The Infertility Argument for Same-Sex Marriage

Suppose two 70-year-olds decide to marry.  They can do so, and their marriage will be recognized as valid under the law.  And this despite the fact that such elderly couples cannot procreate.  But in many places the law does not recognize marriage between same-sex couples who also, obviously, cannot procreate.  What is the difference between the opposite-sex and same-sex cases? What is the difference that justifies a difference in legal recognition?  (Bear in mind that we are discussing legal recognition of marriage; the issue is not so-called civil unions.)  Let us assume that both types of union, the opposite-sex and the same-sex,  are guided by the following norms: monogamy, permanence, and exclusivity.  So, for the space of this discussion, we assume that the infertile heterosexual union and the homosexual union  are both monogamous, permanent, exclusive, and non-procreative. 

What then is the difference between the two cases that justifies a difference in treatment?  If the  only difference is that the one type of union is opposite-sex and the other same-sex, then that is a difference but not one that justifies a difference in treatment.  To say that the one is opposite-sex and the other same-sex is to tell us what we already know; it is not to justify differential treatment.

Here is a relevant difference.  It is biologically impossible that homosexual unions produce offspring.  It is biologically possible, and indeed biologically likely, that heterosexual unions produce offspring.  That is a very deep difference grounded in a biological fact and not in the law or in anything conventional.  This is the underlying fact that both justifies the state's interest in and regulation of marriage, and justifies the state's restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples.

There are two points here and both need to be discussed.

The first concerns the justification of the state's involvement in marriage in the first place.  It is obvious, I hope, that the state ought not be involved in every form of human association.  State involvement in any particular type of human association must therefore be justified.  We want as much government as we need, but no more.  The state is coercive by its very nature, as it must be if it is to be able to enforce its mandates and exercise its legitimate functions, and is therefore at odds with the liberty and autonomy of citizens.  It is not obvious that the government should be in the marriage business at all.  The burden is on the state to justify its intervention and regulation.  But there is a reason for the state to be involved.  The state has a legitimate interest in its own perpetuation  and maintenance via the production of children, their socializing, their protection, and their transformation into productive citizens who will contribute to the common good.  (My use of 'the state' needn't involve an illict hypostatization.)  It is this interest that justifies the state's recognition  and regulation of marriage as a union of exactly one man and exactly one woman. 

I have just specified a reason for state involvement in marriage.  But this justification is absent in the case of same-sex couples since they are not and cannot be productive of children.  So here we have a reason why the state ought not recognize same-sex marriage.   One and the same biological fact both justifies state regulation and recognition of marriage and justifies the restriction of such recognition to opposite-sex couples.  The fact, again, is that only heterosexuals can procreate. 

Proponents of same-sex 'marriage'  will not be satisfied with the foregoing.  They will continue to feel that there is something unfair and 'discriminatory,' i.e., unjustly discriminatory, about the state's recognition of the union of infertile heterosexuals as valid marriage but not of homosexual unions.  (Obviously, not all discrimination is unjust.)  Consider the following argument which is suggested by a recent article by William Saletan entitled Homosexuality as Infertility.  Saletan writes, "People who oppose gay marriage can come to accept it as moral, once they understand homosexuality as a kind of infertility."

The issue is not whether same-sex marriage is moral, but whether it ought to be legally recognized as marriage.  That quibble aside, Saletan's piece suggests the following argument:

1. Homosexual couples are infertile just like infertile heterosexual couples are infertile: there is no difference in point of infertility.
2. Infertile heterosexual couples are allowed by law to marry.
3. Like cases ought to be treated in a like manner.
Therefore
4. Homosexual couples ought to be allowed  by law to marry.

One can see why people would be tempted to accept this argument, but it is  unsound: the first premise is false. 

To show this I will first concede something that perhaps ought not be conceded, namely, that the predicate 'infertile' can be correctly applied to same-sex couples.  Justification for this concession would be the proposition that anything not F, even if it cannot be F, is non-F.  Thus anything not fertile, even if not possibly fertile,  is infertile.  So same-sex couples are infertile in the same way that numbers and ball bearings and thoughts are infertile. 

But even given this concession, there is an important difference between same-sex and opposite-sex couples.  The former are essentially infertile while the opposite-sex infertile couples are only accidentally infertile.  What the latter means is that there is nothing in the nature of opposite-sex unions to rule out the possibility of procreation.  But in the case of same-sex unions, the very nature of the union rules out the possibility of procreation.  So (1) in the argument above is false.  Homosexual couples are not infertile in the same way that infertile heterosexual couples are.  The former are infertile by their very nature, while the latter are not.  This difference is what justifies a difference in treatment.

We must of course treat like cases in a like manner.  What I have just shown, however, is that the two cases are not alike.

The point is even more clear if we take the view that 'fertile' and 'infertile' are predicates that can be meaningfully applied only to that whose nature includes the power to procreate.  Accordingly, same-sex couples are no more infertile than hammers and nails are dead.  

We have two interpretive options, and both supply a difference that justifies a difference in treatment.

Option A.  Anything that is not fertile is infertile; hence, same-sex unons are infertile.  But they are not infertile in the same way that opposite-sex unions are.  Same-sex unions are essentially infertile, infertile by their very nature, while opposite-sex unions, when infertile, are only accidentally infertile.  (This is why infertile opposite-sex couples can sometimes become fertile through medical intervention.)

Option B.  If x is either fertile or infertile, then x has a nature that includes the power to procreate.  Hence same-sex couples are neither fertile not infertile.

On either option, Saletan's  "Homosexuality is a kind of infertility" is false.  This is also clear from the consideration that a couple is called 'infertile' because one of both of the partners is infertile or impotent.  But a union of two homosexuals is in most cases a union of two fertile women or of two potent men.  To call a homosexual couple 'infertile' is therefore to use 'infertile' in a different way than the way it is used when we call a heterosexual couple 'infertile.'  Homosexual couples are infertile because, to put it bluntly, dildos or fingers in vaginas and penises in anuses do not lead to procreation — and not because of some defect or abnormality or age-induced impairment in the partners.

I have just shown that the (1)-(4) argument for extending the legal recognition of marriage to same-sex unions is not compelling.  Nevertheless, some will still feel that there is something unfair about, say, two opposite-sexed 70-year-olds being allowed to marry when homosexuals are not.  It may seem irrelevant that the nature of the opposite-sex union does not rule out procreation in the way the same-sex union does.  Why do the 70-year-olds get to have their union recognized as marriage by the state when it cannot be productive of offspring?

At this point I would remind the reader that the law  cannot cater to individual cases or even to unusual classes of cases.  Consider laws regulating driving age.  If the legal driving age is 16, this is unfair to all the 13-16 year-olds who are competent drivers.  (E.g., farm boys and girls who learned to operate safely heavy machinery before the age of 16.)  If the law were to cater to these cases, the law would become excessively complex and its application and enforcement much more difficult.  Practical legislation must issue in demarcations that are clear and easily recognized, and therefore 'unfair' to some.

But a better analogy is voting.  One is allowed to vote if one satisfies quite minimal requirements of age, residency, etc.  Thus the voting law countenances a situation in which the well-informed and thoughtful votes of mature, successful, and productive members of society are given the same weight as the votes of people who for various reasons have no business in a voting booth.  We don't, for example, prevent  the senile elderly from voting even though they are living in the past out of touch with the issues of the day and incapable of thinking coherently about them.  We don't exclude them or other groups for a very good reason: it would complicate the voting law enormously and in highly contentious ways.  (Picture armies of gray panthers with plenty of time on their hands roaming the corridors of Congress armed with pitchforks.)  Now there is a certain unfairness in this permissiveness: it is unfair to thoughtful and competent voters that their votes be cancelled out by the votes of the thoughtless and incompetent.  But we of the thoughtful and competent tribe must simply 'eat' (i.e., accept) the unfairness as an unavoidable byproduct of workable voting laws.

In the same way, whatever residual unfairness to homosexuals there is in allowing infertile oldsters to marry (after my foregoing arguments have been duly digested) is an unfairness that simply must be accepted if there are to be workable marriage laws.

To sum up.  The right place to start this debate is with the logically prior question: What justifies the state's involvement in marriage?  The only good answer is that state involvement is justified because of the state's interest in its own perpetuation via the production of children  and their development into productive citizens.  (There is also, secondarily, the protection of those upon whom the burden of procreation mainly falls, women.)  It is the possibility of procreation that justifies the states' recognition and regulation of marriage. But there is no possibility of procreation in same-sex unions.  Therefore, same-sex unions do not deserve to be recognized by the state as marriage.  This is not to oppose civil unions that make possible the transfer of social security benefits, etc.

The infertility argument for the extension of legal recognition to same-sex unions has been neutralized above. 

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The Meaning of Life Must be Subjectively Appropriable

The meaning of life, if there is one, cannot be subjective. This was argued in an earlier entry in this series on the meaning of life.  But the meaning of life cannot be purely objective either. The meaning of life, if there is one, must somehow involve a mediation of the subjective and the objective: the meaning of life must be subjectively appropriable.  I will now explain what I mean by ‘objective,’ ‘purely objective’ and ‘subjectively appropriable.’

An objective meaning or purpose of X is a purpose that is as it were assigned to X  from without. An objective purpose is exogenous while a subjective purpose is endogenous.  A purely objective purpose of X is one that is objective, but also such that X cannot subjectively appropriate or make its own the objective purpose. Thus if X has a purely objective purpose, then X plays no role in the realization or enactment or embodiment of its purpose.

A tool made for a specific purpose is an example of something that has a purely objective purpose. The Phillips head screwdriver  has the specific purpose of driving crosshead screws. It was designed for just that job. Such a tool has an objective purpose which derives from the plans and intentions of human artificers. To invert the famous formula of Jean-Paul Sartre's manifesto, "Existentialism is a Humanism," its essence precedes its existence. Artifacts like screwdrivers are produced according to a plan or design that is logically and temporally antecedent to their production. But the purpose of a screwdriver is not only objective, it is also purely objective in that there is no possibility of a screwdriver's subjectively appropriating its objective purpose. And this for the simple reason that no screwdriver is a subject of experience. It is not just that screwdrivers are not biologically alive; they lack subjectivity.  No inanimate artifact can discern its purpose, let alone freely and consciously accept or reject it. It makes no sense to speak of a screwdriver existentially realizing, or subjectively appropriating, or living, or enacting its purpose. The purpose a screwdriver has, it cannot be.  No screwdriver is in a position to complain that the purpose it has been assigned is not its purpose.

With us it is different. We may or may not have an objective purpose, but if we have one, it cannot be a purely objective purpose; it must be a purpose that can be made our purpose. But it is best to speak in the first-person. A purpose that I cannot make my purpose is of no consequence to me. Such a  purpose would be meaningless to me.  An objective purpose that I could not come to know about, or could not realize, or an objective purpose that I knew about and could realize but whose realization would destroy me or cause a preponderance of misery over happiness or thwart my flourishing or destroy my autonomy would  not be a purpose I could make my own. It is essential to realize that the question of the meaning (purpose) of human life arises within the subjectivity of the individual: it cannot be understood in a purely objective way. We are not asking about the purpose of a certain zoological species, or even of the purpose of a given specimen of this species viewed objectively, 'from outside.' The question, properly understood, is necessarily such that each must pose the question for himself using the first-person singular pronoun.  The question is not: What is the purpose of the human species? Nor is it: What is the purpose of this specimen of the human species? The questions are: What is the purpose of my existence? Why am I here? and the like. The question must be posed from within one's life, and not directed at one's life from a third-person point of view. It is man as subject who asks the question, man as Dasein in Heidegger's lingo, not man as object.

We can sum this up by saying that an objective purpose, if there is one, must be subjectively appropriable if it is to be relevant to existential meaning. To appropriate a thing is to make it one's own, to take possession of it. This is not to be taken in a crass material sense. To subjectively appropriate an objective purpose is to existentially realize it, to realize or embody it in one's Existenz (to borrow a term from the German existentialist lexicon). It is to adopt it freely and consciously and live it as an organizing and unifying principle of one's life. This subjective appropriation is obviously consistent with the purpose's remaining objective. It is a bit like realizing an ideal. If a couple realizes the ideal marriage, the ideal does not cease being ideal in being realized. Or if you do what you ought to do, your doing it, which is a translation of a norm into a fact, does not obliterate the distinction between facts and norms.  Similarly, the subjective appropriation of  an objective purpose does not render the purpose subjective; what is subjective is the appropriation, not the purpose.

Subjective appropriability has a normative element.  Suppose a slave knows the purpose assigned to him by his master and comes freely to accept that purpose as his purpose, a purpose he then carries out in his daily activities.  On my use of terms, although the slave has freely accepted the master’s purpose as his purpose, he has not subjectively appropriated the purpose.  And this for the reason that the slave’s acceptation is inconsistent with his autonomy and dignity.  The subjectively appropriable is not merely that which is able to be appropriated, but that which is worthy of being appropriated.  I take it as axiomatic that a meaningful life for a human being must be a life worthy of a human being.

What is meant by 'objective'? An objective purpose is (i) exogenous and (ii) available to all, the same for all, applicable to all.  But to avoid triviality, a codicil must be appended: the objective purpose cannot be a vacuously general meta-purpose. It cannot be something like: the purpose of life is to do whatever you want to do and can do within the limits of your situation. That would apply to everyone but in a vacuous way that would allow the purpose of life for one person to consist in exterminating Jews, for another in collecting beer cans, for a third in medical research, etc. The question about the meaning of life is not a question about a vacuously general meta-purpose, but about a substantively general first-order purpose.  An objective purpose must impose first-level constraints on our behavior.  At the same time, an objective purpose is one whose realization contributes to human flourishing.

But why must an objective purpose be available to all persons? Why can't it be available only to some and still be objective? Why couldn't some be excluded from the meaning of life, 'predestined' as it were to be left in the cold? It is built into the very notion of an objective purpose for rational beings that it be available to every rational being.  We have insisted that the philosophical problem of the meaning of life has an answer only if human life has an objective purpose, the same for all.  If this purpose were not also available to all, then it could not be claimed to be ingredient in an answer to the completely general philosophical problem, one that must not be confused with the psychological problem of the meaning of a life. This might sound  too sketchy to be satisfactory.  A bit more can be said.

One source of a sense of life's absurdity is the observation that suffering is irrationally distributed. An observation as old as Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job is that often the wicked prosper and the just suffer. Happiness and virtue are not properly adjusted one to the other in this life as Kant observed. Reason is scandalized, not by the mere fact of suffering, but by its intensity and unfair distribution. Now if human life, rational life,  has an objective meaning or purpose, then this meaning or purpose must be rational. This strikes me as a near-tautology: life cannot make objective sense unless it makes sense, i.e., is rational, understandable, intelligible. And if the objective meaning or purpose of life is rational, then no person can be arbitrarily excluded from partaking of it. For that would be a form of evil.  If the world’s constitution were such that only some rational beings could partake of life’s meaning, then that would be a decidedly suboptimal arrangement, indeed an evil arrangement. Recall our earier point that the meaning-of-life question can be formulated as a human or ‘anthropic’ question but also as a ‘cosmic’ question.  Anthopic question: What is the objective purpose of human existence? Cosmic question: Is the nature of the world-whole such as to enable and further the meaningfulness of human existence?  My present point is that the world-whole must be such that no rational being is excluded from partaking in the objective meaning of life.  The meaning of life, if there is one, must be the same for all and available to all.  A rational world plays no favorites.  If the objective meaning of life were not available to all, then that would be an evil arrangement, one that could not be objectively meaningful.  An illustration follows.

On a theistic scheme, the objective purpose of life is to participate in the divine life. Now if God were arbitrarily to exclude some from participating in it, for no reason, but just as a display of power, that would make no sense. It would be irrational, and indeed evil. But then would it not be obvious that the meaning of life would not be guaranteed on such a theistic scheme? If God is an arbitrary despot, then God is a threat to life's having an objective meaning. A theism of divine despotism is a higher-order absurdity: both life here below and life beyond would be absurd on such a theism.  So I cannot see how life could have an objective purpose if that purpose is not available to all. It is perhaps not unnecessary to point out that not all will avail themselves of the available.

Putting together the results of this post and one preceding it in this series, we can say that the meaning of life cannot be subjective, but it must be subjectively appropriable, not just be some, but by all.



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The Lessons of Boston

Learn Ralph Peters'  lessons of Boston, or there may be a pressure cooker in your future. 

As for the moral equivalency of Christianity and Islam, Bill Maher, certainly no friend of religion, achieves the right tone, "That's liberal bullshit."  When some academic leftist says something that is plainly false, his pronouncement should not be treated with respect as if worthy of calm consideration.  Call it what it is.

Are all Muslims terrorists?  Of course not, and no one said so.  Most are not.  But most terrorists are Muslims.  That is the point. 

There an important distinction that ought to be observed.  Someone who is a 'Christian' in a merely sociological sense of the term might commit a terrorist act such as blowing up a federal building, it being quite clear that no support for such a deed is forthcoming from Christian doctrine.  But your typical Muslim terrorist is not just a punk from a Muslim land; he is someone whose actions flow from Islamist doctrine.

I have been told that there are a few  'Buddhists' who are also terrorists.  But if you know anything about Buddhism, you know that there is no support for terrorism in the Buddhist sutras and shastras.  So a 'Buddhist' who is also a terrorist is only a Buddhist in some loose and accidental sense of the term  — he happens to be a native of a Buddhist land or has acquired some Buddhist acculturation — but there is no connection between his terrorist activities and Buddhist teaching.

Islam is unique among the great faiths in that it is as much a political ideology as it is a religion.  In respect of the former, it is like communism, and, like communism, bent on world domination.  Islam is the communism of the 21st century.

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Be Afraid

In this fine piece, Marilyn Penn takes Thomas Friedman to task.  Her article begins thusly (emphasis added):

In Thomas Friedman’s op ed on the Boston marathon massacre (Bring On the Next Marathon, NYT  4/17),  the boldface caption insists “We’re just not afraid anymore.”  Perhaps this is true for a traveling journalist who doesn’t use the subway daily or who isn’t forced to spend all his days in the 9/11 city of New York, but for most thinking people who work and live here, there is a great deal to fear.  We live in a porous society where criminals roam free yet politicians complain about the “discriminatory” stop and frisk policies of the police, even though they have successfully reduced crime precisely in the neighborhoods that most affect the complaining minorities and their liberal champions.  If you ride the subways, you know how many passengers wear enormous back-packs, large enough to conceal an arsenal of weapons.  These are allowed to be carried into movie theaters, playgrounds, parks, sports arenas, shopping centers, department stores and restaurants with no security checks whatsoever.   On the national front, immigration policies are more concerned with politically correct equality than with the reality of which groups are fomenting most of the terror around the world today.  Our northern and southern borders are infiltrated daily by undocumented people slipping in beyond the government’s surveillance or control.

I agree with her entire piece. Read it.

It has been a week since the Boston Marathon bombing.  There was a moment of silence today  in remembrance of the victims.  But let's keep things in perspective.  Only three people were killed.  I know you are supposed to gush over these relatively minor events and the undoubtedly horrendous suffering of the victims, but most of the gushing is the false and foolish response of feel-good liberals who have no intention of doing what is necessary to protect against the threat of radical Islam.  The Patriot's Day event was nothing compared to what could happen.  How about half of Manhattan being rendered uninhabitable  by dirty bombs? 

When that or something similar happens, will you liberals start yammering about how 'unimaginable' it was?  Look, I'm imagining it right now.  Liberals can imagine the utopian nonsense imagined by John Lennon in his asinine "Imagine." Is their imagination 'selective'?  They can imagine the impossible but not the likely. It is worth recalling that Teddy Kennedy's favorite song was Impossible Dream.

Deal with the real. And the likely.  There are no impossible ideals. (See Can What is Impossible to Achieve be an Ideal for us?)

 

Black Top Mesa, Western Superstitions, 21 April 2013

Yesterday's killer hike, commencing at First Water Trailhead at 7:30 AM, took us to the top of Black Top Mesa (not to be confused with cholla-forested Black Mesa, also accessible via First Water).  It is a leisurely saunter over Parker Pass and across some now-almost-dry streams until you arrive at the Bull Pass upgrade which is not only steep but slippery as hell.  At Bull Pass, a cairn marks an unofficial spur that leads to the top of the mesa and some fine views.  It is easy to miss it and end up on a very different (false but seductive) spur that peters out only after one has been well-seduced.  (Been there, done that.)  It got warm and our start was late, James having driven up from Tucson, so the two old men spent 8 1/2 hours on the trail including leisurely rests and a half-hour lunch atop the mesa.  We were out of water and well-trashed by the time the death march was over and we climbed back into the Jeep with visions of Fat Tire Ale dancing in our heads.  Mileage is about 12 round-trip with accumulated elevation gain of about 1600 feet.  Details here.  Weaver's Needle from the top of the mesa:


IMG_0902

 James sucks it in and strikes a pose:


IMG_0904

 

Not happy to see us (left-click to enlarge):


IMG_0900

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Achmed the Terrorist

In the off-chance that you haven't had an occasion to bust your gut over Jeff Dunham's ventriloquy, check this out.

Mockery and derision are important weapons in the culture war.  It is not enough to argue rigorously and patiently against the liberal-left enablers and apologists of radical Islam.  Also needed is to make them and their clients look stupid.  The young are more impressed by the cool than the cogent.

 

 

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If Life Has a Meaning, Then it Cannot be Subjective

My title is my thesis.  This post has a prerequisite, The Question of the Meaning of Life:  Distinctions and Assumptions.  Read it first.

Extreme Subjectivism


We should distinguish between an extreme and a moderate version of the thesis that the meaning of life is subjective.  They can be referred to as extreme and moderate subjectivism about existential meaning.  ‘Subjective’ in my thesis covers both.  The thesis, agaiin, is that if life has a meaning, then it cannot be subjective.


Note that the subjectivist theory in either version  is intended to be identitarian as opposed to eliminativist. The subjectivist claim is not that there is no meaning, which would amount to nihilism.  The claim is that there is meaning but it is subjective by its very nature.  Nevertheless, despite its identitarian intentions, both extreme and moderate subjectivism collapse into nihilism as will be argued below.  As here used, ‘nihilism’ is just eliminativism about objective meaning.  So if  human life has a meaning, in the sense of ‘meaning’ relevant to the philosophical question about the meaning of life, then it cannot be subjective.

On extreme subjectivism any meaning or purpose your life has is one you give it. Meaning is conferred or bestowed on a life by the agent of the life.  In themselves, lives lack meaning, and they acquire meaning only when and if the agents of the lives impart meaning to them.  That a life has meaning and what that meaning is are both up to the agent.  This goes well beyond the notion that the agent’s appropriation of existential meaning is up to the agent.  For on any theory it is up to the agent whether he realize or live out  the meaning that he takes to be the meaning of his life.  Extreme subjectivism involves the further notion that the meaning the agent takes to be the meaning of his life is a meaning he takes from himself: it is a meaning he invents for himself. On extreme subjectivism, then, the agent freely decides (i) whether or not his life will have meaning, (ii) what meaning it will have, and (iii) whether and to what extent he will live out this meaning day by day.

Since a meaningful life cannot be merely purpose-driven but must also have positive value at least for the agent, one route to subjectivism is via the subjectivity of value: 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  these valuations are irremediably subjective and thus potentially different for different individuals. Accordingly, no goal is objectively worth pursuing or objectively more worth pursuing than any other goal. By freely selecting which goals will constitute the point and purpose of his life,  the individual freely creates and maintains his own meaning and he freely creates it out of nothing or out of himself.  This endogenous theory of meaning  implies that there are no exogenous or objective constraints on existential meaning. A life has meaning if and only if the agent of the life is sincerely convinced that it does: your conviction that your life has meaning is both necessary and sufficient for its having meaning.

The extreme subjectivist view of existential meaning is deeply incoherent.  To be blunt, anyone who answers the meaning question by saying ‘The meaning of one’s life is the meaning one gives it’ simply has not understood the question.  The question arises concretely when one begins to doubt the value of the dominant projects and purposes one has been pursuing. A novelist, a stockbroker, a philosopher, a professional chess player, even if successful, can come to doubt the point of being a novelist, a stockbroker, a philosopher, a professional chess player.  ‘Have I wasted my life helping the rich get richer?’  ‘Have I dribbled my life away among bloodless abstractions in an illusory quest for an unattainable knowledge?’ ‘Am I squandering my life’s energies on a mere game?’ These are possible questions. Even if one has been entirely successful in achieving one’s life-goals, these questions can and do arise.  They are not questions about success or failure within a life-plan but questions about the success or failure of  a life-plan as a whole.  Anyone who sincerely asks himself whether he is wasting or has wasted his life presupposes by his very posing of the question that there are objective factors that bear on the question of the meaning of life.  To raise the question is to presuppose that existential meaning cannot be identified with agent-conferred meaning. One who wonders whether he is wasting his life perhaps does not thereby presuppose that there is exactly one recipe for a meaningful life applicable to all, but he does presuppose that there are one or more objectively meaningful uses of a human life. He presupposes that one can throw away one’s life, waste one’s time, fail to live a meaningful life.  But if the meaning of one’s life is the meaning one gives it, then one cannot fail to live a meaningful life since any meaning is as good as any other.  To tell such a person that it suffices for his life to have meaning that he invest it with meaning shows a failure to understand the question.  The person can respond with an analog of G. E. Moore’s Open Question Argument: “You tell me that the meaning of my life is identical to the style of life I choose as meaningful.  But is this style of life truly  meaningful?”  The fact that the question remains open even after the subjectivist answer has been proffered shows that the subjectivist answer is no answer at all.

So my first argument against extreme subjectivism may be summed up as follows.  The extreme subjectivist answers the question, What is the meaning of human life? by identifying existential meaning with agent-conferred meaning.  This answer, however, negates the presupposition of the question, namely, that one can waste one’s life and fail to live meaningfully.  Since the question obviously makes sense, but the answer negates the presupposition of the question, a presupposition essential to the very sense of the question, the answer is mistaken.

My second argument is that extreme subjectivism collapses into nihilism or eliminativism about existential meaning.  For if the meaning of my life is the meaning I give it, then my life has no meaning in the sense of ‘meaning’ that gave rise both to the question and the extreme subjectivist answer.  There is no real or nonverbal difference between ‘Human life is meaningless’ and ‘Human life has the meanings that agents give it.’  A conferred meaning is no meaning. Intellectual honesty demands that the subjectivist speak plainly and say ’Life has no meaning’ rather than obfuscate the issue by saying ‘Life has the meaning one gives it.’

My third argument is that extreme subjectivism entails a vicious infinite regress. 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. These acts, which are integral to my life, must be meaningful if my life is to be meaningful. But the acts of meaning-bestowal cannot be intrinsically meaningful on the subjectivist theory: nothing is intrinsically meaningful on the subjectivist theory, but meaningful only in relation to one who confers meaning.  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. A is either meaningful, meaningless, or neither. Those are the only three possibilities worth considering.  If A is meaningful, and no meaning is intrinsic as per the extreme subjectivist theory, then A can acquire meaning only if the agent freely bestows 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, on the other hand,  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 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.  As soon as the agent reflects that the bestowal of meaning on his chosen purpose is not a response to any objective value such as the elimination of unnecessary suffering, he should see that his meaning-bestowal is a gratuitous and arbitrary and meaningless act.  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?  It is difficult to attach any sense to this.  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. So in the end 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.

Moderate Subjectivism

On moderate subjectivism about existential meaning there is due recognition of the fact that the satisfaction of certain objective conditions is necessary for a life to be meaningful, but this is held in tandem with the thesis that there is no general answer to the meaning-of-life question applicable to every life. So moderate subjectivism is midway between extreme subjectivism and objectivism.  On extreme subjectivism, the sincere conviction that one’s life has meaning is both necessary and sufficient for it to have meaning.  On moderate subjectivism, the  sincere conviction that one’s life has meaning is necessary but not sufficient for the life’s having meaning: consideration of objective factors, factors not in the control of the agent, are also relevant for assessing the meaningfulness of a life.  A moderate subjectivist will point out, for example, that not having one’s wants manipulated from the outside by other people, the media or the gods is a necessary condition of a meaningful life, and that this absence of manipulation is an objective factor. Other objective considerations are whether one’s chosen goal is achievable and not self-destructive.  If one’s central goal is to get drunk and stay drunk, then this goal is achievable but self-destructive, and meaningless because self-destructive.   The goal’s being achievable is an objective matter as is also its being self-destructive.   Despite these objective factors, there is on the moderate subjectivist approach no such thing as the meaning of life.  But on objectivism there is.  For the objectivist,  human life has meaning only if it has an objective purpose, the same for all, which is nevertheless subjectively appropriable by each, albeit in different ways. 

It is undeniable that moderate subjectivism is superior to extreme subjectivism.  It cannot be that the meaning of a life depends entirely on the agent of the life. Objective factors, factors outside of the control of the agent, come into consideration.  But it doesn’t follow straightaway that there is one objective meaning-conferring requirement that applies equally to all lives.  It may be that the blank  in ‘The meaning of life is _____’ cannot be filled.  This is John Kekes’ pluralistic view: “. . . there is no such thing as the meaning of life.”  The philosophical problem of the meaning of life “. . . has a general form, but it does not have a general solution.”  (John Kekes, Pluralism in Philosophy: Changing the Subject (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, p. 83 et passim.)

Although there is no general solution, individuals can “resolve the problem for themselves.”  (Ibid.) So although there is no general answer to the meaning question, it is possible to list conditions individually necessary and jointly sufficient for a life’s being meaningful.  I won’t reproduce Kekes’ entire list but it includes such constraints as that the life not be pointless, misdirected, trivial, futile or vitiated by the belief that all human projects are absurd.  Crucial to his list are that the objective conditions of a meaningful life be located in the natural world,  and that the projects one pursues be either morally good, immoral, or nonmoral.  Kekes thereby rules out a general solution applicable to all in terms of religion or morality.  Irreligious and immoral lives can be just as meaningful as any life.  The life of a mass murder such as Stalin fulfills all of Kekes’ conditions for a meaningful life.  Kekes allows that religious and moral lives may be meaningful; what he disallows is that only religious and moral lives are meaningful.

The main problem with Kekes’ moderate subjectivism is that he changes the subject.  Since “Changing the Subject” is the subtitle of his book, Kekes is unlikely to see this as a problem. But it seems to me that it is since he substitutes the psychological problem of the meaning of life for the philosophical problem while at the same time seeming to be grappling with the philosophical problem. He tells us that the problem of the meaning of life “. . . has a general form but it does not have a general solution.”  He also tells us that individuals can “resolve the problem for themselves.”  But is there one problem that both lacks a general solution and can yet be resolved in many different particular ways (though not all particular ways given that certain objective constraints must be satisfied)? What would that one problem be?  It cannot be the philosophical problem of the meaning of life.  The philosophical problem is a completely general problem, and is not to be conflated with any psychological problem about the meaning of a life.  The distinction was esplained above near the end of section II.  If the philosophical problem has a solution, then it has a general solution.  For it is a general problem.

If an individual “resolves the problem of life for himself” in a sense that allows the resolutions to be different for different people, the problem he has resolved is not the impersonal philosophical problem but a personal psychological problem.    Suppose a twenty year old doesn’t know what to do with himself.  His life lacks direction.  But gradually he comes to ‘find himself.’  He manages to choose an attainable nontrivial nondestructive goal, one right for him, that satisfies all of Kekes’ constraints.  Our young man has surmounted his identity crisis and has  installed himself in a subjectively meaningful mode of existence.  He has solved a psychological  problem, a problem of adjustment and motivation,  but it cannot be said that he has “resolved for himself” the philosophical problem of the meaning of life.  The latter might not be a problem for him at all.  He may be firmly convinced that the purpose of human life is to serve God in this world and be happy with him in the next.  But he cannot decide which line of work to choose, or he doubts his abilities, or he cannot muster the motivation to persevere in anything, or ‘life throws him a curve ball’ in the form of ill-health or unrequited love or financial trouble.

My conclusion, then, is that moderate subjectivism as exemplified by Kekes’ position changes the subject: it does not address the philosophical problem of the meaning of life but diverts attention to a  related but distinct psychological problem.  Once the two questions are cleanly distinguished one sees that Kekes’ view is just as eliminativist about objective meaning as is the view of an extreme subjectivist like Richard Taylor.  What I am opposing in both is the identification of existential meaning with agent-conferred meaning, without the concomitant admission that such an identification collapses into an elimination of  existential meaning. This concludes my defense of the thesis that  If life has a meaning in the sense of ‘meaning’ relevant to the impersonal philosophical question about the meaning of life, then this meaning cannot be subjective, whether Taylor-subjective or Kekes-subjective.  It must be objective in the sense of being the same for all and applicable to all.


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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Songs From a Passage in Thomas McGuane

Here is a passage from Thomas McGuane, Nothing but Blue Skies, Houghton-Mifflin, 1992, pp. 201-202, to which I have added hyperlinks.

He [Frank Copenhaver] turned on the radio and listened to an old song called "Big John": everybody falls down a mine shaft; nobody can get them out because of something too big to pry; Big John comes along and pries everybody loose but ends up getting stuck himself; end of Big John.  Frank guessed it was a story of what can happen to those on the top of the food chain.

On to an oldies station and the joy of finding Bob Dylan: "You've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend." No one compares with this guy, thought Frank.  I feel sorry for the young people of today with their stupid fucking tuneless horseshit; that may be a generational judgment but I seriously doubt it.  Frank paused in his thinking , then realized he was suiting up for his arrival in Missoula.  In a hurricane of logging trucks, he heard, out of a hole in the sky the voice of Sam Cooke: "But I do know that I love you."  Frank began to sweat.  "And I know that if you love me too, what a wonderful world this would be."

[. . .]

All the little questions. Will they lose interest when you go broke? Sam Cooke: "Give me water, my work is so hard."  What work? Tough to believe both Sam Cooke and Otis Redding are dead.

Promiscuous Post-Modern PC Prudes

What follows is the whole of Victor Davis Hanson's Promiscuous Prudes with a bit of commentary.

More than 500 people were murdered in Chicago last year. Yet Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel still found time to berate the fast food franchise Chick-fil-A for not sharing "Chicago values" — apparently because its founder does not approve of gay marriage.

[A case of what I call misplaced moral enthusiasm.  Emanuel's view is particularly offensive because conservative opposition to gay 'marriage' is principled and rationally argued.  It does not derive from bigotry or 'homophobia.'] 

Two states have legalized marijuana, with more to come. Yet social taboos against tobacco smoking make it nearly impossible to light up a cigarette in public places. Marijuana, like alcohol, causes far greater short-term impairment than does nicotine. But legal cigarette smoking is now seen as a corporate-sponsored, uncool and dirty habit that leads to long-term health costs for society at large — in a way homegrown, hip and mostly illegal pot smoking apparently does not.

[The church of liberalism must have its demon, and his name is tobacco.  (See Cigarettes, Rationality, and Hitchens.)  There is also the absurdity, not mentioned by Hanson, that tobacco use is demonized while drinking alcohol is widely accepted.  Ask yourself: how many auto accidents have been caused by people under abnd because of the influence of nicotine?  More or less than the number of such accidents caused by people under the influence of alcohol?  The question answers itself.  Now repeat the question substituting 'marijuana' for 'alcohol.'  Marijuana use impairs driving skills.  Nicotine use enhances concentration and alertness.  Liberals have a knee-jerk hatred of corporations.  When big corporations market dope will the lefties change their tune?]

Graphic language, nudity and sex are now commonplace in movies and on cable television. At the same time, there is now almost no tolerance for casual and slang banter in the media or the workplace. A boss who calls an employee "honey" might face accusations of fostering a hostile work environment, yet a television producer whose program shows an 18-year-old having sex does not. Many colleges offer courses on lurid themes from masturbation to prostitution, even as campus sexual-harassment suits over hurtful language are at an all-time high.

[There is also the double-standard: you can get away with calling a Jew a 'kike' but not a black 'nigger.'  Why is 'nigger' more offensive than 'kike'?  Why is 'So-and-so is nigger-rich' more offensive than 'I got a great deal; I jewed him down to $150'?  You may recall Jesse Jackson's reference to New York as 'himey town.'  But what if someone referred to Detroit as 'nigger town'?

In a blog post on the difference between 'asshole' and 'honkey,' a philosophy professor who wrote a book entitled Assholes starts off, "Here I mean not only 'honkey,' but any pejorative term directed toward a particular group of people ('honkey' and whites; 'wop' and Italians; 'kike' and Jews; 'chink' and Chinese people; 'limeys' and Irish people; 'n—-r' and Afro-Americans). 

Notice how the PC prof refuses to write out 'nigger,' but has no qualms about 'wop,' 'kike,' and 'chink.'

As a philosophy teacher he ought to be aware of the distinction between use and mention.  He is talking about those words, not applying them to people.  Why then is he so squeamish about writing out the word 'nigger'?]

A federal judge in New York recently ruled that the so-called morning-after birth control pill must be made available to all "women" regardless of age or parental consent, and without a prescription. The judge determined that it was unfair for those under 16 to be denied access to such emergency contraceptives. But if vast numbers of girls younger than 16 need after-sex options to prevent unwanted pregnancies, will there be a flood of statutory rape charges lodged against older teenagers who had such consensual relations with younger girls?

Our schizophrenic morality also affects the military. When America was a far more traditional society, few seemed to care that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower carried on an unusual relationship at the front in Normandy with his young female chauffeur, Kay Summersby. As the Third Army chased the Germans across France, Gen. George S. Patton was not discreet about his female liaisons. Contrast that live-and-let-live attitude of a supposedly uptight society with our own hip culture's tabloid interest in Gen. David Petraeus' career-ending affair with Paula Broadwell, or in the private emails of Gen. John Allen.

What explains these contradictions in our wide-open but prudish society?

Decades after the rise of feminism, popular culture still seems confused by it. If women should be able to approach sexuality like men, does it follow that commentary about sex should follow the same gender-neutral rules? Yet wearing provocative or inappropriate clothing is often considered less offensive than remarking upon it. Calling a near-nude Madonna onstage a "hussy" or "tart" would be considered crudity in a way that her mock crucifixion and simulated sex acts are not.

Criminal sexual activity is sometimes not as professionally injurious as politically incorrect thoughts about sex and gender. Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer — found to have hired prostitutes on a number of occasions during his time in office — was given a CNN news show despite the scandal. But when former Miss California Carrie Prejean was asked in the Miss USA Pageant whether she endorsed gay marriage, she said no — and thereby earned nearly as much popular condemnation for her candid defense of traditional marriage as Spitzer had for his purchased affairs.

Critics were outraged that talk-show host Rush Limbaugh grossly insulted birth-control activist Sandra Fluke. Amid the attention, Fluke was canonized for her position that federal health-care plans should pay for the contraceptive costs of all women.

Yet in comparison to Fluke's well-publicized victimhood, there has been a veritable news blackout for the trial of the macabre Dr. Kermit Gosnell, charged with killing and mutilating in gruesome fashion seven babies during a long career of conducting sometimes illegal late-term abortions. Had Gosnell's aborted victims been canines instead of humans — compare the minimal coverage of the Gosnell trial with the widespread media condemnation of dog-killing quarterback Michael Vick — perhaps the doctor's mayhem likewise would have been front-page news outside of Philadelphia.

Modern society also resorts to empty, symbolic moral action when it cannot deal with real problems. So-called assault weapons account for less than 1 percent of gun deaths in America. But the country whips itself into a frenzy to ban them, apparently to prove that at least it can do something — without wading into the polarized racial and class controversies of going after illegal urban handguns, the real source of the nation's high gun-related body count.

Not since the late-19th-century juxtaposition of the Wild West with the Victorian East has popular morality been so unbridled and yet so uptight.

In short, we have become a nation of promiscuous prudes.

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The Question of the Meaning of Life: Distinctions and Assumptions

What are we asking when we ask about the meaning of life?  Herewith, some preliminary distinctions.

Existential versus Linguistic Meaning


Those for whom meaning is primarily at home in the semantic domain might wonder whether it makes sense to speak of the meaning of a life or of the actions and projects and events that make up a life. But surely  it does make sense.  Pace some older writers, there is no category mistake or any other fallacy involved in asking about the meaning of human life, or what I will call existential meaning. 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. These questions about existential as opposed to linguistic meaning obviously make sense and there is no need to waste ink defending their sense.  The days of a crabbed positivism are long gone.

That being said, the similarities and differences of existential and linguistic meaning are worth noting.  Two quick points.  One is that a human life could be construed as a vehicle of linguistic meaning.  Suppose a misspent youth issues in a man’s life-long incarceration.  One might say of such a man, ‘His life shows that crime does not pay.’  This is a bit of evidence for the thesis that a life can have linguistic meaning: the miscreant’s life can be reasonably taken to express the proposition that crime does not pay.  There is also the phenomenon of meaningful gestures and looks.  There is the look that says, ‘I don’t believe a word you are saying.’ From some students I have received the  look that bespeaks, ‘I don’t believe a word you are saying, and you don’t either.’  So if looks and gestures can carry rather specific linguistic meanings, then perhaps lives can as well.  This is not to say that existential meaning is a species of linguistic meaning, but that there are analogies between them worth exploring. Indeed, if one were to assimilate one to the other, it would be more plausible to assimilate linguistic meaning to existential meaning.

The second point is that there is an analogy between the way in which context is essential for both linguistic and existential meaning.  Words and sentences have their meanings only in wider linguistic contexts. An individual life, too, has what meaning it has only in a wider social and perhaps even cosmic context.  This will be explored further below when a distinction is made between anthropic and cosmic existential meaning.

Teleological and Axiological Aspects of Existential Meaning.

Meaning bears a teleological aspect in that a meaningful life is a purpose-driven life.  It is difficult to see how a human life devoid of purposes could be meaningful, and indeed purposes organized by a central purpose such as advancing knowledge or alleviating suffering.  The central purpose must be one the agent freely and self-transparently chooses for himself, a condition that would not be satisfied by Sisyphus if the gods, to modify Taylor-style a classical example, had implanted in him a burning desire endlessly to roll stones.  Of course, the dominating purpose must be both nontrivial and achievable.  A life devoted to the collecting of beer cans is purpose-driven but meaningless on the score of triviality while a life in quest of a perpetuum mobile is purpose-driven but meaningless on the score of futility.  But even if a life has a focal purpose that is freely and consciously chosen by the agent of the life,  nontrivial, and achievable, this still does not suffice for meaningfulness.

A meaningful life also bears an axiological aspect in that a meaningful life is one that embodies some if not a preponderance of positive noninstrumental value at least for the agent of the life.  A life wholly devoid of personal satisfaction cannot be called meaningful.  But even this is not enough.  The lives of some terrorists and mass murderers are driven by nontrivial and nonfutile purposes and are satisfying to their agents.  We ought, however, to resist the notion that such lives are meaningful. A necessary condition of a life’s being meaningful is that it realize some if not preponderance of positive noninstrumental objective value.  A radically immoral life cannot be a meaningful life.

Restriction to Human Life

The question about the meaning of life is restricted  to human life.  We are not asking about the purpose of life in general. For what concerns us is not life as such, life in its full biological range, but our type of life, life that supports subjectivity, life that is lived from a subjective center, life that can express itself and question itself using the first-person singular pronoun as in the questions Who am I?  and Why am I here?  Human life is self-questioning life.  And as far as we know, only human life is self-questioning life. 

Life and Subjectivity

The restriction of the meaning question to human life is not a restriction to human life as a biological phenomenon but a  restriction to human subjectivity.  We must distinguish between the occurrence in nature of biologically human animals and human subjectivity, the subjectivity that encounters itself in human animals.  Our concern is not with the purpose of human animals but with the purpose of human existence, human subjectivity, human Dasein to use Heidegger’s term.  What is the purpose of my existence as a subject, as a conscious and self-conscious being whose Being is an issue for it?  Not: Why do human animals like me exist?  It might be better to speak of the meaning of consciousness rather than of the meaning of life.  What is the meaning of our being conscious with all that that entails: the positing of goals, the questioning of goals, the experiencing of moods, the being driven by desire while being haunted by conscience?

To appreciate the distinction between human life as a biological phenomenon and human subjectivity, note that the meaning question could arise even if I were not a human animal.  If I were a finite pure spirit, my living would not be a biological living but it would be a conscious and self-conscious living nonetheless.  A finite pure spirit could ask: Why do I exist? For what purpose?  What is the meaning of my life?  Imagine surviving your bodily death and finding yourself wondering about the point of your post-mortem existence.  Wondering about the meaning of your post-mortem  life you would not be wondering about the meaning of your biological  life or the purpose of your embodiment (since you are disembodied) but about your life as a pure spirit.  But  I am now a human animal, and it may well be that my subjectivity cannot exist without the support of my human animality.   Nevertheless,  it is not the meaning (purpose) of the biological living of this animal that is me that I am inquiring into when I ask about the meaning of my life, but the meaning of my subjectivity, the meaning of my being a subject who lives in and though his projects and wonders about their ultimate point and purpose.  The body is the vehicle of my projects in this material world, and it may be that I cannot exist without this vehicle.  (I am certainly not identical to it.)  But the meaning question does not concern the purpose in nature of this animal that is my vehicle, but the purpose of my willing and striving as a subject of experience for whom there is a natural world.  The subject of experience is not just another object in the natural world, but precisely a subject for whom there is a natural world.  The intelligent reader will of course appreciate that nothing said above presupposes the truth of substance dualism in the philosophy of mind.

The Irreducibly Subjective Tenor of the Meaning Question

What the foregoing  implies is that the question about the meaning of human existence has an irreducibly subjective tenor.  It cannot be posed as a purely objective question about either the cause or the purpose of  the occurrence in nature of a certain zoological species.  If this is right, then we shouldn’t expect natural science to provide any insight into why we are here and what our existence means. We should not take the following oft-quoted passage from Stephen Hawking as having any relevance to our question:

However, if we discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable by everyone, not just by a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God. (A Brief History of Time, Bantam 1988, p. 175)

Total natural science, including evolutionary theory, is in a position to provide a causal explanation of  why we are here as members of a zoological species.  But even if natural science could tell us the purpose of the human species, it cannot give us any insight into why we exist if this question means: for what ultimate purpose do we individual subjects of experience exist? Hawking conflates the question of the ultimate meaning (purpose) of human existence with the question of the causal explanation of a certain zoological species. That is a mistake.  And this for two reasons. 

First, to assign a cause is not to assign a purpose.  Second, an animal species could have a purpose even if no specimen of that species has that purpose or any purpose.  There is a logical gap between ‘Species S has purpose P’ and ‘Each member of S has P.’ To think otherwise is to commit the Fallacy of Division. Suppose the purpose of the human species is to serve as food for a race of farsighted and very clever extraterrestrials who long ago interfered with evolution on Earth so as to have delectable provisions for an extraterrestrial delicatessen which is projected to come online in 2050.  On this scenario the human species has an objective purpose.  But it is not a purpose that could serve as the meaning of the life of any member of the human species.  Such a purpose is not subjectively appropriable.  It cannot be the meaning of my life to be eaten or to have progeny who will be eaten.  A purpose whose realization would destroy me or impede my flourishing or negate my dignity and autonomy is not a purpose that could serve as the meaning of my life. We will return to the topic of subjective appropriability.

In sum, the idiomatic ‘Why are we here?’ does not ask why certain organisms are on the Earth, or why certain organisms are parts of the physical universe. Nor does it ask about the purpose of an animal species.  It asks: What is the ultimate and objective, yet subjectively appropriable,  purpose of human subjectivity, if there is one?  To exist for a human being is to exist as a subject of experience; it is not to be a  mere object in a world of natural objects.  No adequate treatment of the meaning-of-life question can ignore the insights of the existentialists.

Anthropic and Cosmic Aspects of the Meaning Question

Although the question of the meaning of human existence has an irreducibly subjective tenor as just explained, there is no denying that the question has a ‘cosmic’ side in addition to its ‘human’ side.  A meaningful life is one that in some measure fits into a wider context and has its meaning in part supplied by that context.  Meaningfulness is connected with belongingness.  We feel our lives to be meaningful when we feel them as parts of something larger than ourselves.  Now the widest context is the world whole.  It embraces everything of every ontological category.  The world whole is the totality of what exists including God if God exists.  And we are parts of the world whole. Even if you understand that the agent and subject of a life is not identical to a specimen of a zoological species, you must grant that we as subjects of experience are parts of the world whole.  Since we are parts of the world whole, and the world whole is the widest context in which our lives unfold, the nature of the world whole cannot be unrelated  to the meaningfulness or lack thereof of human existence.  Thus the meaning-of-life question can be formulated ‘cosmically’ as follows: Is the world, the totality of what has being, of such a nature as to confer meaning and purpose, wholly or in part, on human life?  Relative to us, is the world benign, hostile, indifferent, or none of these?  Is the ultimate nature of the world such as to frustrate our purposes, as a cosmic pessimist would maintain, or such as to enable and further them, as the cosmic optimist would say?  Or neither?

Thus the meaning-of-life question can be formulated as a human or anthropic question but also as a ‘cosmic’ question.  Anthropic question: What is the objective purpose of human existence? Cosmic question: Is the nature of the world whole such as to enable and further the meaningfulness of human existence?

Exogenous versus Endogenous Meaning

Our problem concerns the objective meaning of human life in general, if any, and not the subjectively posited meaning of any particular human life, or the intersubjectively posited meaning of a group of particular human lives.  An objective meaning is one that is assigned by God or some other external agent or 'assigned'  by the nature of things, as opposed to one that is subjectively or intersubjectively posited.  Objective meaning is exogenous as opposed to endogenous.  It comes from without as opposed to from within.  For example, if the purpose of our lives is to live in accordance with God’s will, then our lives have a meaning that is objective inasmuch as it is assigned by God.  But even if there is no God as traditionally conceived, there could still be an objective meaning, one inscribed in the nature of things.  On the atheistic cosmic scheme of Buddhism, entry into Nirvana is the summum bonum, the ultimate end  (both goal and cessation) of all human striving.  Similar points could be made about Hinduism, Taoism, neo-Platonism and other systems.  Life could have an objective point even if there is no God.

Philosophical and Psychological Problems of the Meaning of Life

Suppose a person’s bipolar disorder renders his particular life subjectively meaningless.  That is compatible with life’s having an objective meaning.  It is equally obvious that life’s lacking an objective meaning is compatible with a particular life’s being subjectively meaningful.  Our question is the philosophical question about the objective meaning of human life in general, whether there is one and what it is.   It is not to be confused with any personal or psychological question.


There are existential drifters, directionless individuals whose lives are desultory because they cannot muster the motivation to pursue any definite goal.  Imagine a person who believes that the ultimate purpose of human existence is to attain Nirvana, but simply has no motivation to meditate, practice austerities, etc.  This person’s problem is psychological, not philosophical. This is not to deny that the philosophical problem cannot become a psychological problem for a given person.  A person who is led by philosophical inquiry from a naive belief in the meaning of life to a conviction of life’s absurdity might be plunged into debilitating mental anguish.  Compare this case to one in which a person arrives by philosophical means at a conviction of the absurdity of human existence and then calmly considers Camus’ question whether absurdity demands suicide as the only appropriate response.  If the person, disagreeing with Camus, decides that suicide is the proper response and commits the act, we should not say that his philosophical inquiry has induced in him a psychological problem, but that he has put into practice his theoretical conviction.  So when I insist that the meaning-of-life question is a philosophical, not a psychological, question, that is not to be taken as implying that it is a merely theoretical question with no possible practical upshot for an individual life.


Two Sides of the Philosophical Problem

 Our question is not only a question about the objective meaning of human existence, but also a question about this very question, a question about its sense and solubility.  Call this the meta-side of the question.  It is our focus here.  I have just said something about the sense of the question.  The next step is to question its solubility.

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