As noted by many a pop-philosopher, there's this constant question around what might constitute the meaning of life. Today I'd like to start a series where I outline my view on this question on a abstract level but also (perhaps surprisingly!) on a practical level. I want to outline what I think one should be doing in their life, and why this is the case.
We begin first by disecting the question of interest, making transparent various nuances and articulating what aspects I'd like to focus on.
To ease reference, let me denote MeanLife1:
MeanLife1: What is the meaning of life?
- Philosophy of Language
So much to discuss but let us begin with philosophy of language.
What is meant here by 'meaning'? Perhaps it is about semantics - for example we might ask a question like 'what is the meaning of this sentence', to which the answer might be 'a specific proposition'. Under one analysis the response might simply to provide a definition of 'life'. Intuitively, this doesn't seem right - a response to MeanLife1 that provides some kind of biological definition just seems inadequate. The semantics point however does seem to be getting somewhere, especially if we view 'life' as eliptical for a deeper construct such as 'human / personal existence'. I'd also argue that when people ask about 'meaning' they are not making a semantic comment - they are instead saying something more akin to purpose.
The first three words 'What' 'is' and 'the' are also interesting and potentially imply some kind of reference or denotation. It seems to invite the sort of response to MeanLife1 in the form of that - that is the meaning of life. We'll discuss what sort of thing that can be (if anything) when we move onto metaphysics. The use of the definite article 'The' is also rather interesting. Traditional Russelian analysis of definite articles is that it implies a unique reference. I.e. that there is a unique answer to this question. Let's keep things open for now.
Note that issues of uniqueness become slightly more complicated if we take our above eliptical construct 'human / personal existence' as context dependant. Indeed, this leads to the possibility that each human / person has its own unique reference.
Let's offer a rephrasing of our question:
MeanLife: What is a / the purpose of an individual's existence?
- Metaphysics
Now onto some metaphysics. First we observe that MeanLife does seem to be a referencial statement, and we can be interested in what is referenced by 'purpose'. We can ask now whether this reference is mind dependant or mind independant. If it is mind dependant then we might think that there is effectively a sort of prophesy written in reality for each person, which denotes what their purpose it. It does seem a bit strange to imagine how this kind of prophesy could exist. One way to justify this might be through religion. For example, one might think that 'God has a plan for everyone'. God of course would be supernatural, and thus it would not be strange to think that these 'prophesy' entities could also exist in a supernatural way.
Now, I've often used the 'God' example to articulate how a moral realism could work. God would either make things moral or would simply be pointing to things that are moral. If it is the latter, then you could take away God and you could still have an objective morality. Let's attempt an analogous argument - God is either creating these 'purposes' or God is only pointing to them. Is it plausible to think that these prophecies could exist and be pointed to?
Intuitively, it does seem rather strange to think that reality somehow writes prophesies for individual people. Aside from large issues around time (reality can tell the future?) there's also a question about how it indexes these objects against individuals that are born (or maybe even those that are not). One way to respond to this latter point is to consider that these prophecies might not be unique for each person. For example, there might be a universal prophecy for all humans - especially if is a prophesy that can reached in different ways.
Taking this view seems somewhat plausible, but we still have to deal with another question. What kind of 'reference' are we dealing with? Are we actually talking about concrete 'prophecy objects' or might we be talking about something something much weaker? One analysis that comes to mind would be a view like the following:
BioAnswer: "The answer to MeanLife is that each human being just needs to reproduce. The reference to 'purpose' is simply the existence of reproductive organs and biological history'"
I'd argue that this a somewhat plausible argument. It is indeed true that we only exist right now because of reproduction. Furthermore that many of our biological faculties are specifically deisgned to aim for reproduction (e.g. sex) It's similar in some sense to saying that moral properties could be reducible or at least superveniant on physical properties such as happiness or pain. Still, this kind of answer does seem to have a few odd flaws.
Firstly, what about people who a) Don't want to have kids, b) Are unable to have kids, c) would be immoral to have kids. How does this kind of universal purpose respond to this? Consider also d) people already with kids. Has their purpose been complete? I guess there's a natural thought of 'once I've met my purpose then my life can end'. Is this what we should be thinking about the above 4 cases?
The above cases I think showcase some problems with BioAnswer but I also think there's another problem in that it just doesn't seem to be a satisfying response to MeanLife. When people ask MeanLife they are often asking with the underlying view that somehow they are meant to do something 'meaningful'. It is plausible to consider that for some people, reproduction may provide this meaning - but it seems odd to think that this would apply to everyone! Still, to be unsatisfying does not mean that BioAnswer is incorrect.
Are there any other answers? Well how about the following:
HappyAnswer: "The answer to MeanLife is that each human should aim to be happy. The reference to 'purpose' is because it is good for a human to be happy'.
A lot of comments on this one!
First, what does happy mean? There are at least two readings. The first reading is of happiness in a hedonistic sense - to just seek pleasure. A second reading might be to read happiness in a flourishing sense - to achieve enrichment and eudaimonia. I think the second reading has a lot more credence, but I won't argue this point right now.
The second comment is about the reference. 'good' seem to have a moral dimension. It is worth noting that if 'good' is somehow mind dependant then we have a large problem as we are currently evaluating analyses which are (at least to some extent) mind independant. If we are moral realists (as I am) then we avoid the metaphysics issues but we do still face some problems around whether it is actually good for a human to be happy. One way to fix that is by taking a very naturalist view of realism - maybe ethical properties are reducible from things like happiness. In that case, this statement would be almost tautological!
There's still the issues that happiness seems to be a state of being, and arguably a mental state or experience. How do we avoid subjectivism here? We can try the following clarification: that it is mind independant in so far that there is a proposition that is satisfied when someone is genuinely happy, where being happy is a mental experience that only manifests where certain other conditions are met. The analogue here would be to say that 'pain genuinely exists even if it is a mental experience, as you are experiencing it (here in particular) because of physical conditions.' I'm not certain that this line of argument works though!
In fact still, I do take a stance a bit like this, and I'm sort of happy to endorse HappyAnswer. I would however say that there are huge metaphysical problems that I would need to deal with for this position to actually seem convincing. Whilst I'm fairly convinced by realism, there's still significant work around whether I am naturalist (and what kind), as well as whether what sort of happiness should we be looking (and what it involves).
In my future posts I'm going to step away from the metaphysics side, and focus on the latter questions around happiness. That is, I'm going to assume for the time being that HappyAnswer is a somewhat satisfying response to MeanLife, and I'm going to try and disect what HappyAnswer is actually about.
