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Morality and the Meaning of Life: Some First Thoughts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Norman Dahl
Norman Dahl*
Affiliation:
The University of Minnesota, 224 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis, MN, 55455, U.S.A.
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Extract

Although there may be many questions about the meaning of life that will ultimately prove intractable, I think that there are some questions that can be answered. Furthermore, I think that progress towards answering them can be made through work that has and will be done in moral philosophy. In support of this I shall articulate a set of questions that I think are often at issue when people ask about the meaningfulness of life. These questions give rise to a set of conditions that a fully adequate answer must satisfy. Among other things, these conditions explain why a familiar theological answer to the meaningfulness of life seems so attractive. However, they also create problems for this answer, as well as for an answer that has appeared attractive to a number of contemporary philosophers, that the meaning of life is created by the choices that people make and the desires that they have. I shall suggest that work in moral philosophy may provide an answer that falls between these two camps – that a moral life is a meaningful life. I shall sketch a theory of morality that satisfies the conditions that have been set out. H this sketch can be filled out, then a moral life will be at least part of what can make a life meaningful. Whether this account of the moral life leaves out anything important for the meaningfulness of life will be the subject of some concluding remarks.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1987

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Footnotes

*

Earlier drafts of this paper were read at Bethel College, Pacific Lutheran University, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the University of Minnesota. I am grateful to all those who took part in the discussion on those occasions. William Hanson, Phillip Kitcher,and Takashi Yagisawa were kind enough to provide me with comments on a penultimate draft. I have also profited from the comments of referees of this journal.

References

1 This view is drawn from Arthur Schopenhauer. See, e.g., his ‘On the Suffering of the World,’ and ‘On the Vanity of Existence,’ in Essays and Aphorisms, translated by Hollingdale, R.J. (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books 1970), 41–50, 51-4Google Scholar. These essays are reprinted in Steven Sanders and Cheney, David R. eds., The Meaning of Life (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1980), 25–32, 33-6.Google Scholar

2 What follows is taken from Leo Tolstoy, My Confession, translated by Wiener, Leo (London: J.M. Dent & Sons 1905), excerpts of which are reprinted in Sanders and Cheney, 15–24Google Scholar, and in Klemke, E. D. ed., The Meaning of Life (New York: Oxford University Press 1981), 9–19.Google Scholar

3 Hepburn, R.W. ‘Questions about the Meaning of Life,’ Klemke, 212–13Google Scholar, Sanders, and Cheney, 116–17Google Scholar

4 Nagel, Thomas ‘The Absurd,’ Journal of Philosophy 63 (1971) 716–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Klemke, 151–61Google Scholar, and in Sanders, and Cheney, 155–65Google Scholar

5 Hare, R.M. ‘Nothing Matters,’ Applications of Moral Philosophy (London: Macmillan 1972) 32–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Klemke, 241–7Google Scholar, and in Sanders, and Cheney, 97–103Google Scholar

6 Note that I am not claiming that acknowledging the objectivity of value judgments is the only way of adding what Hare’s account seems to have left out. I am only claiming that it is one such way. Nevertheless, this together with the other two considerations I offer does, I think, provide grounds for taking the objectivity of certain value judgments to be a necessary condition for the value in question to contribute to the meaningfulness of life.

7 Darwall, Stephen Impartial Reason (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1983), 164–6Google Scholar

8 Two other points might be noted in connection with this third condition. First, there is some question as to whether it is independent of the first two. The mere objectivity of value judgments will not insure its satisfaction; but on one understanding of the internalist condition, it looks as if it together with objectivity will insure the importance of the values in question. If one takes the internalist condition to say that whatever it is that makes something valuable, the recognition of it will make anyone want to realize that value, then it looks as if what makes something valuable will be independent of the particular desires that any given person might happen to have. Hit weren’t, then someone without the relevant desires wouldn't want to realize the value in question. However, on another understanding of the internalist condition, it together with objectivity does not yield this third condition. Suppose that my spending my time building model airplanes has objective value because I enjoy spending my time that way. If the internalist condition only implies that anyone would want to spend their time building model airplanes if they too enjoyed it, then the importance condition will not be satisfied. The value of building model airplanes under these circumstances does depend on desires that are peculiar to certain people.

Second, it might be suggested that this formulation of the importance condition is too weak, and that a substantive account of what makes a value important should be included within it. It is, I think, premature to respond to this suggestion at this stage of the argument. For more on this see Section V below, including nos. 22 and 25.

9 It may be that on some occasions when people have asked about the meaning of life they have been looking for something that would provide their life with meaning no matter how their life might be lived. But if so, all this shows is that one will not be able to give a single answer to all of the questions people have in mind when they have asked about the meaning of life. That is one of the reasons why I have concerned myself with just one set of questions that people have asked when they have wondered about the meaning of life.

10 This carries with it the epistemological assumption that the value of whatever makes life meaningful can be recognized. But it seems to me that this assumption is one that one should be argued out of rather than into, if for no other reason than that it is what one would expect of the kind of value that would make life meaningful.

11 These are, of course, familiar problems, and various solutions to them have been proposed. The points I want to make here are that without solutions to them the theological view summarized above will not provide an adequate answer to the meaningfulness of life, and that the conditions I set out in Section n provide an important part of the explanation of why this is so.

12 See, e.g., Barnes, Hazel An Existentialist Ethics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1967)Google Scholar, excerpts of which are reprinted in Sanders, and Cheney, 105–12Google Scholar, along with Hare, ‘Nothing Matters.’ To a large extent this answer can also be found in Paul, Edwards ‘Meaning and Value of Life,’ The Encyclopedia of PhilosophyGoogle Scholar, Edwards, Paul Editor in Chief (New York: Macmillan 1967), 467–77Google Scholar, reprinted in Klemke, 118–40Google Scholar, an abridged version of which is reprinted in Sanders, and Cheney, 87–96Google Scholar, and in Nielsen, Kai ‘Linguistic Philosophy and the Meaning of Life,’ Cross Currents 14 (1964) 313–34Google Scholar, revised versions of which are reprinted in Klemke, 177–204Google Scholar, and in Sanders, and Cheney, 129–54.Google Scholar

13 See, e.g., Dahl, Norman O. Practical Reason, Aristotle, and Weakness of the Will (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press 1984), Chs. 3–6.Google Scholar

14 See, e.g., Frankfurt, Harry ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,’ Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971) 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 See, e.g., Kant, Immanuel Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (New York: Harper Torchbooks 1964)Google Scholar. Other examples of formal principles of practical rationality are Thomas Nagel’s principle that if a person has a subjective reason to promote an end, then anyone has an objective reason to promote that same end, in The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford: The Clarendon Press 1970), and Rawls’, John principles of justice in A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1971)Google Scholar when they are viewed under the Kantian interpretation.

16 For the most detailed and plausible attempt that I know of to argue that it would be irrational to act on principles that one could not will that everyone act on see Darwall, Impartial Reason, Ch. 14Google Scholar.

17 Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism, Chs. XI and XIIGoogle Scholar

18 One might wonder whether the theory really does satisfy all of these conditions. E.g., what is to be said in response to the kind of challenge to the objectivity of moral value raised by Nagel in ‘The Absurd’? It may be that a moral life will appear to be valuable from the perspective of the rational nature of human beings. But, it might be argued, one can always step back and view this kind of life from another perspective. From that perspective it will appear to be arbitrary that human beings have a rational nature that leads them to take such a life to be valuable. Indeed, from this new perspective, a moral life may not appear to be valuable at all. Why doesn’t this reopen the question of the objectivity of moral value? I do not have the time to pursue this question in the detail that it deserves, but one or two things can be said at this time. The question we have been considering is what kind of life would be meaningful for human beings to engage in. Any answer to it would seem to have to take account of the conditions of human life, including whatever rational nature human beings happen to have. If from the point of view of that nature a certain life seems valuable, then that life will have a strong claim on being the kind of life that is valuable for human beings to live. Even if from another perspective it seems arbitrary that human beings have such a nature, it need not seem arbitrary that it is valuable for beings with such a nature to live a moral life. In the second place, if the theory I have sketched does provide an adequate basis for morality, then its adequacy will have to be acknowledged from any perspective that yields reliable judgments. If the theory is correct, then whatever perspective one adopts it will have to be true at that perspective that it is valuable for human beings to live a moral life, even if it wouldn’t be valuable for someone whose nature puts her at that perspective to live a similar life.

But is the theory correct? Why doesn't the fact that a moral life may not appear valuable when one adopts a different perspective undermine the correctness of the theory I have sketched? To raise this question is just to raise the possibility that the theory might not turn out to be a correct moral theory. Of course it might not. We have not seen all the arguments that could be given in support or in criticism of it. But by the same token, it might turn out to be a correct moral theory. If it is an open question whether this theory provides an adequate basis for morality, then it is an open question. To decide it one will have to look at the particular features of the theory to see just what can be said for and against it.

But doesn’t this possibility show that we don't know whether the theory I have sketched provides an objective basis for morality? Perhaps it does. But this still doesn’t show that morality doesn't have an objective basis. Nor does it show that in the absence of such knowledge it isn't reasonable to assume that morality does have an objective basis. This is an assumption that I think is reasonable. And it is all that is needed to take seriously the project of looking in detail at the theory I have sketched to see just what can be said on its behalf.

19 In putting forward this suggestion I am not claiming that the conception of morality I have outlined is the only one according to which a moral life would satisfy the conditions necessary for a meaningful life. Nor, as I have already indicated, am I claiming that a moral life is the only kind of life that can be meaningful. I will be happy if it is acknowledged that the theory I have sketched provides one way of seeing how a moral life can be a meaningful life.

20 This has been suggested both in discussion and by a referee.

21 This suggestion was also raised in discussion and by a referee. It might also be suggested that this shows that the formulation of the importance condition given in Section ll is too weak. Instead one needs a more substantive account of what makes something important enough to contribute to the meaningfulness of life, including, perhaps, making a significant contribution to human well-being.

22 For a sustained attempt to argue that the kind of moral theory I have sketched can not adequately account for the moral value of acting on such personal attitudes see Blum, Lawrence A. Friendship, Altruism and Mmality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1980)Google Scholar.

23 E.g., a person casting a play must choose between two candidates, one who is slightly better for the part, the other whom he knows will benefit more from being a member of the cast. Without knowing anything else, fairness suggests giving the part to the first candidate, compassion or concern suggests giving it to the second. It seems to me that on at least some occasions like this, considerations of compassion or concern should win out.

Presumably the kind of theory I have sketched would settle such a conflict by considering whether from the impersonal standpoint of a rational being one could choose that everyone act in one of these two ways rather than the other in these and all other similar circumstances. At first sight this might seem to tip the scales in favor of considerations of fairness, since the desire to treat people fairly is a much more direct instantiation of such an impersonal attitude than is compassion or concern. In an as yet unpublished paper, ‘Impartialist Ethics and the Personal,’ Stephen Darwall argues that there is no good reason for thinking that this is so. This seems to me to be correct. However, even if it is, it still doesn't follow that the kind of theory I have sketched attaches the proper weight to considerations like compassion or concern. To see whether it does or not still requires further investigation.

24 If the theory does fail in either of these two tasks, then I think that one will have to take seriously the suggestion that a stronger importance condition than that formulated in Section II needs to be satisfied before one can be assured that a moral life is a meaningful life.