In any event, in this and the next class we will consider proposed answers to the question, What is the meaning of life? Some philosophers (as we have seen) say that life has meaning only insofar as it is fulfilled in belief in God. Some deny that life has any meaning at all. Others claim that the pursuit of happiness in this life is what gives life its meaning. And still others say that the meaning of life consists in finding our true place in the universe, fulfilling ourselves by limiting our desires to what is appropriate for us.
I. Pessimism : Life has no meaning:
(a) Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) argues that, given the inevitability of death, there is no rational justification for saying that life is meaningful. Since philosophy cannot provide a satisfactory answer to the question of why we exist, we must renounce reason and can rely only on faith that there is something that makes our lives meanigful. We realize that our lives are ultimately pointless, and we fear death because we know that we have no proof that there is anything after we die. The more intelligent we are, the more we see life as a bad joke, an attempt to explain something that is finite to an incomprehensible infinite. Even if there is a God, what difference should my puny little life make to him? To say that God cares about us individually is wishful thinking, since it tries to relate the finite to the infinite (which cannot be done). The best way to get through life is not to ask questions such as "why are we here?" because the answer (or lack thereof) will only makes us feel worse.
(b) Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860): Living is in vain. The only time we think in terms of purposes or goals is when we are talking about that which we do not have or cannot achieve. Even the activity of striving toward such goals is always painful. We are often unaware of pleasant things, but we seem always to be aware of things that are painful--because painful and evil things are more real, more characteristic of the way the world really is. We can easily point to those who are worse off than us, but have difficulty pointing to those who have it better. Even if we achieve what we set out to do, our satisfaction is soon converted to boredom. So either we are frustrated in pursuing what we do not have or bored with what we have. We are constantly suffering for having committed the crime of being born, condemned to strive endlessly for more, never to be satisfied.
II. Hedonism: Epicureanism : The meaning of life consists in the pursuit and achievement of happiness.
(a) Epicureanism (Epicurus, 342-270 B.C.; Lucretius, 95-55 B.C.): the meaning of life is found in a pleasurable existence free from pain. Getting what one desires is a dynamic pleasure, but dynamic pleasures are not as good as the static pleasures associated with being in a state of painless contemplation (without desire). That is, the best objects of desire should be those things that do not change. Because pleasures are never as intense as pains, the aim of life is not to achieve pleasure as much as it is to avoid pain. When we are confronted with pains over which we have no control, we should think about other things. If this is impossible (as in the case of long-term, intense suffering), we should consider suicide. One should avoid those things that cause fear (e.g., death and thoughts about what will happen to us after death) because fear itself is evil. At death, the atoms that make up who we are will simply form new combinations. Our "selves"--linked as they are to our bodies--will not survive in some afterlife as the same personality, so there is nothing that could be called "us" that survives death which we need to fear. Death is simply nothing, so it is nothing to fear: it is not painful or pleasurable; death is simply the end of sensation. Recognition of this fact relieves us of the desire for immortality.
This focus on the material, this-worldly happiness of the individual is characteristic of many of the values prized in subsequent Western culture. In much of modern society, the identification of how life is meaningful is based on whether someone is successful in terms of power, wealth, and prestige. By focusing on an individual's accumulation of material possessions and property, modern answers to the question of the meaning of life emphasize "secular"concerns dealing with this world rather than some afterlife. However, there are alternatives to the view that life has meaning only in terms of individualistic, materialistic, and secular values. The two major ones we will consider are Marxism (this class) and Buddhism (next class).
III. Marxism : According to Karl Marx (1818-1883), human beings are naturally productive, sociable beings who find fulfillment and meaning in their lives through the free exercise of their natural powers. They fulfill themselves through their creations, so that what they make is an expression of what they are. Unless something perverts their efforts, their lives will have meaning in virtue of their productive, sociable activity.
For Marx, reality is concerned fundamentally with the material (especially economic) conditions of existence. Without being able to survive physically, the question of whether life has any meaning does not make much sense. In fact, the meaning of life makes sense only in such materialistic terms. So it is important to think about life and meaning primarily in economic terms. In fact, the economic structure of human existence determines all aspects of our lives, including our jobs, personal relations, laws, social values, politics, philosophy, art, and religion.
Even thinking about history requires that we think in terms of how economic forces clash with one another. Such conflict is the result of what Marx's predecessor, G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), calls a dialectic process . The dialectic is a process whereby one force (a thesis) is opposed by its opposite (an antithesis) to produce a new way of thinking (the synthesis) which incorporates elements from both forces. The synthesis itself then becomes a new thesis, with its own antithesis, generating a further synthesis, and the process goes on indefinitely. Hegel describes this process as one in which mind thinks its object and then distinguishes itself from that object by means of reflecting on its own thought, but Marx says that such an account misses an important point--namely, that reality is fundamentally about material things, not mental or "ideal" things.
However, Marx adopts Hegel's model of the dialectic (in what is called dialectical materialism or historical materialism) to describe how history is the story of the conflict of the material conditions of existence. According to Marx, conflict results from the clash between the daily experiences of the oppressed classes (the proletariat, property-less workers) and attempts by the ruling class (the bourgeoisie, property owners who profit from the labor of others) to justify its control of the material means of survival.
Where the material, economic conditions enhance their social, productive activities, human beings can lead meaningful lives. Indeed, the economic system under which one lives determines not only one's economic status but also how one thinks and what one's social and political values are. The modern concern for material wealth is not, therefore, a natural inclination. It is a value that is created in our minds under a certain economic system, namely, capitalism.
According to Marx, people define themselves in terms of what they do or make. When an economic system separates people from what they make or encourages people to think of themselves as individuals rather than as essentially social beings, that system is responsible for human alienation. In capitalism, individuals are encouraged to think of themselves first as individuals and only second as members of a group. They are encouraged to think of the products of their labor merely as something to be exchanged for other goods or services. In a capitalist system, workers take little pride in their work because they do not own the products of their labor--the capitalist owns those products. In capitalism, workers are thus alienated from the products of their labor--that is, they do not feel connected to what they have made and thus do not care about or take pride in the products of their work. In addition, they are alienated from labor itself: that is, people resent having to work because they do not feel that they have any say-so in what they are doing and why, so they don't like going to work and think that their leisure time is the only time where they have a chance really to "be themselves." In capitalism, the division of labor replaces craftsmen with unskilled, unsatisfied, and non-challenged laborers. Furthermore, under capitalism people feel alienated from their natural "species-being" as workers and makers: the pleasure they take in producing something is lost, and instead people have to sell their labor--that is, sell (prostitute) themselves--in order to survive. And finally, they are alienated from one another, from their sense of being socially and communally united to other workers, because they are forced to compete with other people rather than to cooperate with them.
Under a capitalist system, then, people cannot ultimately be happy because they are unable to do what fulfills them as persons. Oh sure, they have lots of stuff, but material possessions can be lost or stolen; so they have to worry about protecting those possessions. Plus, they have to worry about maintaining that level of material prosperity in order to deceive themselves that they are happy. It is self-deception because they do not recognize how no amount of material possessions can replace what capitalism erases--namely, the sense of being content with producing that which fulfills us as members of a community. Where an economic system such as capitalism alienates human beings from either the products of their labor, the work that defines them, or other human beings, they are bound to lead lives of frustration, boredom, and resentment.
In capitalism, the material, economic base of human activity includes the means of production (raw materials, factories, farms, shops, etc. that are owned by private individuals), the forces of production (technology and knowledge), and the division of labor (the social relationships of production). When one class of people controls the means, forces, and relationships of production, they control the structures of thought, law, religion, art, and the state. The state is thus an element in the superstructure used by the ruling class (bourgeoisie) to maintain its domination over the rest of society (the proletariat). By manipulating the foundations of social production, those in power create false needs or manufacture roducts that fail to satisfy real needs (e.g., by making products that will not last very long, planned obsolescence) in order to guarantee profits for themselves. Capitalism assumes that competition and the unequal distribution of wealth and power in society are not only acceptable but also natural and desirable. In this way, material, economic conditions privilege the ideas of the ruling class, whose ways of organizing ideas (or "ideology") become the means by which the culture identifies what thinking itself is.
As technology develops, shifts occur in the material base (including how individuals are defined as "specialists"). Out of such shifts emerges a new class of workers who resent being called simply workers. Their demands and new-found power result in the State's taking control of the means of production in such a way that no one any longer privately owns the raw materials needed for survival: this is the socialist stage of the communist revolution. After a while, there is no longer any need for the State to protect workers from exploitation by the former ruling class, since capitalists no longer control the means of production and thus cannot dictate ways of thinking. At the point when individuals recognize how their interests coincide with the interests of the rest of society, the State simply dissolves into communities of conscientious individuals working toward communal goals. This is true communism.
Objections: