How Life Has Value, Even Absent Overarching Purpose

Wherein lies value?

Posted by Keith Tidman

Among the most-common questions from philosophy is, ‘What is the purpose of life?’ After all, as Plato pithily said, humans are ‘beings in search of meaning’. But what might be the real reason for the question about the purpose of life? I suggest that what fundamentally lurks behind this age-old head-scratcher is an alternative query: Might not life still have value, even if there is no sublimely overarching purpose? So, instead, let’s start with ‘purpose’ and only then work our way to ‘value’.

Is an individual's existence best understood scientifically — more particularly, in biological terms? The purpose of biological life, in strictly scientific terms, might be reduced to survival and passing along genes — to propagate, for continuation of the familial line and (largely unconsciously) the species. More broadly, scientists have typically steered clear of deducing ‘higher purpose’ and are more comfortable restricting themselves to explanations of empirically, rationally grounded physical models — however inspiring those peeks into presumed reality may be — that relate to the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of existence. The list is familiar:

• the heliocentric construct of Copernicus and the mechanistic universes of René Descartes and Isaac Newton
• the Darwinian theories of evolution and natural selection
• the laws of thermodynamics and the theory of general relativity of Albert Einstein 
• the quantum mechanics of Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger. 

But grand as these theories are, they still don’t provide us with purpose.

Rather, such theories focus on better understanding the emergence and evolution of the cosmos and humankind, in all their wonder and complexity. The (not uncommonly murky) initial conditions and necessary parameters to make intelligent life possible add a challenge to relying on conclusions from the models. As to this point about believability and deductions drawn, David Hume weighed in during the 18th century, advising,

             ‘A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence’.

Meanwhile, modern physics doesn’t yet rule in or rule out some transcendent, otherworldly dimension of the universe — disproof is always tough, as we know, and thus the problem is perhaps unanswerable — but the physical–spiritual dualism implied by such an ethereal dimension is extraordinarily questionable. Yet one cannot deduce meaning or purpose, exceptional or ordinary, simply from mere wonder and complexity; the latter are not enough. Suggested social science insights — about such things as interactions among people, examining behaviours and means to optimise social constructs — arguably add only a pixel here and a pixel there to the larger picture of life’s quintessential meaning.

Religious belief —from the perspectives of revelation, enlightenment, and doctrine — is an obvious place to turn to next in this discussion. Theists start with a conviciton that God exists — and conclude that it was God who therefore planted the human species amidst the rest of His creation of the vast universe. In this way, God grants humankind an exalted overarching purpose. In no-nonsense fashion, the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza took the point to another declarative level, writing:

‘Whatever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived’. 

This kind of presumed God-given plan or purpose seems to instill in humankind an inspirational level of exceptionalism. This exceptionalism in turn leads human beings toward such grand purposes as undiminished love toward and worship of God, fruitful procreation, and dominion over the Earth (with all the environmental repercussions of that dominion), among other things. These purposes include an implied contract of adding value to the world, within one’s abilities, as prescribed by religious tenets.

One takeaway may be a comfortable feeling that humankind, and each member of our species, has meaning — and, in a soul-based model, a roadmap for redemption, perhaps to an eternal afterlife. As to that, in the mid-20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in characteristically unsparing fashion:

‘Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal’. 

Universes constructed around a belief in God, thereby, attempt to allay the dread of mortality and the terror of dying and of death. Yet, even where God is the prime mover of everything, is it unreasonable to conceive of humankind as perhaps still lacking any lofty purpose, after all? Might, for example, humankind share the universe with other brainy species on our own planet — or even much brainier ones cosmically farther flung?

Because if humankind has no majestically overarching purpose — or put another way, even if existentially it might not materially matter to the cosmos if the human species happened to tip into extinction — we can, crucially, still have value. Ultimately value, not exceptionalism or eternity, is what matters. There’s an important difference between ‘purpose’ — an exalted reason that soars orders of magnitude above ordinary explanations of why we’re riding the rollercoaster of creation — and ‘value’, which for an individual might only need a benevolent role in continuously improving the lot of humankind, or perhaps other animals and the ecosphere. It may come through empathically good acts without the expectation of any manner of reward. Socrates hewed close to those principles, succinctly pointing out,

            ‘Not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued’.

Value, then, is anchored to our serving as playwrights scribbling, if you will, on pieces of paper how our individual, familial, community, and global destiny unfolds into the future. And what the quality of that future is, writ large. At minimum, we have value based on humanistic grounds: people striving for natural, reciprocal connections, to achieve hope and a range of benefits — the well-being of all — and disposing of conceits to instead embrace our interdependence in order not only to survive but, better, to thrive. This defines the intrinsic nature of ‘value’; and perhaps it is to this that we owe our humanity.

Fact and Value: The False Dichotomy

Image credit: The Guardian.

Posted by Thomas Scarborough

The fact-value distinction is one of the most important problems of philosophy.  The Scottish philosopher David Hume gave it its classical formulation: it is impossible to derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’.  That is, it is impossible to establish any value amidst an ocean of facts. 

On the surface of it, Hume would seem to be unimpeachably right.  The facts cannot tell us what to do.  But here is a problem.  Neither can value.  While one cannot derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, neither can one derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘ought’, as it were.

Take, as an example, a statement of fact: ‘We are ready to hoist the spinnaker.’  Such a statement gives us no idea as to whether we should hoist the spinnaker.

Yet we find no difference with a statement of value: ‘We ought now to hoist the spinnaker.’  Why ought we to?  What gives us the authority to say so?  We find that such a statement is quite adrift, and equally unable to tell us whether we should or not.

What, then, was Hume thinking when he wrote about ‘ought’? 

It would seem to me that Hume made a lazy assumption, of the kind that philosophers fail to examine any further, on thinking that they have gained a special insight.  The assumption would be something like this: that there is a certainty which lies in value which fact does not possess.  Thus Hume equated value with a ground for our behaviour—if one should ever find it. 

To put it another way, Hume’s fact-value distinction would seem to be a false dichotomy.

What is it, then, that fact and value have in common, that neither will deliver ‘value’—in the sense of a ground for our behaviour?

I would propose that the scope of both fact and value is too limited for either to deliver universal truth.  Both statements of fact and statements of value exist in limited contexts, without being referenced to any fixed points except their own—while the question of certainty lies beyond this, in something which is far more expansive.

It may be easy to see, for instance, that I should hoist a spinnaker if I wish to win the race—and this I may state both as an ‘is’ and as an ‘ought’:

Given such and such conditions, the spinnaker will secure a win—alternatively, I ought to hoist the spinnaker to clinch it.  In both cases, it would be true and compelling that I need a spinnaker—yet not if I should expand my horizon, to ask whether I should have entered this race at all.

How then might we reference statements to something broader than simple fact and value?  An analogy might help.

I am in a boat on the ocean, to anchor a buoy.  If I reference its position to the seaweed I see underneath it, or the birds which circle overhead, I have in this case an unstable reference.  Or I may reference it to a spit of land that I see in the distance.  This would seem to be more stable, though not completely so—the wind and the waves may change it.  Or I may reference it to the stars—but even the stars will move. 

Ideally, my buoy would be referenced to everything.

This may not be as absurd as it sounds.  If the context is big enough—and if we should know just what kind of a context this should be—we may well be able to ground both fact and value.

If we reference everything to everything, there may be a way forward.  While space does not allow me to explore this further here, readers may refer to a post in which I sketched some thoughts on how this might be done: How Shall We Re-Establish Ethics in Our Time?

BOOK REVIEW: I Think, Therefore I Eat

Reviewed by Colin Kirk

‘Felling rain forests to free up land for growing animals and vegetables, pulverized into so called foods,..is nightmarish..’ PICTURE: Lowland rainforest in Sulawesi's Tangkoko Reserve, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.

Martin Cohen is well known to generations of budding philosophers for his ‘101’ books. Amongst many other productions Political Philosophy from Plato to Mao stands out for critical analysis presented with lucidity and humor. I Think Therefore I Eat is a worthy successor to these seminal texts.

In an age when most journalism is no more than regurgitation of the PR blurb of commercial and political interests, philosophy regains its rightful place as investigator. This account, not simply of food its production and marketing but of the constituents of the human body that result, is unique and unlikely to be surpassed.

These days experts contribute to the human horror story. It requires philosophy to correct their ever changing sound bites with straightforward examination of the facts. Witty and readable, I Think Therefore I Eat will shock food experts of all kinds but the rest of us will think carefully before we eat. We’ll improve our life styles and extend our life expectancy as a result.

This book is almost impossible to classify. The philosophy is certainly in evidence but unobtrusively, amongst careful description of the grotesque constituents of junk food and their effects on the human body and mind, interspersed with unusual recipes that rush one into the kitchen.

There is structure to this bizarre conglomeration that meanders through the food fashions of the past hundred years with reference back to the eating habits of philosophers over the previous two and a half millennia.

Not all the foodies referred to are generally regarded as philosophers nor are their eating habits necessarily sound, quite the reverse. Hitler exemplifies these peculiarities of some of the thinkers selected. Mein Kampf is a work of philosophy but a diet of macerated boiled vegetables was not a healthy choice, nor were the concomitant medical interventions designed to ease the Fuhrer’s resultant flatulence.

One great strength of this book is the exposure of the appalling practices of free market exploiters of the environment both around us and inside us. Felling rain forests to free up land for growing animals and vegetables, pulverized into so called foods, contaminated with all manner of chemical contrivances to extract the last fast buck, is nightmarish reading.

These are not scenes in a horror movie from some way-out, backward, banana republic but day by day activities of world brand agricultural, chemical, pharmaceutical, food and drinks manufacturing industries that fuel economic growth for the few and ill health for the many.

Even when there were active Food and Drug Administrations in Western Democracies, well healed lawyers, scientists and medics ensured they had little actual clout against conglomerate industries with turnovers measured in billions of dollars or euros. The quality of expertise applied to such matters is low and the price charged by such experts extremely high. These are business models of the worse kind applied to the basic essentials of life.

Every page of this book contains good advice but it leads to no overall conclusion of the one-size-fits-all variety, with the possible exception of the seal of approval given to real chocolate. Most of what’s sold unfortunately isn’t.

At heart this is a work of philosophy and its conclusion is the usual one. Be yourself, it’s up to you. Examine all facts directly yourself, not the conclusions of characters who claim to be experts. Interpret the facts as best as you can and decide a course of action that suits you.

We all know that we are what we eat but we apply that knowledge as our appetite dictates. However, we now know that our appetites are massively influenced by advertisements, chemicals, manufactured flavors and plasticized finishes that do us no good and a great deal of harm. The golden delicious chips at McDonald’s are a prime example.

Western Democracy, the political model we live in, is designed by and for multibillionaires and their bureaucratic and expert camp- followers, who are paid handsomely to betray us into horrid eating habits as they transfer our money into their pockets.

Fidel Castro, another philosopher not usually thought of as such, was forced, by the collapse of Russian Communism in 1989 and the total American blockade of Cuba that ensued, to cultivate every square meter of land capable of growing food. The city of Havana and every other city, town and village became fruit and vegetable gardens. The Cubans did not starve to death as intended but became more healthy and versatile.

The problem with doing the right thing by growing your own food, should that be your conclusion, is that it requires a great deal of thought and planning. Further, success follows a series of disheartening failures as one learns by experience. For good health, fitness and longevity it’s worth it.

This is not a reference book as such but you’ll refer to it time and again in your pursuit of good eating habits. You’ll more likely find it on the shelf of recipe books in the kitchen than along with Kant and Kierkegaard.

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Colin Kirk is the author of Life in Poetry.