9.1 OVERVIEW: PHILOSOPHY AND THE MEANING OF LIFE Enter: a contented man.

9.1 OVERVIEW: PHILOSOPHY AND THE MEANING OF LIFE

Enter: a contented man. He makes his living crafting ornate clay pors, ,vhich he sells to the people in his village. He loves his ,vork and is mostly satisfied with his life. But one day a friend gives him a philosophy textbook, which he begins to read, starting ,vith the last chapter entitled “The Meaning of Life.” A question in the first paragraph jumps out at him: “Does life have meaning?” He has never thought seriously about the meaning of life, and as he ponders the question, he realizes he has no answer. And he does not have an answer even after fretting over the question for several days. For most of his life, he has made pots, day after day, all of them the same shape and size, all of them produced in exactly the same way-and he seems destined to endure this monotony into old age. What is the point? he thinks. What does it matter ,vhether I make a million pars or none? What has my life been about? What meaning or purpose does my life have? Is life meaningless? He has no idea. And the thought of a meaningless existence brings on a crushing despair that cannot be eased by drink, or drugs, or distracting ac- tivity. As his misery deepens, the potter stops making pots, and he ,vonders why

he ever started.

F o r , h e m e a n i n g o f l i fe differs from man to man,

from day ,o day and from hour ,o hour. \Vhar mar-

tcrs, therefore, is nor the meaning of life in general bu, rarher ,he specific meaningofa person’s life

at a given moment.

-ViktorE.Frankl

Figure 9.1 People often begin their search for meaning by asking, “What is the meaning of life?” But the first step in finding answersisto understand the question.

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Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illu-

sion ofbeing eternal. -Jean-Paul Sartre

Do you see any resemblance bet\veen the potter and yourself in this little tale? It would not be surprising or unusual if you did. At one time or another, in one \vay or another, most people ask themselves if life has any meaning, any point. Like our potter, many of them seem satisfied with their lives-until they begin to \vonder \vhether it is a meaningless charade. Then “the meaning of life”-a phrase often tossed around in mock seriousness or for comedic effect-is infused with a more somber tone. A few insist that questions about the meaning ofexistence are themselves meaningless. But most who have contemplated such things take them to be extremely important and relevant to their lives. Many philosophers have tried to clarify the concepts involved and to give discussions of life’s meaning more precision, but they too think the questions about meaningful or meaningless lives are worth asking and anS\vering. The existentialist philosopher Albert Camus, for one, declares that “judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to an-

swering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest-whether the \vorld has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or nvelve categories-comes afterwards.”‘

Some people, including a fair number ofstudents, think philosophy is mostly about the question of life’s meaning. In a sense, they are not far wrong. Most of the topics covered in the preceding chapters-God, free will, kno\vledge, ethics, and justice-can inform your thinking about this important sort ofmeaning. And your conclusions about the meaningfulness oflife are directly or indirectly related to your actions and beliefs regarding lifestyle, work, morality, political involve- ment, free will, God, and other issues. lfby thinking carefully about life’s meaning (or lack thereof) you decide to dramatically change your career choice, you would not be the first.

What, besides a course in philosophy, can push someone into this kind ofserious reflection? Often the tripwire is a disturbing thought-the inevitability ofdeath, the brevity of life, the smallness and triviality ofour lives compared with the unimagin- ablyvastuniverse, theshortnessofourlives in thecontextofeternity, ortheeventual obliteration ofeverything \Ve have cared for or created.

Consider this odd fairytale based very loosely on a real event. A graduate student \vith a master’s degree in business pays a visit to a philosophy professor. The student has come seeking something that she has so far failed to acquire in her studies: the ultimate secret, the meaning of life. The professor pauses, then answers in his best

guru-like voice, “The meaning oflife is . .. a big purple thing.” Silence. The professor chuckles; the student doesn’t know \vhether to laugh or sigh.

With his absurd answer the professor means to make a point, or several. There is no great secret concerning the meaning of life, no cryptic bit ofknowledge that, once known, \viii reveal all. There is no slogan or incantation or parable that will ensure your life is worth living. Moreover, no one can simply hand you the meaning of life as if it were a gift basket. The process of examining the question of life’s meaning or purpose is personal. You have to make that journey yourself. No one can bestow upon you what you must find for yourself, no more than a friend can tell you what your favorite foods are supposed to be.

Probably most philosophers \vould agree \Vith all this. Many \vould also add that although there is no straight road to understanding the “big question,” there are guideposts here and there that can help you find your \vay, some of \vhich we d iscuss

in the following pages.
Many people think they have an intuitive grasp of what is meant by “the

meaning of life.” But the concept in common usage is actually vague and slippery. So, for purposes of this discussion, \Ve can say that to ask whether your life has meaning is to ask whether it has significant value or purpose over time beyond the good ofmerely being alive. Through the centuries, people have claimed that such significant value is derived from being part of God’s plan, serving the greater good ofhumankind, helping others, caring for and protecting family, giving and receiving love, creating art, searching for kno\vledge, and many other activities

and states.
Philosophers have gone further and distinguished life’s value or meaning from

happiness and moral rightness. Someone might be continually and blissfully happy because she is, for example, taking psychotropic drugs, but few would call such a life meaningful. And some people can lead meaningful lives while being miserable because their meaningful activities are arduous or dangerous. Physicians working in a war zone treating wounded children may be sad because of the suffering they witness-and still feel their lives have meaning. Moreover, many things that people do to add meaning to their lives are also morally right, but moral rightness and meaningfulness need not go together. While creating a beautiful painting, an artist might add meaning to his life, but the act ofcreation seems to be morally neutral. Morality and meaningfulness are not synonymous.

Perhaps the main impediment to clear thinking about life’s meaning is confu- sion about \vhat meaning refers to. Consider the phrase “the meaning of life.” For most people, these words refer to external meaning-meaning or purpose that comes

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning. and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. \Vhat am I doing right? -Charles M. Schulz

Figure 9.2 Is a meaningful life possible only when lived in accordance with God’s plan?

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1When you t alk about the meaning of life, which sense ofthe term do you use- external meaning or internal meaning?

Life takes on meaning when you become motiv· ared, set goals and charge after them in an unstop·

pable manner. -Les Brown

PHILOSOPHY LAB

Imagine char you are a devour person who feels chat your life can be meaningful only ifyou ace according to God’s plan. Forrunarely, an oracle can tell you exacdy what God has in store. He wanes you (and everyone else on rhe planet) co . . . serve as food for beings on anorher planer, who happen to be God’s favorite people. You and all

other humans, on the ocher hand, are co be mear for aliens.

Now that you know God’s plan, is your life f inally meaningful? That is, if you know only that God has a plan for you but know nothing about it, would that fact alone make your life meaningful?

from outside humanity. Whatever meaning people have in their lives is besto\ved or assigned by God, by some metaphysical order, or by the workings of some universal principle. For Christians, co have a meaningful life is co be part of God’s plan for all of humankind. But many people also speak ofa different kind of meaning-what some refer co as “meaning in life.” This is internal meaning-meaning or purpose that comes from inside people, that humans can give co themselves. In this vie\v, life can be meaningful for persons if they come co see their goals or purposes as inher- ently valuable or worthwh ile.

Many people, including those \vho accept a religious worldview, assume chat if life has no external meaning, it has no meaning period. They believe humans can have a purposeful life only if God created them \vith a purpose. The opposing vie\v is that even if there is no external meaning, people’s lives can still be meaningful because meaning and purpose come from within. Because of these different senses of meaning, a person who states that life is meaningless may actually be asserting only chat life has no external meaning but still has internal meaning. Someone who declares that life has meaning may reject the notion that humans are given a purpose by a higher po\ver, claiming chat lives are made meaningful only by human choices. Unfortunately, the phrase “the meaning of life” is frequently used co refer co both external and internal meaning.

To the question ofwhether life holds any meaning for us, there are t\VO prin- cipal answers: (I) Life has no meaning (the pessimist’s view) and (2) life in some sense does have meaning (the optimist’s view). The optimise’s answer can be fur- ther divided: Either (1) life’s meaning is external (the common religious perspec- tive) or (2) life’s meaning is internal (the view held mostly by the nonreligious or

–

nontheiscic).

9.2 PESSIMISM: LIFE HAS NO MEANING

The pessimists (also called nihilists) have something in common ,vich the religious optimises: They both believe chat unless a divine entity or transcendent reality has provided the world ,vich ultimate purpose or value, life is meaningless. In ocher words, life ca n have no meaning if external meaning is nonexistent.

Among famous pessimists we can count the renowned Russian novelise Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910). Before undergoing a Christian conversion (and becoming an optimise), he found himself at age fifty doubting the existence of God and being

tortured by the thought chat life was entirely ,vichouc meaning or purpose. Here ,ve can see chat his agony at the loss of meaning ,vas extreme:

Leo Tolstoy, My Confession

[F]ive years ago something very strange began to happen with me: I was overcome by minutes at first of perplexity and then of an arrest of life, as though I did not know

how to live or what to do, and I lost myself and was dejected. But that passed, and I continued to live as before. Then those minutes of perplexity were repeated oftener and oftener, and always in one and the same form. These arrests of life found their expression in ever the same questions: “Why? Well, and then?”

At first I thought that those were simply aimless, inappropriate questions. It seemed to me that that was all well known and that if I ever wanted to busy myself with their solution, it would not cost me much labour,- that
now I had no time to attend to them, but that if I wanted to
I should find the proper answers. But the questions began
to repeat themselves oftener and oftener, answers were de-
manded more and more persistently, and, like dots that fall

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is rhc meaning.

-Joseph Campbell

on the same spot, these questions, without any answers, thickened into one black blotch.

There happened what happens with any person who falls ill with a mortal internal disease. At first there appear

insignificant symptoms of indisposition, to which the pa· tient pays no attention; then these symptoms are repeated more and more frequently and blend into one temporally indivisible suffering. The suffering keeps growing, and be- fore the patient has had time to look around, he becomes conscious that what he took for an indisposition is the most significant thing in the world to him,- his death.

The same happened with me. I understood that it was not a passing indisposition, but something very important, and that, if the questions were going to repeat themselves, it would be necessary to find an answer for them. And I tried to answer them. The questions seemed to be so foolish, simple, and childish. But the moment I touched them and tried to solve them, I became convinced, in the first place,

Figure 9.3 Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910).

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Leo Tolstoy, My Confession

2 Is Tolstoy’s pessimism about life’s meaning
a result ofhisobject-

ive assessment of his life, or is it merely a product of his unique personality traits?

that they were not childish and foolish, but very important and profound questions in life, and, in the second, that, no matter how much I might try, I should not be able to

answer them. Before attending to my Samara estate, to my son’s education, or to the writing ofa book, I ought to know why I should do that. So long as I did not know why, I could not do anything. I could not live. Amidst my thoughts of farming, which inter- ested me very much during that time, there would suddenly pass through my head a question like this: “All right, you are going to have six thousand desyatfnas ofland in the Government o f Samara, and th ree hundred ho rses,- and then?” And I comp letely lost my senses and did not know what to think farther. Or, when I thought ofthe educa- tionofmychildren,Isaidtomyself.”Why?”Or,reflectingonthemannerinwhichthe masses might obtain their welfare, I suddenly said to myself: “What is that to me?” Or, thinking o f the fame wh ich my works wou ld get me, I said to myself: “All right, you will be more famous than G6gol, Pushkin; Shakespeare, Moliere, and all the writers in the world,- what ofit?” And I was absolutely unable to make any reply. The questions were not waiting, and I had to answer them at once; ifl did not answer them, I could not live.

I felt that what I was standing on had given way, that I had no foundation to stand on, that that which I lived by no longer existed, and that I had nothing to live by. .. .

All that happened with me when I was on every side surrounded by what is consid- ered to be complete happiness. I had a good, loving, and beloved wife, good children, and a large estate, which grew and increased without any labour on my part. I was respected by my neighbours and friends, more than ever before, was praised by strang- ers, and, without any self-deception, could consider my name famous. With all that, I was not deranged or mentally unsound,-on the contrary, I was in full command of my mental and physical powers, such as I had rarely met with in people of my age: physically I could work in a field, mowing, without falling behind a peasant; mentally

Figure 9.4 Is life any less meaningful because it is short?

I could work from eight to ten hours in succession, without experiencing any conse- quences from the strain. And while in such condition I arrived at the conclusion that I could not live, and, fearing death, I had to use cunning against myself, in order that I might not take my life.

This mental condition expressed itselfto me in this form: my life is a stupid, mean trick played on me by somebody. Although I did not recognize that “somebody” as hav- ing created me, the form of the conception that some one had played a mean, stupid trick on me by bringing me into the world was the most natural one that presented itself to me.

Involuntarily I imagined that there, somewhere, there was somebody who was now having fun as he looked down upon me and saw me, who had lived for thirty or forty years, learning, developing, growing in body and mind, now that I had become strengthened in mind and had reached that summit of life from which it lay all before me, standing as a complete fool on that summit and seeing clearly that there was noth- ing in life and never would be. And that was fun to him-

But whether there was or was not that somebody who made fun of me, did not makeit easier for me. I could not ascribeany sensible meaning to a single act, or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I had not understood that from the start. All that

had long ago been known to everybody. Sooner or later there would come diseases and death (they had come already) to my dear ones and to me, and there would be nothing left but stench and worms. All my affairs, no matter what they might be, would sooner or later be forgotten, and I myself should not exist. So why should I worry about all these things?How could a man fail to see that and live, -that was surprising! A person could live only so long as he was drunk; but the moment he sobered up, he could not help seeing that all that was only a deception, and a stupid deception at that! Really, there was nothing funny and ingenious about it, but only something cruel and stupid.’

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), another famous pessimist, argues that life is so bereft ofmeaning and so fraught with misery that the nonexistence of the world is preferable to its existence.

Arthur Schopenhauer, “On the Sufferings ofthe World”

Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim. It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each separate mis- fortune,asitcomes, seems,nodoubt,tobesomethingexceptional; butmisfortunein general is the rule… .

The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form ofconsola- tion open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole!

We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey. So it is that in our good days we are all unconscious of the evil Fate may have presently in store for us- sickness,

3 What bearing, if any, does the ephemeral nature of our existence have on the question of whether life has meaning? Does the fact that we will die negate the possibility of meaning in life?

Thesole meaning oflifeis to serve humanity.

– L e o T olstoy

poverty, mutilation, loss of sight or reason.

Pessimism: Life Has No Meaning 413

4 Is Schopenhauer right about the mean- inglessness of life? Does the wretchedness of our existence show that life has no meaning?

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The Meaning of life

Figure 9.5 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860).

No little part of the torment ofexistence lies in this, that Time is con· tinually pressing upon us, never letting us take breath, but always coming after us, like a taskmaster with a whip. If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the misery of boredom….

Certain it is that work, worry, labor and trouble, form the lot ofalmost all men their whole life long. But ifall wishes were fulfilled as soon as they arose, how would men occupy their lives? what would they do with their time? If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature. .. .

Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable episode, disturbing the blessed calm of non-existence. And, in any case, even though things have gone with you tolerably well, the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is a disappointment, nay, a cheat. .. .

Ifchildren were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden

upon it in cold blood.l

Arthur Schopenhauer, “On the Sufferings o f

the World”

5 W h a t is S c h o p e n – hauer’s argument for

the meaninglessness of life? Is his assess-

ment of life based on object ive facts or on

his distinctive frame of mind?

I have always believed, and I still believe, that what·

ever good or bad forcune may come our way we can always give it meaning and

transform it inm some· thing ofvalue.
– H e rmann Hesse

II 111111111111111111111II111111 I II I II Ill 1111111

The distinguished atheist la\vyer Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), defense attorney in the famous Scopes “monkey trial,” came to the same conclusion that Tolstoy and

Schopenhauer did: Life is not worthwhile. “Life is like a ship on the sea,” he says, “tossed by every wave and by every wind; a ship headed for no port and no harbor, \vith no rudder, no compass, no pilot; simply Aoacing for a time, then lose in the waves.”4

Against the pessimists, it has been argued chat most ofthem have been guilty of perpetrating the confusion mentioned earlier-m ixing up the two senses of mean- ing. Contemporary philosopherJulian Baggini explains:

Julian Baggini , What’s It All About?

It seems to me that when most people say that life is meaningless, they are talking about meaning in one or both of these senses. They are saying- rightly, in my view- that our lives were not created with any purpose or goal in mind and that there is noth· ing beyond or after life that can provide a purpose for what we do in this life. But to conclude that “therefore life is meaningless” is simply to ignore the many other ways in which life can be meaningful. …

What is missing is the recognition that life can be meaningful if we find it worth living for its own sake, without recourse to further aims, goals or purposes. . . .

The same kinds of consideration apply when dealing with [existentialist Albert] Camus’s question about how we can live life if it is absurd and mea ningless. Aga in it is only”meaningless” in certain particular senses ofthe word….

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Nietzsche: Reflections on Meaning

Friedrich Wilhelm Nieczsche (1844-1900) lived in the nineteenth century, bur his ideas echoed loudest rhroughour rhe rwencieth, and they resound still, over one hundred years after his passing. Today he is borh reviled and embraced, and he has outraged ,nany-including exponents of Christianity, conce,nporary culture, cradicional

morality, democratic socialis,n, and Western philosophy. Among chose who have claimed ro be inspired by his ,vords are Marx- ists, poscmoderniscs, acheiscs, anarchists, fem inises, reactionaries, vegetarians, and Nazis. Sorne haveclaimed him asone oftheir own even d1ough he has given chem no explicit reason co (as in the case ofche Nazis). The divergent perspectiveson hisworkaredue in pare co his writing style, which is mosdy brilliant bur by turns opaque, poetic, aphoristic, vague, and ironic. Bur most debate is over che substance ofhis views, ofwhich che ,nosr famous (or notorious) are his doctrine o f the will co po,ver, h is notion o f d1e rnighty human being known as che Ubemumch (Overman or Superman), and his claim char “God is dead.” On d1ese copies sorne philosophers con- sider hi,n a nihilist, but od1ers reject d1ac characrerizacion, arguing that Nierzsche ,vas concerned about ulcimace meaning and che incellecrual and spiritual vicalizacion ofhurnanity.

Figure 9.6 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900).

Fro,n 1873 ro 1876 Nietzsche produced Untimely Meditations (actually four essays un- derchesingletide).In 1879heresignedhisuniversitypostbecauseofhisfailinghealthand spent che following decade ,vricing and ,vandering about lcaly and Switzerland, lonely and in great physical pain. Our ofchis period came such ,vorks as 1he Wondererand His Shadow

(1880), Daybreak (1881), 1he Gay Science or Joyful Wisdom (1882), Beyond Good and Evil (1887), and 1he Genealogy ofMorals (1887). 7hus SpokeZarathustro, his well-known ,nascer-

piece, appeared in che years 1883 co 1885. In 1889, on a street in Turin, he collapsed after seeing a horse being whipped. He spent che remaining cen years of his life insane, dying in August 1900. By che rime of his death, he was world-reno,vned, and his ,vrirings were the

subject ofextensive scholarship and controversy.
AcentralconceptofNietzsche’sis rhewilltopower, rhefundamentalnatureofexistence

as a drive ro control and dominate. The ,viii ro po,ver is nor che real world behind appear- ances (as in Descartes), nor ideas in che universa l mind (as in Hegel), nor che w ill ro live, nor the conscious will of God or hu,nans. Jc is life, striving co overco,ne, ro rule, co break our. All human struggles and striving are manifestations ofthe will ro power.

To Nietzsche, che will co power is evident in hu,nankind’s search for kno,vledge, es- pecially in science, philosophy, and religion. “Knowledge,” he says, “is an instrument of

power.” The will ro kno,v arises from che ,viii co power-from che desire co master and control a particular domain of reality. Reality is in Aux, a kaleidoscope of sense data and

concepts, and on rh is chaos we cry co irnpose order, theory, and parcern so we can rurn rea lity co our advantage. We do nor seek truth for rruch’s sake. There is only che ,viii ro power char impels us co cry ro ,nake sense of rhe muddle.

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6 Do you think many people who say that life is meaningless are

assuming that mean- ing refers to external

meaning?

7 If we reject the reli- gious view of meaning in life, are we forced to conclude that life is

meaning less?

Almost all deniers of meaning in life really seem to be rejecting only the idea that life has a specific kind of meaning: one determined by agents, purposes or principles somehow external to this world. This does not justify the conclusion that life has no meaning at all. Their pronouncement that “life is meaningless” thus just appears to be a kind ofhyperbole.s