PHIL 1200 University of Colorado Meaning of Life Paper 750-1000 words,12-point Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins, and double-spacing. Include your name,

PHIL 1200 University of Colorado Meaning of Life Paper 750-1000 words,12-point Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins, and double-spacing. Include your name, a word count, and the date in the upper left corner of your first page. All pages should have your name and be numbered

Prompt:

Lukong was a very depressed young graduate from college. One day he was awaken, he said, to the most exciting time of his life. He finally found what he has been searching for, namely, the meaning of life which he now said enthusiastically that “the whole thing has been hidden in plain site from me.” It is simple: the meaning in life is living an uncompromising moral life, doing the right thing even if heaven should fall down, period. To constantly remind himself of his supposed point of life he had the word “Do the right thing” tattooed on his right and left arms.

You, a student of Susan Wolf’s views on life as expressed in her article “Moral Saint” and Thomas Nagel’s views as expressed in his article “The Absurd” and Albert Camus’s views as expressed in his article, “The Myth of Sisyphus” came across an ecstatic Lukong who is ready to share his newfound meaning in life with you. How will the conversation continue between the two of you?

Suspend disbelief to avoid irrelevant distraction to the scenario. Critically examine the positions you advance and say which one you find philosophically compelling and why. Entertain objections and examples real or imagine. The Myth of Sysiphus
by Albert Camus
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a
mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with
some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless
labor.
If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals.
According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession
of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why
he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a
certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of
Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance
and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it
on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial
thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the
underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could
not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war,
who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife’s love. He
ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus
woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to
human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise
his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun,
warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness.
Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing
the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods
was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and,
snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock
was ready for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through
his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his
passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted
toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of
this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for
the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole
effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a
hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone,
the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with
arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very
end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose
is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward
tlower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes
back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so
close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy
yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour
like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of
consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually
sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his
rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture
be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of
today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But
it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus,
proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his
wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to
constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can
not be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy.
This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the
sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory,
when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises
in man’s heart: this is the rock’s victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is
too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish
from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it.
But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind
and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand
of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: “Despite so many ordeals, my
advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.”
Sophocles’ Edipus, like Dostoevsky’s Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd
victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of
happiness. “What!—by such narrow ways–?” There is but one world, however.
Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It
would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd.
Discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. “I
conclude that all is well,” says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild
and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It
drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a
preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled
among men.
All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a
thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the
idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little
voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces,
they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow,
and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will
henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at
least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest,
he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man
glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight
pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate,
created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death.
Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to
see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again.
But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He
too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him
neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled
mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to
fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
The Absurd
Author(s): Thomas Nagel
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 68, No. 20, Sixty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the
American Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Oct. 21, 1971), pp. 716-727
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2024942 .
Accessed: 19/08/2012 01:08
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7i6
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
The formerstands as valid only if we can findcriteriaforassigning
a different
logical formto ‘allegedly’than to ‘compulsively’.In this
case, the criteriaexist: ‘compulsively’is a predicate, ‘allegedly’ a
sentenceadverb. But in countlessothercases, counterexamplesare
not so easily dismissed.Such an example, bearingon the inference
in question,is
Otto closed the door partway
ThereforeOtto closed the door
It seems clear to me that betterdata are needed beforeprogress
can be made in this area; we need much more refinedlinguistic
classificationsof adverbial constructionsthan are presentlyavailable, ifour evidenceconcerningvalidityis to be good enough to permit a richerlogical theory.In the meantime,Montague’s account
stands: thereis no reasonto thinka morerefinedtheory,ifit can be
produced, should not be obtainable within the frameworkhe has
given us.
RICHMOND
H. THOMASON
Yale University
M
THE ABSURD
*
OST peoplefeelon occasionthatlifeis absurd,and some
feel it vividly and continually.Yet the reasons usually
offeredin defense of this conviction are patently inadequate: they could not really explain why life is absurd. Why
then do they provide a natural expressionforthe sense that it is?
I
Consider some examples. It is oftenremarkedthat nothingwe do
now will matterin a millionyears. But if that is true, then by the
same token,nothingthat will be the case in a millionyears matters
now. In particular,it does not matternow that in a millionyears
nothingwe do now will matter.Moreover,even if what we did now
weregoing to matter in a millionyears, how could that keep our
presentconcernsfrombeing absurd? If theirmatteringnow is not
enough to accomplish that, how would it help if they mattereda
millionyears fromnow?
Whether what we do now will matter in a million years could
only if its matteringin a millionyears
make the crucial difference
depended on its mattering,period. But then to deny that whatever
* To be presented
in an APA symposium
on The MeaningofLife,December29,
willbe RogersAlbritton
and WilliamRichardson;neither
1971.Co-symposiasts
oftheirpapersare availableat thistime.
THE ABSURD
7I7
happens now will matterin a millionyears is to beg the question
against its mattering,period; for in that sense one cannot know
that it will not matter in a million years whether (for example)
someone now is happy or miserable,withoutknowingthat it does
not matter,period.
What we say to convey the absurdityof our lives oftenhas to
do withspace or time: we are tinyspecks in the infinitevastness of
the universe; our lives are mere instantseven on a geological time
scale, let alone a cosmic one; we will all be dead any minute. But
of course none of these evidentfactscan be what makeslifeabsurd,
ifit is absurd. For suppose we lived forever;would not a lifethat is
absurd if it lasts seventy years be infinitelyabsurd if it lasted
througheternity?And if our lives are absurd given our present
size, why would they be any less absurd if we filledthe universe
(eitherbecause we werelargeror because the universewas smaller)?
Reflectionon our minutenessand brevityappears to be intimately
connectedwith the sense that lifeis meaningless;but it is not clear
what the connectionis.
Another inadequate argumentis that because we are going to
die, all chains of justificationmust leave offin mid-air:one studies
and works to earn money to pay for clothing,housing,entertainment,food,to sustain oneselffromyear to year,perhapsto support
a familyand pursue a career-but to what finalend? All of it is an
elaborate journeyleading nowhere. (One will also have some effect
on other people’s lives, but that simply reproducesthe problem,
fortheywill die too.)
There are several replies to this argument.First, life does not
consistof a sequence of activitieseach of which has as its purpose
some later memberof the sequence. Chains of justificationcome
repeatedlyto an end withinlife,and whetherthe processas a whole
can be justifiedhas no bearing on the finalityof these end-points.
No furtherjustificationis needed to make it reasonable to take
aspirin fora headache, attend an exhibitof the work of a painter
one admires,or stop a child fromputtinghis hand on a hot stove.
No larger context or furtherpurpose is needed to prevent these
acts frombeing pointless.
Even if someone wished to supply a furtherjustificationfor
pursuingall the thingsin life that are commonlyregardedas selfjustifying,that justificationwould have to end somewheretoo. If
nothingcan justifyunlessit is justifiedin termsof somethingoutside
itself,whichis also justified,then an infiniteregressresults,and no
chain of justificationcan be complete. Moreover, if a finitechain
of reasons cannot justifyanything,what could be accomplishedby
7I8
THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
an infinitechain, each link of whichmust be justifiedby something
outside itself?
Since justificationsmust come to an end somewhere,nothingis
gained by denyingthat theyend wheretheyappear to, withinlifeor by tryingto subsume the multiple,oftentrivialordinaryjustifications of action undera single,controllinglifescheme. We can be
satisfiedmore easily than that. In fact, throughits misrepresentationof the processof justification,the argumentmakes a vacuous
demand. It insiststhat the reasons available withinlifeare incomplete, but suggeststherebythat all reasons that come to an end are
incomplete.Tlis makes it impossibleto supply any reasons at all.
The standard argumentsforabsurdityappear thereforeto fail as
arguments.Yet I believe they attempt to expresssomethingthat
is difficult
to state, but fundamentallycorrect.
II
In ordinarylifea situationis absurd whenit includesa conspicuous
discrepancybetweenpretensionor aspirationand reality: someone
gives a complicatedspeech in supportof a motionthat has already
been passed; a notorious criminal is made presidentof a major
philanthropicfoundation;you declare your love over the telephone
to a recordedannouncement;as you are beingknighted,yourpants
fall down.
When a person finds himselfin an absurd situation, he will
usually attempt to change it, by modifyinghis aspirations,or by
tryingto bringrealityinto betteraccord withthem,or by removing
himselffromthe situation entirely.We are not always willingor
able to extricate ourselves froma position whose absurdity has
become clear to us. Nevertheless,it is usually possible to imagine
some change that would remove the absurdity-whether or not
we can or will implementit. The sense that lifeas a whole is absurd
arises when we perceive,perhaps dimly,an inflatedpretensionor
aspirationwhichis inseparablefromthe continuationof human life
and whichmakes its absurdityinescapable,shortof escape fromlife
itself.
Many people’s lives are absurd, temporarilyor permanently,for
conventionalreasons having to do with theirparticularambitions,
circumstances,and personal relations. If there is a philosophical
sense of absurdity,however,it must arise fromthe perceptionof
somethinguniversal-some respectin whichpretensionand reality
inevitablyclash forus all. This conditionis supplied, I $hall argue,
by the collision between the seriousnesswith which we take our
lives and the perpetual possibilityof regardingeverythingabout
whichwe are seriousas arbitrary,or open to doubt.
THE ABSURD
719
We cannot live human lives withoutenergyand attention,nor
withoutmakingchoices whichshow that we take some thingsmore
seriouslythan others.Yet we have always available a point of view
outside the particularformof our lives, fromwhich the seriousness
appears gratuitous.These two inescapable viewpointscollide in us,
and that is what makes life absurd. It is absurd because we ignore
the doubts that we know cannot be settled,continuingto live with
nearlyundiminishedseriousnessin spite of them.
This analysis requiresdefensein two respects: firstas regardsthe
unavoidabilityof seriousness; second as regards the inescapability
of doubt.
We take ourselvesseriouslywhetherwe lead serious lives or not
and whetherwe are concernedprimarilywithfame,pleasure,virtue,
luxury, triumph, beauty, justice, knowledge, salvation, or mere
survival. If we take other people seriouslyand devote ourselves to
them,that only multipliesthe problem.Human lifeis fullof effort,
plans, calculation, success and failure: we pursue our lives, with
varyingdegreesof sloth and energy.
It would be different
if we could not step back and reflecton the
process,but were merelyled fromimpulse to impulse withoutselfconsciousness.But human beingsdo not act solelyon impulse.They
are prudent,theyreflect,theyweighconsequences,theyask whether
what they are doing is worthwhile. Not only are theirlives fullof
particular choices that hang together in larger activities with
temporalstructure:they also decide in the broadest termswhat to
pursue and what to avoid, what the prioritiesamong theirvarious
aims should be, and what kindof people theywant to be or become.
Some men are faced with such choices by the large decisions they
make fromtime to time; some merelyby reflectionon the course
their lives are taking as the product of countless small decisions.
They decide whom to marry,what professionto follow,whetherto
join the CountryClub, or the Resistance; or theymay just wonder
why they go on being salesmen or academics or taxi drivers,and
then stop thinkingabout it after a certain period of inconclusive
reflection.
Although they may be motivated fromact to act by those immediate needs withwhichlifepresentsthem,theyallow the process
to continue by adhering to the general system of habits and the
formof lifein whichsuch motivleshave theirplace-or perhapsonly
by clingingto lifeitself.They spend enormousquantitiesof energy,
risk, and calculation on the details. Think of how an ordinary
individual sweats over his appearance, his health, his sex life, his
emotionalhonesty,his social utility,his self-knowledge,
the quality
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of his ties with family,colleagues,and friends,how well he does his
job, whetherhe understandsthe world and what is going on in it.
Leading a human life is a full-timeoccupation, to which everyone
devotes decades of intenseconcern.
This fact is so obvious that it is hard to findit extraordinaryand
important.Each of us lives his own life-lives with himselftwentyfour hours a day. What else is he supposed to do-live someone
else’s life? Yet humans have the special capacity to step back and
surveythemselves,and the lives to whichtheyare committed,with
that detached amazement which comes from watching an ant
struggleup a heap of sand. Without developing the illusion that
they are able to escape fromtheirhighlyspecificand idiosyncratic
position,they can view it sub specie aeternitatis-andthe view is at
once soberingand comical.
The crucial backward step is not taken by askingforstill another
justificationin the chain,and failingto get it. The objectionsto that
line of attack have already been stated; justificationscome to an
end. But this is preciselywhat provides universal doubt with its
object. We step back to findthat the whole systemof justification
and criticism,whichcont…
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