The conflict between self and “right”
For some time I had been searching for an opportunity to explore a hitherto unsolved but very important question, without the answer to which I couldn’t fully feel the joy of conviction when steering my life. The question that tormented me was this: Is there an objective purpose to human existence? Do we possess any cosmic significance, any cosmic purpose? Are we called to serve some higher plan unknown to us? Or are we obliged to create our own subjective goals, naming them important, even sacred, while relying entirely on our own subjective criteria ignoring completely the possibility of a higher, objective, external purpose?
I might feel that my purpose is truly important to me, but what if there is some higher cosmic plan to which my values and trajectory are opposed? Merely entertaining that thought, is enough to shake faith in myself, fueling an undercurrent self-doubt that can become life-draining. This post is an overview of the internal exploration and conclusion that seems to provide some relief.
At the end it’s a rationalization try of a common attitude that many people have as a default, which is something like “you don’t know what’s going on, so do it your way” and maybe claiming some enhancement by adding that “doing so, increases the chances of fulfilling your purpose if one exists”.
God and “human choice”
When I characterize a purpose as “objective”, I mean something that is not set by humans but by an external agent, for example something like God. Thus, the existence of objectivity depends on whether such an agent exists. Here the discussion often collapses into deadlock but luckily in this case, we can move beyond it: Whether a divine plan exists or not, our behavior should remain the same.
If there is no God, there is neither an external purpose. The only thing humans can do is to create purposes for themselves, both individual and collective, without any hesitation in devoting themselves fully to them. Because if no objective purpose exists, the solution is simple: the most natural decision (provided there is no other constraint) is to choose in alignment with your values and natural inclinations. Not only because the harmony of actions, values, and inclinations brings with it a sense of fulfillment in itself, but also because such harmony is essential for any long-term path and for overcoming the obstacles and hardships that may arise along the way. In this case, nothing stands against the formulation that your purpose is to bring your actions into harmony with your values and inclinations. If you believe in something, pursue it unwaveringly.
If there is a God and he is omnipotent, then again I do not think there can be any truly significant purpose, for everything has already been fulfilled through God’s omnipotence. There is nothing lacking, no gap that would be essentially useful that humanity could meaningfully fill. This doesn’t mean that a purpose could not still be set, external and very real but fundamentally insignificant nonetheless. So as a matter of choice, you might fall back to no purpose or to one of the following cases.
If there is a God who is limited, not omnipotent, and there are things that remain beyond his reach, then there is room for some “cosmic” significance, for a purpose to which humanity might indeed have something to contribute. In this case the problem is that even if an objective purpose truly exists, we can’t really know what it is. For, it is not revealed to us clearly, or it is not revealed at all (it might be that God doesn’t intervene at all in human affairs).
So if God doesn’t intervene to point us to a direction, all we are left with, is the natural way humans have to choose their objectives. Which is values and natural inclinations. Besides, this mechanism of selection is the best “lever” for the fulfillment of any purpose. And it could be that this is the plan after all. Because this pattern seems very much in tune with the rest of nature. Random people are scattered randomly across different environments, each “freely” pursuing their own goals, together shaping a broader outcome. Therefore, we could once again formulate the argument that your purpose is to bring your actions into harmony with your values and inclinations.
If God does intervene to point us to our purpose, common experience shows that His intervention is still cryptic, coming only in the form of subtle, ambiguous signs. So in the face of such ambiguity we can either delegate our choices to external authorities (holy men, priests, gurus, our bosses god forbidden) or choose according to our own subjective criteria. In both cases though, would it be wise to suffer such a terrible cost, which is to live a life opposite to our values and inclinations based on arbitrary interpretations (including ours)? With the very real possibility of being wrong anyway due to misinterpretation which misses the true meaning of the given message? Dostoevsky captured this tragedy writing: “And your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing”. So once again I would argue that the wisest path is to bring your actions into harmony with your values and inclinations. Not ignoring the signs but choosing to interpret them in a way that aligns with them.
It seems then, that in all cases the wisest course is to bring your actions into harmony with your values and inclinations. And even beyond that, I argue that this isn’t just the wisest course but your life’s purpose.
Schopenhauer wrote: “A man can do what he wills, but cannot will what he wills”. And in this context what he wills would be his purpose.
Notice that this concept of purpose is not a hedonistic one. It doesn’t mean “I like it, therefore it’s meaningful” neither does it mean the opposite. An action in harmony with your values is not necessarily a pleasant one. When you help your elderly father to get dressed, you don’t derive the feeling of satisfaction from the act itself but from its harmony with your core values.
Good, evil and self acceptance
To judge anything as good or evil, a criterion is required according to which we can grade. And a criterion presupposes a purpose so that anything can be judged by its potential to bring us closer or further away form that purpose. Without it, nothing can be judged and everything is equal. Thus, because we don’t know the objective purpose we can neither know the objective good and the objective evil. Every action can only be judged according to the subjective criteria of the person judging it.
A trap to avoid in this path, is to get in a pointless constant doubt of your own personal values. You have born and raised the way you are, with your very own set of inclinations and values instilled to you by fate (your genes, your family, your culture etc.). All these factors have shaped you into the person you are and the person you are meant to become and there is little meaning trying to fight them, because there is no objective criterion to judge them by. Everything is subjective, noone knows the truth or what is objectively good and evil.
This doesn’t mean of course that you should become a “status-quo-phile” conveniently settling in whatever status-quo you find yourself in, avoiding the effort of self-reflection and growth. Being self-reflective and adapting to new data, is part of what it takes to become wiser along the way.
It could very well be, that your core values are not commonly accepted. You should not be intimidated by that because you can’t be meaningfully accused of being wrong or being against the way things should be. There is no objective moral scale to judge you by. We cannot accuse a Nazi of being objectively wrong, and certainly not of being unfaithful to his values or of not “following his calling”. What we can do is accuse him of not having values similar to ours, fight him, defeat him, punish him for it and try to alter the environment that created him. You are therefore “morally” free to follow your purpose, but so are others. So be prepared to face their judge and to receive the consequences of your actions (in this world or, who knows for sure, even in another).
Sidenotes
The blurring effect
When I’m contemplating opposing views, I sometimes try to predict their consequences on alternative future paths. What’s important to stress though is that the future timeline within which this exercise takes place, should be quite short, maybe up to half a century or so. The reason is that there are so many unknowns as the horizon is elongated, that predictions become meaningless. If supper intelligence arrives within a few decades, the cognitive base of decisions might shift dramatically making most of what we think now about that period obsolete. Medium to long term future becomes blurr and that leaves us with a small local area to work with.
For example, I was recently thinking about Europeanism and how possible would be for a european national identity to emerge at some point. Clearly this is a multi generation process that would need at least a century or so, leading us deep inside the blurred future area. At such a future, possibly with free energy, super-intelligence and new states of consciousness widely available, ideas such as nationalism might already be relics of the past because the reasons that dictated their existence have completely disappeared. So sadly, it seems that in decision-making we are doomed to settle for a local search framework for now.
Human diversity as an important value
Fortunately the complete degeneration of values is very difficult, if not impossible. I say fortunately, because I believe that diversity, both individual and cultural, is a precious trait of humans and of their societies. A trait I would rather see preserved than replaced by a global homogenization of values and cultures.
As unrelated as it may initially seem, this preference of mine stems from our ignorance of the truth. If we knew where we are meant to go, then we could choose a particular human version or a particular cultural identity that would bring us closer to that goal. But since we don’t know, diversity offers more chances of eventually reaching it (that is, if it exists at all), through the variety of choices and their interactions. Just as when faced with a black and uncharted map, one must advance in many directions in order to unveil the surroundings. Some path may eventually reveal something important, but beforehand we can’t know which one.
On the other hand, if there is no purpose, nothing can be evaluated objectively which means that diversity itself becomes a matter of preference, that is, of values. Personally, it is something I desire, if only for aesthetic reasons. But if we do desire it, how much diversity is needed? I would answer: the greatest possible. Yet the smaller the entity, the harder it is for it to survive. What we seek then, is the smallest possible entity still large enough to endure (at least for the foreseeable unblurred future) whether that entity is a language, a musical genre, an architectural style, a philosophical view, a local shop, a sports club or anything else.
Ranking of values
The size of the entity also raises another troubling issue: fighting a losing battle. How meaningful is it to resist the death of something when its end is inevitable? As with everything, the meaning arises from your values. One value is to fight until the end, regardless of the outcome; that fight is a value in itself. A conflicting value is the avoidance of futile effort. Thus, in choosing a stance on this matter, as on any other, you need a hierarchy of values which is fundamental for achieving eudaimonia.
Notice however, that a value system is not truly validated until it is tested by reality. Until then, it remains merely nominal. Values that do not come into conflict in one situation may clash in another and it is in such moments that their true ordering is revealed. Peace and war for example, are radically different conditions, and they test a value system in fundamentally different ways.
Happiness
A common answer on the question “what is life’s purpose” is sometimes “happiness”. An appealing answer for sure, but is it complete? Imagine a perfect drug with the potential to generate a permanent sense of fulfillment and happiness regardless of external conditions and crucially, without any side effect. Such a thing could become very real and widely available in the future. Could we ever accept that the users of such a drug have thereby achieved the purpose of life?
Some of them, yes. Those who hold as their supreme value happiness itself as a feeling. Yet I think that for many people this state, as pleasant as it might be, would by no means be fulfilling. Because I think, the purpose of life is not happiness per se, but the happiness that emerges from the harmony of actions, values and inclinations. A form of “virtuous happiness” where virtue lies in that very harmony. Different for each individual, this state is better described by the greek word “eudaimonia” as used by Aristotle.
Overcoming dead ends by changing frame
A trick we often use when we cannot judge between two options using a specific criterion, is to change the criterion at decision time, to change the frame. For example, I may not know which of two actions will ultimately prove more correct, so I choose the easier one. Or the more aesthetically appealing one. Or something else entirely. As I reflected on this simple trick, one we often employ without even noticing, I began to wonder whether it could be more than just a human strategy. Could it be possible that it is an inherent property of the universe itself, where natural dead ends are overcome by other kinds of criteria? Where for example the position of a particle’s quantum leap could be determined, not by necessity, but by something like aesthetic preference?