Absurdity and the Meaning of Life
The Meaning of Life
I
“What is the meaning of life?”
I
Obviously we can often answer particular meaning questions:
I
If someone asks “why did you go to the dining hall” you can
answer “to get food”
I
If someone asks “why was it important to get food” you can
answer “because without food humans die”
I
We can concede that our actions and lives have meaning in
this “local” sense; however, many people have wanted lives
which were meaningful in some deeper sense.
I
Many people want to believe that their lives, at least if lived a
certain way, can be serious or significant or important in a way
that goes beyond the significance we give to things
The Meaning of Life
I
The question of the meaning of life is the question “what is
the ultimate justification of the significance of my life?”
I
The thought is, if this question had an answer, then it would
give meaning to the various pieces of your life (e.g. it is
important for me to eat food because that keeps me alive,
and it is important for me to stay alive for this bigger deeper
reason).
I
Some have thought that they could show that there was no
meaning in this deeper sense; that we should not think our
lives have any ultimate significance or value.
I
We will look at three such arguments/reasons
A bad reason
I
Reasons of this form often center around how finite we are.
I
We are incredibly small when compared to the vast universe.
Our lives are incredibly short and any effects of our actions
will quickly cease to matter relatively shortly after our death.
I
Comments of this kind often serve to underscore the relative
unimportance of our local actions, and the desire for
something more, but it is not clear that they can be turned
into a good argument
A bad reason
I
Nagel points out that, if our lives are absurd, then simply
extending them indefinitely will extend absurdity, not make it
meaningful (and likewise for extending our size)
I
If the local consequences of our actions don’t give meaning to
life, it is difficult to see how long-term consequences of our
actions could change things. We like to think that “If I cured
cancer, then that would help so many people that my life
would be meaningful,” but all these consequences are merely
multiplying the effect. If causing 10 billion hedons of pleasure
gave meaning to life, then causing 10 hedons of pleasure
should also give meaning, even if less.
I
Conversely, if we think that “to eat food” is a 0 on the
ultimate meaning scale, then 10,000,0000,000*0=0, so no
consequences could give meaning to life
Justice
(1) If the world is fundamentally unjust, then life is meaningless
(2) If the world is fundamentally just, then people will be punished
for doing bad things and rewarded for doing good things.
(3) It is not the case in this lifetime that people who do bad things
are punished and people who do good things are rewarded.
(4) If the world is fundamentally just, then people are punished
and rewarded some time other than this life (i.e. an afterlife or
a pre-life) (2, 3)
(5) Thus, if we do not exist other than in this lifetime, life is
meaningless (1, 4)
(6) We only exist for this life.
(C) Therefore, life is meaningless (5, 6)
God
(1) Things are either meaningful in themselves or meaningful in
virtue of something else
(2) My life is not intrinsically meaningful
(3) My life can be meaningful in virtue of something else only if
that other thing has meaning
(4) Thus, if my life has meaning it is because something else has
meaning (1-3)
(5) There cannot be a regress of that thing being meaningful
because of something else, which is meaningful because of
something else and so on...
(6) Therefore, if my life has meaning, there is something which is
intrinsically meaningful (4, 5)
(7) The only thing which can be intrinsically meaningful is God
(8) Thus, if there is no God, my life is meaningless (6, 7)
(9) There is no God
(C) Therefore, my life is meaningless (8, 9)
Skepticism
(1) We cannot show that things we treat as valuable are in fact
more valuable than things we treat as not valuable (e.g. we
cannot rule out the scenario that our thoughts on value are
just the meaningless byproducts of evolution)
(2) If we cannot show that things we treat as valuable are in fact
more valuable than things we treat as not valuable, then there
is no good reason for treating some things as more valuable
than others.
(3) Therefore, there is no good reason for treating some things as
more valuable than others (1, 2)
(4) We inevitably treat some things as more valuable than others
(by treating them as serious/important/meaningful)
(5) If we treat things as valuable, but we know that there is no
good reason for treating them as valuable, then life is absurd.
(C) Therefore, life is absurd. (3, 4, 5)
The Meaning of Life
I
One has a number of options when confronting these an other
similar arguments
I
One can embrace nihilism and say that our lives have no
meaning. Nagel says we should approach life with a sense of
irony once we realize it is absurd.
I
One can embrace existentialism and say that our lives have
meaning because we give them meaning (the worries here are
that this seems to lead to subjectivism and it does not seem
to be a particularly deep form of meaning)
I
One can challenge the soundness of the argument
I
There are obviously many points at which these arguments
could be challenged
I
The point I want to make here is that in the second half of
the course, we will be discussing skepticism, the existence of
God, and the possibility of immortality; thus, there could well
be ways to challenge those premises in these arguments.