The University of Hong Kong

Department of Politics and Public Administration

Common Core Course

CCHU9052 The Best Things in Life: A Philosophical Exploration

Philosophical Essay II

Topic: Can individual lives have meaning if life as a whole has none?

Paper submitted by:

Li Yu Tung Richard BSS(GL)&LLB I UID:3035183239

Word Count: 1,587

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Introduction

It has been 130 years since the first appearance of the phrase “God is dead”, written

by Friedrich Nietzsche, a famous German philosopher. Thanks to global secularism, we

found ourselves less bound by religious faiths and restrictions. God is no longer the

supreme entity who grants most of us meaning of life and tells us what to do. Besides,

post-modern Nihilism disregards any meaning or purposes of human existence. As such,

it remains difficult for most philosophers to address the big question: whether

individual lives have meaning (meaning in life) if life as a whole (meaning of life) has

none1. This paper argues that humans could have meaningful lives despite of our

purposeless existence, and it would explore the question through three dimensions

starting from the broadest: from cosmic, humanistic to cognitive dimension.

1 Wolf S. (2013) “The Meaning of Lives” In Exploring the Meaning of Life: An Anthology and Guide, edited by Joshua W. Seachris, 304-18. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell. pp.305

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1. The Cosmic Dimension: Meaning in life comes from self-construction of destiny

To commence with, meaning in life comes from the efforts we put in trying to control

our own destiny which is independent from any supreme entities or ultimate purposes

of life. As argued by Susan Wolf, life is meaningful if we actively and at least somewhat

successfully engaged in projects of positive value, whereby projects include both goal-

oriented and ongoing activities2. Through this process, we could acquire a sense that

we are wholeheartedly putting our lives in our own hands and breaking our constraints,

and it makes life meaningful.

To further elaborate, it is essential to consider the interrelation between probability

and destiny. Probability of an event (i.e. success) is simply the fraction of total number

of possibilities in which the event occurs according to the Principle of Indifference3. It

is true that there is no guarantee for success due to randomness of the universe. But the

mere fact that outcome depends on probability does not frustrate our initial motives

such as the desire to change our destiny. We have such desire because humans are

equipped with intelligence and practical skills to explore new ideas so as to promote

advancement of oneself. As we try to “be successfully engaged” in life-long projects as

a result of such desire, we bridge our own doings with the limitless possibilities4 in the

world. In other words, we do and achieve something based on the fact that “nothing is

impossible”. This makes life meaningful because it amounts to self-construction and

self-realization of destiny, where we do not rely on the help of supreme entities to

construct oneself but our search for possibilities. It does not matter if we fail to achieve

what we want. As long as we could find something stable (i.e. formulation of projects)

2 See n1 above pp.308 3 Hájek, Alan (2008). “A philosopher’s guide to probability”. In G. Bammer & M. Smithson (eds.), Uncertainty and Risk: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Routledge. pp.6 Retrieved from:

http://philosophy.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Philosophers%20Guide%20to%20Pr.final_.pdf 4 Scott M. Campbell (2012) The Early Heidegger's Philosophy of Life: Facticity, Being, and Language. Fordham University Press pp.89

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that could continuously help us change our destiny under cosmic randomness, the

uselessness of human existence would be irrelevant in construing meaning in life since

it does not alter the fact that possibilities in the universe are endless, so do probability.

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2. The Humanistic Dimension: The search for values give rise to a meaningful life

Not only does meaning in life arise as a result of the search for endless possibilities,

it does so as we endorse, re-formulate and choose among different preferences and

priorities of values which are irrelevant to the purposes of our existence. As mentioned

by Susan Wolf, “whether or not God exists, the fact remains that some objects, activities,

and ideas are better than others; some ways of living are more worthwhile than others.

Some activities are a waste of time”5. In other words, there must be some objective

values independent from overall meaning of existence which help us distinguish

between meaningful and meaningless activities.

To illustrate, if you are asked to select between two pathways: either to become a

dictator like Adolf Hitler or a generous person like Mother Teresa, it is natural for most

of us to select the latter. This question reflects the underlying conflict of human values

between wealth, power, morality and love. Despite the fact that wealth and power are

not intrinsically bad, we tend to value love and care more out of our own intuition. Yet

some might consider that wealth and power are more important so long as morality is

upheld as distinct from what Hitler has done. There is never absolute right or wrong

answer for people’s choice, but it remains that there are a set of human values available

for us and we could form our own preference and priorities without disregarding their

objective and intrinsic good6. Meaning in life thus arises as we choose among different

human values because they become the basis of the projects that we engage in which

guide us along. The notion that our existence is meaningless only implies that the source

of the human values (human race) is meaningless, but it does not follow that the values

could not guide us or give us directions in the immediate reality.

5 See n1 above pp.316 6 Wolf S. (2010) Meaning in Life and Why It Matters. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press pp.31

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3. The Cognitive Dimension: Meaning in life derived from our response to reality

Apart from establishing the true meaning in life through self-construction and

formation of value-preferences within reality, it is also important to note that meaning

in life is derived from our response to the immediate reality but not from far-fetched

justifications of certain activities or abstract purposes of existence. As noted by Thomas

Nagel, to live a meaningful life, “the trick is to keep your eyes on what’s in front of you,

and allow justifications to come to an end inside your life, and inside the lives of others

to whom you are connected.”7

I am in favour of his idea because life is short and we need to cherish different

opportunities in the world so that we would not regret for what we have done. By

“keeping our eyes on what’s in front of us”, we could always find hope and do our best.

As the famous saying goes: “If not now, when?”8 Since we never know what would

happened tomorrow, we obtain a sense of mission which reinforces our motivations to

engage in life projects regardless of the uncertainties. By “allowing justifications to

come to an end”, we place less emphasis on the outcome of our activities such as

whether we could successfully achieve our goals and whether our contributions make

a difference to the universe. When we break and stop the chain of justifications, our

cognitive focus thus shifts from persuading oneself about the ultimate positive effects

of ongoing activities to finding the best way to respond to what appeared before us. No

matter how useless or purposeless human beings are, it makes no difference that we are

currently alive. We need to respond to stimuli from the environment. Thus life is still

meaningful as meaningfulness rests on how we could best respond to internal goals and

external social influences within reality.

7 Nagel T. (1987). What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press pp.100 8 Primo L. (1995). If Not Now, When? Penguin Books

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4. Do insignificance and absurdity make our life meaningless?

The insignificance and absurdity of human existence are always strong grounds for

philosophers to argue that human could not live a meaningful life without a purposeful

life.

On one hand, pessimists often argue that all ongoing activities or projects are useless

since at the end the human race would become extinct and the universe would collapse9.

The fate of our current “contributions” is that they would eventually be reduced to zero

as if nothing had happened. It follows that everything we have done are meaningless.

This seemingly defeats my self-construction argument as the destiny of human race is

ultimately “zero” and our efforts put in controlling our destiny could not save the whole

human race. However, it must be stressed that the collective destiny of human race (i.e.

extinction) does not obstruct us from living a meaningful life through the construction

of individual destiny because the aim of self-construction focuses on how we transform

ourselves to be the more valuable humans as compared to others instead of how we

make the contributions of the whole human race eternal. We would prefer to be a

sparkling dust instead of a normal dust.

9 See n 1 above pp.315-316

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On the other hand, some argue that it is impossible to harmonize our insignificance

with our daily activities even if we accept human limitations (i.e. accepting that we

could not influence the universe) since it in fact “accentuate absurdity of one’s existence

rather than militate against it”10. This problem is recognized by Thomas Nagel whereby

he wrote that “some of us have incurable tendency to take ourselves seriously”11. We

feel psychologically dissatisfied that our impacts make no difference which increases

absurdity, leaving us with despair12. Yet this attitude could be altered by shifting the

aims of our life projects from influencing the world to self-actualization such as

working to be a virtuous man with high ethical standards to make yourself different

from the normal population.

10 Pritchard D. (2010). Absurdity, Angst, and the Meaning of Life. The Monist 93 (1):3-16. pp.5 11 See n 7 above pp.101 12 See n 9 above

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Conclusion

The fact that life as a whole is purposeless, non-directive and useless is never an

excuse for us to escape from reality and withdraw from every day activities. Even if life

as a whole is meaningless, individual lives could still be meaningful if we put efforts in

constructing our own destiny through bridging ourselves with limitless possibilities,

formulating our own preferences and priorities of values and choosing the best way to

respond to immediate reality. Also, insignificance and absurdity do not render our life

meaningless since what we strive for is to be different and be able to stand out among

ordinary people. All in all, having a meaningful life simply does not depend on the point

of our existence. It is time for us to reflect on ourselves and be prepared with upcoming

challenges.

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Epilogue

As a Catholic, what I have proposed seem to be contrary to my religious belief. In

fact, all the arguments above could only explain that it is not essential to sense God in

order to live a meaningful life. This paper merely aims to comfort pessimists or atheists

and motivate them to live a flourishing life. For me, God remains the most powerful

and supreme entity, and even if we could do not rely on God to live a meaningful life,

God is still besides us. Let me end my work with a quote,

“A person can deny the existence of God and still have a meaningful life. But this

fact no more proves that life can have meaning without God than a person who denies

the existence of oxygen and still enjoys good health would prove that you can be healthy

without oxygen.”

James Anderson (2013), Can Life Have Meaning Without God?13

My next philosophical work would try to harmonize my arguments I have put

forward above with theological propositions. I hope my work is inspiring and thank you

for your kind patience and attention.

Richard Y. T. Li

10th May 2015

Hong Kong

13 Retrieved from: http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/can-life-have-meaning-without-god

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Bibliography

Hájek, Alan (2008). “A philosopher’s guide to probability”. In G. Bammer & M.

Smithson (eds.), Uncertainty and Risk: Multidisciplinary Perspectives.

Routledge. pp.6 Retrieved from:

http://philosophy.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Philosophers%20Guid

e%20to%20Pr.final_.pdf

Nagel T. (1987). What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to

Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press

Primo L. (1995). If Not Now, When? Penguin Books

Pritchard D. (2010). “Absurdity, Angst, and the Meaning of Life”. The Monist 93

(1):3-16. pp.5

Scott M. Campbell (2012) The Early Heidegger's Philosophy of Life: Facticity,

Being, and Language. Fordham University Press pp.89

Wolf S. (2010) Meaning in Life and Why It Matters. Princeton; Oxford:

Princeton University Press pp.31

Wolf S. (2013) “The Meaning of Lives” In Exploring the Meaning of Life: An

Anthology and Guide, edited by Joshua W. Seachris, 304-18. Chichester, West

Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.