The Meaning of Life - Assignment Example

 The Meaning of Life Many are aware of the ever-daunting question as to what the meaning of life is, but how many of us have actually asked it to ourselves? Indeed it threatens to push open the dark doors of why we are actually here, and whether there is at all a reason to life. Many of us live our lives without actually wondering why we are here – yet it is a question that often pops up in the dark hours of the night, or often during a hopeless moment. On the other hand, other would say yes, if I am here there must be a meaning to my life, but without actually pressing forward to question exactly what that reason may be. The question is deep, perhaps too deep for many of us to comprehend. Yet, it may not be as profound as one would consider, and perhaps existing literature falsely leads into dark corridors of unnecessary questioning. I will indeed seek to show that the school of thoughts basing the meaning of life on religions or a supernatural belief in the soul, or subjective and objective definitions of valued concepts invoke unnecessary connotations as to exactly what conditions we should live our lives by. Instead, I turn to the much freer and less criteria-based approach of the existentialist, which causes one to explore what the person considers to make their life meaningful as opposed to examining their life against a set of predetermined rules and conditions. Meaning In A Religious Context God-Centred Views There is a strong argument in the religious basis as a meaning for life, the belief in God and all that is encompassed in this belief. This context is based in the supernatural existence of a God or the soul, and monotheistic thinkers are divided into the two bases as a meaning of life. God-based theories base the meaning of life on a relationship with all-powerful and all-good God, and this relationship constitutes the meaning in one’s life. The relationship with God makes life meaningful in that one fulfils His purpose within the larger plan he has for the Universe. Supposing I believe in God, my life has been given a meaning, in that I consider myself to be a part of his plan, and I am assigned a role and thus a purpose, which a failure to fulfil would render my life meaningless. But exactly what is this purpose? Its elusive terminology arguably requires a further analysis, for is it not that for one to fulfil this purpose, one must thus understand or grasp what this purpose entails? Indeed, it has been argued that a belief in God undermines our autonomy, and to describe our work as that of God’s intended plan ‘our status does not differ greatly from that of a tool or instrument fashioned with a predetermined end in mind’ (Singer 1996, p.29). So, to understand, or at least to more fully explore exactly what could entail God’s purpose would ease the connotations that we are unable to even remotely understand his plan and thus anything we do is purely because he has destined us to do this. If, as the purpose theory suggests, we have a choice as to whether we fulfil God’s plan (Moreland 1987, p.129), this must entail an understanding of, or at least personal definition of the plan and thus the purpose we are to fulfil. Some suggest that God’s purpose is based on a set of moral rules, the absence of which would render our lives meaningless (Haber 1997). Others argue that our very creation by God gives our lives meaning from the outset, by the very fact that we were created (Craig 1994). However, none of these arguments seem to rebut the main notion that God’s assignment to us of a purpose undermines our autonomy. Perhaps to define the purposive approach is to delve in to the irrelevancies, and perhaps one should argue that to believe in God is in itself to fulfil a purpose – that each of us has our own idea of what his purpose is and this in itself makes our lives meaningful. Is it really necessary to define God’s purpose? Alternatively, Nozick’s vision of God as infinite (Nozick 1981, ch.6) focuses on the idea that a finite element becomes meaningful by obtaining its meaning from another meaningful condition. Thus, each finite condition is made meaningful in its relation to some other condition that is meaningful, which can only be made truly so by ending at an infinite meaningful condition. This condition is God, which needs not go beyond itself to find further meaning for it is all-encompassing. Thus everything we do obtains meaning on a line which leads back to the infinite meaningfulness of God (Nozick 1989, ch 15). There are, however, problems in this theory – namely that it removes the possibility that anything could be meaningful in itself. Is it really plausible that a finite condition could not be meaningful without obtaining this element from some other meaningful condition? There are countless problems connected to the notion of ‘meaningful’, and exactly what it encompasses – could it really all be traced back to God? Can nothing be simply meaningful in itself? So, can religion, and belief in God really make life meaningful? Perhaps the simplest notion is that religion places a set of standards upon us, mainly to do good. Thus to believe in God is to personify the intention to do good, which is in line with God’s purpose, and thus gives our lives meaning without actually having to refer to purpose as an end (Levine 1988, pp.27-28). Indeed, there seems to be a strong argument for the notion that God’s purpose causes the issue to become riddled with issues of definition as to what his purpose is, our purpose within his purpose, and so on. Perhaps it is simply the mere belief in the existence of God that makes our lives meaningful without having to wade through the problems connected to his purpose. This could certainly overcome a lot of problems connected to the purposive method of seeing a belief in God as making life meaningful, whilst providing the leighway needed for each person to fulfil his belief as seen fit. A belief in God as a reaper of life’s meaningfulness does not necessarily need to be uniform, and actions connected to such need not be the same in each individual. Simply, believing in God’s existence is enough to bring the love and guidance in one’s life to make it meaningful enough. Does there need to be a final purpose? One would argue not, with the following example. Suppose one believes in good - that is, in being a good person. He strives to be good throughout his life by various acts of kindness, love, compassion, charity and so on. The notion of good is arguably a quality – or at least its definition is not exactly the same for each individual. Thus, he strives to be good, and indeed commits many good acts, and may consider himself to be good. Yet he cannot be said to be the good person as an embodiment of the ultimate definition of a good person. It is far too vague a notion, that only the most arrogant could define himself as The Good Person. He simply says he is A Good Person, without actually having an end in itself, for good is over time – you cannot become good and then stop the acts which have made you become good – it is an infinite element. This could be the same for the belief in God. One who believes in God strives to fulfil the conditions, whether they may be prayer, loving thy neighbour, studying the Bible, or simply believing. None of these necessarily needs an end – a purpose – to give life meaning; they are an ongoing infinite practice which one enacts under the belief in God without having any ultimate end in sight. Thus, if one were to see God as a way of life, an unending set of practices, the meaning it confers on life becomes much stronger and more resistant to the purposive and autonomous criticisms. One does not lose his autonomy; he does not become a puppet merely enacting God’s intentions in the literal sense. He does not become perplexed with issues surrounding God’s purpose and does not fret to connote every act back to the meaningfulness of God. He simply believes and lives his life in this way, and thus his life has meaning – it is not that God himself confers meaning on our lives, it becomes that meaning is passively conveyed on our lives by believing in God. This argument is put forth by Hartshorne, who sees it as an orientation of life towards a higher – or the highest – nature (1996), described by Metz as simply ‘a matter of worshipping the being than which none greater can be conceived’ (2002, p.788). It thus becomes not a conflict between living how we wish to live and living according to a cosmic order – it becomes living as we want to live because of a belief in the cosmic order. Soul-centred views Another way of conveying meaning to life independently of the existence of God is the existence of the soul, and its being in a certain condition. Tolstoy states that for one to have meaning in one’s life, it must be worth living, and thus must make a difference in the world, which in turn requires an infinite spiritual soul (1905). The existence of the soul makes life infinite, and thus gives it meaning by this very infinite element. He who does not have a soul, or who is not connected with his soul makes his life thereby finite, and thus renders it meaningless. I will not delve into this soul-centred argument, for it appears weak when placed under the light of its criticisms. It cannot be said that a finite life is meaningless (Schmidtz 2001), and it can be argued by God-centred theorists that God’s remembrance of our finite existence makes us eternal (Levine 1987, 462). Indeed, for one to make a permanent difference does not require an infinite life, as these theorists describe it. I will focus more on the second viewpoint of the soul-centred theorists, which views the soul as a necessary element for justice, which thus gives life meaning. Under this standpoint, immortality is needed to obtain justice, to allow the good to flourish, to reward the virtuous. This is not to state that either argument is considered a very strong or plausible argument, for both are based on the immortality of the soul, and one agrees that ‘there is nothing about the bare fact of more time that could make life meaningful’ (Griffin 1981, p.61). Additionally, immortality does not necessarily mean that one has a soul. In general, the soul-centred theory is rather vague, and focuses mainly on the existence of a soul, rather than any qualities it should perhaps possess, and this is arguably not enough to make life meaningful. Another strong criticism is that to make one immortal is to remove all element of time and space (Perrett 1986), and thus to attach meaning to the moving of the soul to an atemporal realm seems to remove meaning in the part of life which is actually lived consciously. A soul-centred theorist would argue that the conscious argument is irrelevant, for such persons believe they will never die. One still finds it difficult to grasp how infinite existence can bring meaning to life. Indeed, it could be said to remove the importance of meaning altogether – a person deciding which path to take in life may not care or worry which he chooses, for if he is immortal, his choice will have no major consequence. The soul-centred theory seems to remove the consequence element too distant, and in turn removes focus from the choices made in connection to the possible consequences. In turn, the only arguments which ease the problems faced by the soul-centred theory move closer to the god-centred theory to patch the chasms in the former. Ultimately, the soul-centred theories ‘fail to support the conclusion that having an immortal, spiritual nature is necessary for life to be meaningful’ (Metz 2002, p.789). Meaning of Life Without God So what could possibly be the meaning of life, if it were not to be based on God? Here the naturalists turn to the purely physical meanings of life and causes one to delve into the pragmatic realm of the naturalist sciences. A resounding naturalist argument here is as thus: ‘If the meaning of life depends on understanding and being motivated to live according to a cosmic order, then life has no meaning because we cannot understand the cosmic order and consequently cannot be motivated by it’ (Kekes 2000, p.25). Thus one turns to the naturalist view of a Great Work as attributing meaning to life, which does not require immortality or the perfection it conveys. But at what point beneath perfection do we take our stance? What naturalist elements make life perfect, and what is meant by the Great Work which makes life so meaningful? Of course the naturalists are split in to two schools of thought – the subjective and the objective. The subjectivist considers that there are no specific set elements which makes life meaningful, for each individual considers this concept in a different manner. Each person has different intentions, means, desires, inclinations and feelings, and thus the question of what makes life meaningful varies from person to person depending on how they employ these different tendencies. Thus what is meaningful for one may not be meaningful for another, depending on what they consider to be meaningful. There is much plausibility in this argument, and it seems to avoid much criticism by declining to provide a ‘one size fits all’ approach. As one theorist suggests, the most that this subjective theory can be bound is in terms of caring for or loving something in order to convey meaning to life (Frankfurt 2002). Indeed, this approach is somewhat attractive – what is a meaningful life if it is not meaningful to someone? And why, if it is meaningful to someone should it be meaningful to all? It moves beyond the argument about what is exactly defined as meaningful to those who consider it meaningful, and their capacities to find it meaningful. If one is true to oneself, why delve beyond this to supernatural elements – are we not the beings who live the life and so decide best what makes it meaningful (Frankfurt 1982)? We may find love, we may become engrossed in a relationship, we may love our career, we may seek adventure. Who is to say that he who seeks adventure more than love has more or less meaning in his life, and who is to say that she who strives for a career more than relationships has more or less meaning in her life? Something as simple as being politically involved, or creating a work of art, or striving to learn everything about medicine – are these not meaningful? If not, then what is? A criticism of the objective school of thought is that the above contentions fail to define the objective value in being true to oneself (Taylor 1992). If he who seeks his career does so by harming others intentionally, he is not being true to himself, and thus does not have true meaning in his life. The argument here is that to leave the meaningfulness of life at the mercy of each individual renders it arbitrarily defined as each person sees fit, and this undermines its meaning in the first place. Thus, it needs at least some objective criteria to prevent such misinterpretations. The objectivist states the necessity of some valuable conditions which can bring meaning to life for any person beyond simply any element being wanted, loved or believed to be meaningful dependent on the individual. Thus certain actions have values which other actions simply cannot possess, and thus only the former can make a life meaningful. It is not enough that a person believes an action to be meaningful, the objectivist states that there exist a set of actions that are objectively considered meaningful and a set which are objectively considered not so. It is here that a form of hybrid theory based on both subjective mentality and objective actions are brought together. Thus, an act that is not objectively worthwhile cannot be subjectively thought to give meaning to life, and an objectively worthwhile act if not subjectively thought to give meaning to live does not indeed give meaning to life (Wolf 1997, 211). Yet could it not be that a worthwhile act, if not subjectively considered meaningful, cannot give meaning to life regardless? This turns on the question in relation to whom the act is made worthwhile – a person donating money to charity may not find it worthwhile, whereas the person receiving the donation considers it to be of invaluable help. It thus is not necessary according to the utilitarian that the meaning of an act be personally achieved by the actor (Singer 1993, ch.12). But for an objectively meaningful act to convey meaning to a person’s life, does it not need to be subjectively realised as such? Indeed, the person donating money must have found some subjective meaning in the act, purely by its objective connotations of meaning, else he would not have donated money in the first place. Metz would argue that this act enhanced his meaning of life, although it is not a necessary element to give meaning to his life (2003, 63-67). This midway theory states that the man’s act of donating money to charity gave him a meaning in life, or at least enhanced its meaning, which would not necessarily be increased purely by the donor subjectively feeling more useful because of it. Some acts, whether they subjectively convey feelings of meaning or not on a person, seem to give meaning to life regardless. Such acts appear to have given great difficulty to those attempting to define them, and the greatest efforts have brought such acts as those of creativity (Taylor 1987) and those of morality (Pogge 1997). While some consider these two groups to be rather narrow, it could be argued that many – or even all – other meaningful acts could relate back to these two forms of grundnorm (Kelsen 1991). On the other hand, one could dare to state that indeed life has no meaning. If there is no God and no supernatural form of soul, then there is nothing, and life means nothing in particular, and we simply live until we die (Camus 1955 Ecclesiastes). The main line of argument here is that we constantly seek something we cannot achieve, or we have achieved it and thus have become bored with it, and thus our lives are meaningless (Martin 1993). Indeed, to see oneself as a mere dot in the universe, to consider our place in relation to all of the human beings in the world could render life meaningless (Nagel 1986). It could be argued – and strongly – that the very fact that we live on and do not become engulfed in such overwhelming feelings of meaninglessness, that there is always some form of meaning in life for almost every person. Be it purely personal, be it based on a belief in God, be it objective or subjective or for some other reason. Without reason, why else would a human live, and work and eat and sleep? If not even some arbitrary form of reason existed to live, then we would all be likely to commit suicide, a characteristic act of one who considers (his) life to be meaningless. Death, Suffering and the Meaning of Life A deep and fundamentally important question is this: with the suffering, the constant struggle, the pain and the eventual death, why do we bother at all? Why do we work each day, worry about bills, constantly suffer the everyday pressures of life? There must be some reason, else we would, as previously stated, simply give up. What is the point of it all, if we simply die at the end? Kekes argues that ‘the question falsely suggests that we need reasons for continuing to live’ (2000, p.17). Our nature simply dictates that we live on – man’s nature is to continue in life, to work on. All along the chain of class differences, the threats may be different but they are threats nonetheless. While a primitive tribal being fights for food and for survival, even upper class beings fight for something; be it the mortgage, the latest vehicle, best schooling for his offspring. Whatever the struggle may be, it is for something, and often it is harder for the upper class beings who may obtain their goal and thus find something else to try for. The ultimate nature of man is to avoid boredom and it appears that this struggle is actually a reason for him to survive. This could be a meaning of life in itself – the struggle for survival is the very meaning of life – the reason to try, to make it as best we can before we die. If this is not the case, and the things we struggle for mean nothing – then there really could be no meaning to life. But this does not need to be a bad, daunting fact of life. Do we really need meaning? Or do we find meaning instead? The fact that some of us commit suicide and others don’t provides a strong argument for the fact that if we do not have meaning, our nature is to find meaning, or attribute it to elements of our lives as we see fit. Those who commit suicide often do so out of hopelessness, out of a complete lack of meaning to live, because there is simply no point. The fact that we do not all commit suicide, or lay our bodies down and simply give up provides strong argument for the fact that we all, in some way or other, find meaning in our lives. Does it really matter how we find it? For one, meaning could be simply making a family, for another it could be finding a cure for cancer; the fact that both are on opposite ends of the scale does not make either more plausible than the other, so long as they are a meaning of some sort. And who are we to question the meaning of others’ lives? Perhaps we will never understand it, perhaps it is a question that cannot be answered. Yet perhaps it is a question that many do not ask themselves. Indeed, it appears to fall mercy to how one looks at life – perhaps the fact that we die at the end of it all makes it an amazing phenomenon that we have one chance which we are to make the most of. Many times we hear of people who are afraid of ‘wasting’ their lives and not making ‘something’ of it. Whether we turn to religion, or whether we turn to morals to give meaning to our lives matters not; perhaps the literature would do better to focus on the fact that we simply do. Existentialism The existential approach focuses on the conditions which make an individual person exist, based on his emotions, actions and thoughts. A much more accessible feature of what the meaning of life is, it avoids – and quite appropriately so – the unnecessarily complicated and daunting issues as covered by the previously mentioned thinkers. If we, as individuals, are solely responsible for giving our own life meaning, then we must be able to access on a much more personal level what exactly we consider to give our lives meaning (Kierkegaard 1968). Rather than be directed by a cosmic order, or be pressed into an objective mould, ‘the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die’ (Kierkegaard 1835). We thus are coaxed into assessing our own lives, how we live, the principles we live by – with the free choice to chose which fundamental values and beliefs take the centre stage in our lives. Rather than be told which values by which we are to assess whether our life can be made meaningful, the existential method fails to fall mercy to the objective and supernatural theories’ criticisms. And thus the issue causes one to assess their life and how they live it – the issue of what makes life meaningful becomes the act in itself of assessing what an individual considers to constitute a meaningful life as well as the principles. And these very principles, the very act of finding these principles causes one to realise that life in fact does have a meaning, whatever it may consist of. For example, if a man considers his values to be based on treating others with respect and integrity, and he conducts his manner in this way – this is the meaning of his life. He is not told that these values are irrelevant as a meaning, and he has thus assessed his life and arrived at a set of principles by which he lives. 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Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of the Good Life. Social Philosophy and Policy 14:207-25. Read More