pool of case-studies have been examined, then perhaps we can see a significant pattern emerging.
peter
You write, "If a posited meaning is able to be subjectively appropriated, to be meaningful, then the possibility must exist for it not to be appropriated." Well of course. I don't think you understand what I am saying. I am saying the following:
If human life in general has an objective purpose, then it must be possible for all to share in it. But it doesn't follow that all will share in it or that there is any necessity that all will share in it. Possibility does not entail actuality, and a fortiori it does not entail necessity. Consider the scenario in which there is an objective purpose of human life, Smith knows what it is, but Smith freely rejects it. Suppose, to have a concrete example, that Smith knows that the purpose of life is to do the will of God, but freely rejects that purpose in order to pursue his own will. That is consistent with the objective purpose of life being subjectively appropriABLE.
Note that I do not assume that life has an objective purpose. My task is logically prior to that: to determine what it would be for life to have an objective purpose.
In any case excepting reincarnation all the millions of children dying in natural or man-made disasters have not had the opportunity to realize potentials for good or much else.
Basically right, except that you ignore the possibility of God and the afterlife. But suppose there is no reincarnation, no God, and no afterlife. Then I draw the conclusion that human life as such has no objective purpose. Note the qualifier 'as such.'
Thanks for the comments.
Thank you for your response.
I am still not sure I see the necessity of your point that if there is an objective purpose all must be able to share in it. (Not that I do not share this view, but rather that I do not get its theoretical basis.) If you are resting the objective purpose on God or afterlife, as you mention at the end of your response, then I would ask your patience to raise a few questions:
First, if we are indeed going to assume God determined an objective purpose, surely He could have set one that excludes half of humanity, however this may irk me and kindhearted people. For example, if His determined purpose for man is to know Him, or to believe in or serve Him in a particular form or manner, it goes without saying that many people don’t have the opportunity. But more to the point, if His goal is historical, peoples or eras not connected to it are not those who decide not to appropriate it, but who do not have the opportunity. I don’t see this as reason to say God could not set such a goal, for he is God and who are we, but rather to say – if God is setting the goal He may have set one that is not dependent on or available to all. This is especially relevant if the realm of His purpose turns out to be historical rather than personal.
Secondly, the alternative as far as I can see is for us to base the objectivity of the purpose on God, but to force a universality on the purpose, i.e., on God, which I think is beyond our ability. (I personally think we can combine subjectivity with God’s goal, whatever it may be, but am less convinced about our right to universality. (So you see I am still stuck on the question I raised previously, which I know you replied to.)
Also, taking God who reveals to us the purpose or demands it of us out of the picture, if the afterlife is the basis, I wonder how we can ever know such purpose? Unless God reveals to us something to do with this afterlife - and He is out of the picture - we are on pure conjecture. Peter’s comment of a bottom up approach is enticing, though I am not sure if it can get out of subjectivity, though this remains to be seen.
Finally, depending on one’s understanding of Nirvana, it might be argued that the Buddhist purpose is actually no purpose, striving for nothingness, the purpose of life being to end it. This is not my view of Nirvana but I think it is a possible one.
I fear I have asked many questions. All I can do is thank you again, and also Peter.
You are uncertain about Bill's thesis to the effect that "if there is an objective purpose all must be able to share in it."
You offer the following consideration against this thesis. Suppose we take a theistic view in which God determines the objective purpose of life. Then, you argue,
"if His [i.e., God's] determined purpose for man is to know Him, or to believe in or serve Him in a particular form or manner, it goes without saying that many people don’t have the opportunity. But more to the point, if His goal is historical, peoples or eras not connected to it are not those who decide not to appropriate it, but who do not have the opportunity."
I think your point is well taken. It forces such a theistic view to distinguish between (i) God's purpose for the existence of the human race; (ii) God's purpose for the life of each individual human beings.
So there are two levels of purpose determined by God. The first purpose is an objective purpose for the existence of humanity as a whole and of course many people will not have the opportunity to pursue such a purpose; many will not even have the opportunity to come to know that such a purpose may be available. But this fact does not preclude the possibility that God set one or more objective purposes for each human being to pursue and the later are within the reach of each human being.
However, you also hint at a more general problem with an objectivist model of the meaning of life. The problem here is (I think I mentioned this in one of my post on this subject) that an objectivist (or realist) conception of any thing requires a gap between the existence of the items of the domain and our knowledge of this domain. We may be wrong about the existence or even nature of some objectively existing things or we may not even know about them. While Bill's requirement is that it should be possible to know an objectively given purpose, such possibility itself may depend upon a variety of contextual features. For instance, it would be impossible for people in the middle ages to know about and therefore use DNA testing for criminal or medical purposes.
In short, Bill's objectivist account of the meaning of life faces serious epistemic issues and given the nature of this issue such epistemic problems may be even more severe than the ones that plaque a realist view of other subjects.
peter
Good discussion. I hope to respond tomorrow.
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