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Meaning of life |
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The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of human existence. The concept can be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as Why are we here?, What's life all about? and What is the meaning of it all?. It has been the subject of much philosophical, scientific, and theological speculation throughout history and there have been a large number of answers from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds.
The meaning of life is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence, consciousness, and happiness, and touches on many other issues, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, conceptions of God, the existence of God, the soul and the afterlife. Scientific contributions are more indirect; by describing the empirical facts about the universe, science provides some context and sets parameters for conversations on related topics.
Questions about the meaning of life have been expressed in a broad variety of ways, including, but not limited to, the following:
In general, these questions arise from dissatisfaction with life, some aspect of it: where people have difficulty understanding why particular things happen or why the world is the way it is, they seek broader understandings that might help them make meaning out of it. They may even turn to philosophy or theology to provide broad, universal responses to these dissatisfactions. The emphasis of particular questions, and of the answers given to them, are heavily influenced by cultural and philosophical preconceptions, but usually fall into one or more of the following groups:
Prior to the expansion of the major universal religions - from the first or second centuries BCE to the sixth century CE, depending on the faith - the meaning of life was investigated in terms of human potential and the relationship of individuals to the natural world. Devotion to god or gods was an important aspect of some traditions, but was generally viewed in terms of personal development (as in the Hindu relationship between atman and brahman, or as a social relationship, as in the Jewish covenant). Other traditions relied heavily on reason, discipline, or the development of other human faculties, either as meaningful in their own right, or as tools to reach other decisions.
Hinduism is a diverse religion: there are some tenets accepted by most Hindus, but no doctrines that are universally accepted by all.22 Most believe that the ātman (spirit, soul) — the person's true self — is eternal.23 In part, this stems from Hindu beliefs that spiritual development occurs across many lifetimes, and goals should match the state of development of the individual. There are four possible aims to human life, known as the purusharthas (ordered from least to greatest): Kāma (love and sensual pleasure), Artha (wealth), Dharma (righteousness, morality), and Moksha (liberation from the reincarnation cycle).242526
In all schools of Hinduism, the meaning of life is tied up in the concepts of karma, samsara and moksha (causal action, the cycle of birth and rebirth, and liberation). Existence is conceived as the progression of the atman (similar to the western concept of a soul) across numerous lifetimes, and its ultimate progression towards liberation from karma. Particular goals for life are generally subsumed under broader yogas (practices) or dharma (correct living) which are intended to create more favorable reincarnations, though they are generally positive acts in this life as well. Traditional schools of Hinduism often worship Devas which are manifestations of Ishvara (a personal or chosen God); these Devas are taken as ideal forms to be identified with, as a form of spiritual improvement.
Judaism's most important feature is belief in a single, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, transcendent God, who created the universe and governs it. Per traditional Judaism, God established a covenant with the Jewish people, at Mount Sinai, revealing his laws and commandments in the Torah. In Rabbinic Judaism, the Torah comprises the written Pentateuch (Torah) and the oral law tradition (later transcribed as sacred writing).
In the Judaic world view, the purpose of life is to serve God and to prepare for the world to come.2728 The "Olam Haba"29 thought is about elevating oneself spiritually, connecting to God in preparing for "Olam Haba"; Jewish thought is to use "Olam Hazeh" (this world) to elevate oneself. 30
Zoroastrianism is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings ascribed to the prophet Zoroaster, after whom the religion is named. Zoroastrians believe in a universe created by a transcendental God, Ahura Mazda, to whom all worship is ultimately directed. Azhura Mazda's creation is asha, truth and order, and it is in conflict with its antithesis, druj, falsehood and disorder. Malevolent force is represented by Angra Mainyu, the "Destructive Principle", while the benevolent is represented through Ahura Mazda's Spenta Mainyu, the instrument or "Bounteous Principle" of the act of creation.
Since humanity possesses free will, people must be responsible for their moral choices. By using free will, people must take active role to play in the universal conflict, where good thoughts, good words and good deeds to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.
Ahura Mazda will ultimately prevail, at which point the universe will undergo a cosmic renovation and time will end (cf: Zoroastrian eschatology). In the final renovation, all of creation — even the souls of the dead that were initially banished to "darkness" — will be reunited in Ahura Mazda. At the end of time a savior-figure [a Saoshyant will bring about a final renovation of the world, and in which the dead will be revived.
Jainism is a religion originating in ancient India, its ethical system promotes self-discipline above all else. Through following the ascetic teachings of Jina, a human achieves enlightenment (perfect knowledge). Jainism divides the universe into living and non-living beings. Only when the non-living become attached to the living does suffering result. Therefore, happiness is the result of self-conquest and freedom from external objects. The meaning of life may then be said to be to use the physical body to achieve self-realization and bliss.31
Jains believe that every human is responsible for his or her actions and all living beings have an eternal soul, jīva. Jains believe all souls are equal because they all possess the potential of being liberated and attaining Moksha. The Jain view of karma is that every action, every word, every thought produces, besides its visible, an invisible, transcendental effect on the soul.
Jainism includes strict adherence to ahimsa (or ahinsā), a form of nonviolence that goes far beyond vegetarianism. Jains refuse food obtained with unnecessary cruelty. Many practice a lifestyle similar to Veganism due to the violence of modern dairy farms, and others exclude root vegetables from their diets in order to preserve the lives of the plants from which they eat.32
Buddhism is a nondual worldview, in which subject, object, and action are all seen as illusory. Buddhists believe that life is suffering. The suffering is caused by attachment to objects material or non-material. The meaning of life is to end suffering through detaching oneself from cravings and conceptual attachments. Suffering can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. Attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, Fabrications, and ideas.33
Theravada Buddhism is generally considered to be close to the early Buddhist practice. It promotes the concept of Vibhajjavada (Pali), literally "Teaching of Analysis", which says that insight must come from the aspirant's experience, critical investigation, and reasoning instead of by blind faith. However, the Theravadin tradition also emphasizes heeding the advice of the wise, considering such advice and evaluation of one's own experiences to be the two tests by which practices should be judged. The Theravadin goal is liberation (or freedom) from suffering, according to the Four Noble Truths. This is attained in the achievement of Nibbana, or Unbinding which also ends the repeated cycle of birth, old age, sickness and death.
The Taoists' cosmogony emphasizes the need for all sentient beings and all man to return to the primordial or to rejoin with the Oneness of the Universe by way of self-correction and self realization. It is the objective for all adherents to understand and be in tune with the ultimate truth.
Within the theology of Taoism, all men were originally a being called yuanling from Taiji and Tao, the meaning in life for the adherents is to realise the temporal nature of the existence, and all adherents are expected to practise, hone and conduct their mortal lives by way of Xiuzhen and Xiushen, as a preparation for the spiritual transcendence thereafter. "Only introspection can then help us to find our innermost reasons for living...the simple answer is here within ourselves."34
Confucianism recognizes human nature in accordance with the need for discipline and education. Because mankind is driven by both positive and negative influences, Confucianists see a goal in achieving the good nature through strong relationships and reasoning as well as minimizing the negative energy. This emphasis on normal living is seen in the Confucianist scholar Tu Wei-Ming's quote, "we can realize the ultimate meaning of life in ordinary human existence."35
Tengriism was the major belief of the Turkic peoples and Mongols before the vast majority joined the established world religions. Tengriism advocates cooperation between conflicting groups and the meaning of life is seen as living in harmony with the surrounding world. In their reverence of the sky deity Tengri, Tengriists crave for the sublime and are compelled to be proud and intransigent and to profess a philosophy incompatibe with a slave mentality. As they worship Mother Earth, they also have a strong belief in the sanctity of one's patrimony and the succour of good spirits.36
Plato was the earliest, most influential Western philosopher — mostly for realism about the existence of universals. In the Theory of Forms, universals do not physically exist, like objects, but exist as ghostly, heavenly forms. In The Republic, the Socrates character's dialogue describes the Form of the Good. The Idea of the Good is ekgonos (offspring) of the Good, the ideal, perfect nature of goodness, hence an absolute measure of justice.
In Platonism, the meaning of life is in attaining the highest form of knowledge, which is the Idea (Form) of the Good, from which all good and just things derive utility and value. Human beings are duty-bound to pursue the good, but no one can succeed in that pursuit without philosophical reasoning, which allows for true knowledge.
Aristotle, an apprentice of Plato, was another, early, most influential Western philosopher, who argued that ethical knowledge is not certain knowledge (like metaphysics and epistemology), but is general knowledge. Because it is not a theoretical discipline, a person had to study and practice in order to become 'good', thus if the person were to become virtuous, he could not simply study what virtue is, he had to be virtuous, via virtuous activities. To do this, Aristotle established what is virtuous: Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly, every action and choice of action, is thought to have some good as its object. This is why the good has rightly been defined as the object of all endeavor (NE 1.1) Everything is done with a goal, and that goal is 'good'.
Yet, if action A is done towards achieving goal B, then goal B also would have a goal, goal C, and goal C also would have a goal, and so would continue this pattern, until something stopped its infinite regression. Aristotle's solution is the Highest Good, which is desirable for its own sake, it is its own goal. The Highest Good is not desirable for the sake of achieving some other good, and all other ‘goods’ desirable for its sake. This involves achieving eudaemonia, usually translated as "happiness", "well-being", "flourishing", and "excellence".
What is the highest good in all matters of action? To the name, there is almost complete agreement; for uneducated and educated alike call it happiness, and make happiness identical with the good life and successful living. They disagree, however, about the meaning of happiness. (NE 1.4)
In the Hellenistic period, the Cynic philosophers said that the purpose of life is living a life of Virtue that agrees with Nature. Happiness depends upon being self-sufficient and master of one's mental attitude; suffering is consequence of false judgments of value, which cause negative emotions and a concomitant vicious character.
The Cynical life rejects conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, by being free of the possessions acquired in pursuing the conventional.3738 As reasoning creatures, people could achieve happiness via rigorous training, by living in a way natural to human beings. The world equally belongs to everyone, so suffering is caused by false judgments of what is valuable and what is worthless per the customs and conventions of society.
Cyrenaicism, founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, was an early Socratic school that emphasised only one side of Socrates's teachings — that happiness is one of the ends of moral action and that pleasure is the supreme good; thus a hedonistic world view, wherein bodily gratification is more intense than mental pleasure. Cyrenaics prefer immediate gratification to the long-term gain of delayed gratification; denial is unpleasant unhappiness.3940
To Epicurus, the greatest good is in seeking modest pleasures, to attain tranquility and freedom from fear (ataraxia) via knowledge, friendship, and virtuous, temperate living; bodily pain (aponia) is absent through one's knowledge of the workings of the world and of the limits of one's desires. Combined, freedom from pain and freedom from fear are happiness in its highest form. Epicurus's lauded enjoyment of simple pleasures, is quasi-ascetic abstention from sex and the appetites:
When we say . . . that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do, by some, through ignorance, prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish, and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.41
The Epicurean meaning of life rejects immortality and mysticism; there is a soul, but it is as mortal as the body. There is no afterlife, yet, one need not fear death, because "Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved, is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us."42
Stoicism teaches that living according to reason and virtue is to be in harmony with the universe's divine order, entailed by one's recognition of the universal logos (reason), an essential value of all people. The meaning of life is freedom from suffering through apatheia (Gr: απαθεια), that is, being objective, having "clear judgement", not indifference.
Stoicism's prime directives are virtue, reason, and natural law, abided to develop personal self-control and mental fortitude as means of overcoming destructive emotions. The Stoic does not seek to extinguish emotions, only to avoid emotional troubles, by developing clear judgement and inner calm through diligently practiced logic, reflection, and concentration.
The Stoic ethical foundation is that good lies in the state of the soul, itself, exemplified in wisdom and self-control, thus improving one's spiritual well-being: "Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature."42 The principle applies to one's personal relations thus: "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy".42
The rise of universal religions marks a shift from concerns about personal potential and relationships to the natural world, to a focus on more profound forms of devotion and all-inclusive salvation. In the Christian, Muslim, and Sikh faiths, this manifested as subjection to God: salvation was not a personal achievement, but rather a token of God's grace to be earned by the devout. Eastern traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism, likewise, moved from their primary focus on individual liberation to more abstract ideals of liberation for all. In all, this era magnified and generalized ideals of love, compassion, and relief of human suffering that had little or no place in earlier philosophy.
Though Christianity has its roots in Judaism, and shares much of the latter faith's ontology, its central beliefs derive from the teachings of Jesus Christ, as presented in the New Testament. Life's purpose in Christianity is to seek divine salvation through the grace of God and intercession of Christ. The New Testament speaks of God wanting to have a relationship with humans both in this life and the life to come, which can happen only if one's sins are forgiven (John 3:16-21, 2Peter 3:9). In the Christian view humankind is inherently and innately sinful, but Christ's death and resurrection provide the means for transcending that impure state (Romans 6:23). The means for doing so varies between different sects, but all rely on one form or another of subjugation to God's will.
Under the Christian view, the main purpose in life is to live like Christ did, to give glory to God in all that we do, and to serve and love Him.
Catholics believe that penance is required in earning forgiveness of sin, especially mortal sin. Orthodox Protestants and evangelicals do not believe that one's actions, in themselves, have an impact upon one's personal salvation and entry to Heaven; instead, one's acceptance of Christ as saviour and repentance of sin determine existential fate.
In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the first question is: What is the chief end of Man?, that is, What is Man's main purpose?. The answer is: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever. God requires one to obey the revealed moral law saying: love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbour as ourselves.43 The Baltimore Catechism answers the question "Why did God make you?" by saying "God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven."44
Mahayana Buddhist schools de-emphasize the traditional view (still practiced in Theravada) of the release from individual Suffering (Dukkha) and attainment of Awakening (Nirvana). In Mahayana, the Buddha is seen as an eternal, immutable, inconceivable, omnipresent being. The fundamental principles of Mahayana doctrine are based around the possibility of universal liberation from suffering for all beings, and the existence of the transcendent Buddha-nature, which is the eternal Buddha essence present, but hidden and unrecognised, in all living beings.
Philosophical schools of Mahayana Buddhism, such as Chan/Zen and the vajrayana Tibetan and Shingon schools, explicitly teach that boddhisattvas should refrain from full liberation, allowing themselves to be reincarnated into the world until all beings achieve enlightenment. Devotional schools such as Pure Land buddhism seek the aid of celestial buddhas - individuals who have spent lifetimes accumulating positive karma, and use that accumulation to aid all.
Hinduism made a resurgence in India in the 7th century CE, after several centuries of Buddhist predominance. While retaining earlier Hindu theosophy, new schools reinterpreted the vedas to focus on Brahman, "The One Without a Second",45 as a central God-like figure. The two main schools of the time are the monist Advaita and the dualist Dvaita. The main distinction between the schools is their understanding of the nature of atman.
In Advaita, atman is ultimately indistinguishable from brahman, and the goal of life is to know or realize that one's atman (soul) is identical to Brahman.46 To the Upanishads, whoever becomes fully aware of the ātman, as one's core of self, realises identity with Brahman, and, thereby, achieves Moksha (liberation, freedom).234748 Brahman is conceived as a divinity without characteristics or qualities, and moksha is pursued by separating oneself from the characteristics and qualities inherent in being a living entity. The notion of lila (play) denotes the universe as cosmic game, wherein meaning is a "play of significance".49 Lila is manifest in the inexhaustible richness of being and event that are the keys to the meaning of life.50
Dvaita Vedanta and other bhakti schools have a dualist interpretation. Brahman is seen as a supreme being with a personality and manifest qualities. The ātman depends upon brahman for its existence; the meaning of life is achieving Moksha through love of God and upon his grace.47
In Islam, Man's ultimate life objective is to seek the pleasure of Allah (the Arabic equivalent for "God") by abiding by the Divine guidelines revealed in the Qur'an and the Tradition of the Prophet. Earthly life, is merely a test, determining one's afterlife, either in Jannah (paradise) or in Jahannum (Hell).
For the pleasure of Allah, via the Qur'an, all Muslims must believe in God, his revelations, his angels, his messengers, and in the "Day of Judgment".51 The purpose to the creation of man was for glorifying and worshipping Allah:52 I only created jinn and man to worship Me (Qur'an 51:56). Worship testifies to the oneness of God in his lordship, his names, and his attributes. Terrenal life is a test; how one acts (behaves) determines whether one's soul goes to Jannah (Heaven) or to Jahannam (Hell).
The Five Pillars of Islam are duties incumbent to every Muslim; they are: Shahadah (profession of faith); Salah (ritual prayer); Zakah (charity); Sawm (fasting during Ramadan), and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).53 They derive from the Hadith works, notably of Sahih Al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.
Beliefs differ among the Kalam. The Sunni concept of pre-destination is divine decree;54 like-wise, the Shi'a concept of pre-destination is divine justice; in the esoteric view of the Sufis, the universe exists only for God's pleasure; Creation is a grand game, wherein Allah is the greatest prize.5555
The monastic Sikh religion was founded by Guru Nanak Dev, the term "sikh" means student, which denotes that followers will lead their lives forever learning. This system of religious philosophy and expression has been traditionally known as the Gurmat (literally the counsel of the gurus) or the Sikh Dharma. The followers of Sikhism are ordained to follow the teachings of the ten Sikh gurus, or enlightened leaders, as well as the holy scripture entitled the Gurū Granth Sāhib, which includes selected works of many philosophers from diverse socio-economic and religious backgrounds.
The Sikh Gurus tell us that salvation can be obtained by following various spiritual paths. Therefore, Sikhs do not have a monopoly on salvation: "The Lord dwells in every heart, and every heart has its own way to reach Him."56 Sikhs do not consider they have an "exclusive" right to salvation. Sikhs believe that all people are equally important before God.57 Sikhs balance their moral and spiritual values with the quest for knowledge, and they aim to promote a life of peace and equality but also of positive action.58
A key distinctive feature of Sikhism is a non-anthropomorphic concept of God, to the extent that one can interpret God as the Universe itself (pantheism). Sikhism thus sees life as an opportunity to understand this God as well as to discover the divinity which lies in each individual. While a full understanding of God is beyond human beings,59 Nanak described God as not wholly unknowable. God is omnipresent (sarav viāpak) in all creation and visible everywhere to the spiritually awakened. Nanak stressed that God must be seen from "the inward eye", or the "heart", of a human being: devotees must meditate to progress towards enlightenment. Nanak emphasized the revelation through meditation, as its rigorous application permits the existence of communication between God and human beings.59
According to Sikhism, every creature has a soul. In death, the soul passes from one body to another until final liberation. The journey of the soul is governed by the karma of the deeds and actions we perform during our lives, and depending on the goodness or wrongdoings committed by a person in their life they will either be rewarded or punished in their next life. As the spirit of God is found in all life and matter, a soul can be passed onto other life forms, such as plants and insects - not just human bodies. A person who has evolved to achieve spiritual perfection in his lifetimes attains salvation – union with God and liberation from rebirth in the material world.
Shinto is the native religion of Japan. Shinto means "the path of the kami", but more specifically, it can be taken to mean "the divine crossroad where the kami chooses his way". The 'divine' crossroad signifies that all the universe is divine spirit. This foundation of free will, choosing one's way, means that life is a creative process.
Shinto wants life to live, not to die. Shinto sees death as pollution and regards life as the realm where the divine spirit seeks to purify itself by rightful self-development. Shinto wants individual human life to be prolonged forever on earth as a victory of the divine spirit in preserving its objective personality in its highest forms. The presence of evil in the world, as conceived by Shinto, does not stultify the divine nature by imposing on divinity responsibility for being able to relieve human suffering while refusing to do so. The sufferings of life are the sufferings of the divine spirit in search of progress in the objective world.60
The colonial era and the Enlightenment both changed the nature of European philosophy and exported it worldwide. Devotion and subservience to God were largely replaced by notions of natural (God-given) rights and the potentialities of reason, and universal ideals of love and compassion gave way to civic notions of freedom, equality, and citizenship. The meaning of life changed as well, focussing less on humankind's relationship to God and more on the relationship between individuals and their society. This era is filled with theories that equate meaningful existence with the social order.
Classical liberalism is a set of ideas that arose in the 17th and 18th centuries, out of conflicts between a growing, wealthy, propertied class and the established aristocratic and religious orders that dominated Europe. Liberalism cast humans as beings with inalienable, God-given rights (including the right to retain the wealth generated by one's own work), and sought out means to balance rights across society. Broadly speaking, it considers individual liberty to be the most important goal,61 because only through ensured liberty are the other inherent rights protected.
There are many forms and derivations of liberalism, but their central conceptions of the meaning of life trace back to three main ideas. Early thinkers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith saw humankind beginning in the state of nature, then finding meaning for existence through labor and property, and using social contracts to create an environment that supports those efforts.
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Kantianism is a philosophy based on the ethical, epistemological and metaphysical works of Immanuel Kant. Kant is known for his deontological theory where there is a single moral obligation, the "Categorical Imperative", derived from the concept of duty. Kantians believe all actions are performed in accordance with some underlying maxim or principle, and for actions to be ethical, they must adhere to the categorical imperative.
Simply put, the test is that one must universalize the maxim (imagine that all people acted in this way) and then see if it would still be possible to perform the maxim in the world. In Groundwork, Kant gives the example of a person who seeks to borrow money without intending to pay it back. This is a contradiction because if it were a universal action, no person would lend money anymore as he knows that he will never be paid back. The maxim of this action, says Kant, results in a contradiction in conceivability (and thus contradicts perfect duty).
Kant also denied that the consequences of an act in any way contribute to the moral worth of that act, his reasoning being that the physical world is outside our full control and thus we cannot be held accountable for the events that occur in it.
The origins of Utilitarianism can be traced back as far as Epicurus, but, as a school of thought, it is credited to Jeremy Bentham,62 who found that nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure, then, from that moral insight, deriving the Rule of Utility: that the good is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. Later, on grasping the conflict of principles inherent to that formulation, he revised it and dropped the second part, limiting his definition of the meaning of life to the "greatest happiness" principle.
Jeremy Bentham's foremost proponent was James Mill, a significant philosopher in his day, and father of John Stuart Mill. The younger Mill was educated per Bentham's principles, including transcribing and summarising much of his father's work.63 In Utilitarianism, J.S. Mill argued that cultural, intellectual, and spiritual pleasures are of greater value than physical pleasure, because the former would be valued more highly, by competent judges, than the latter; a competent judge being anyone experienced in the low pleasures and the high pleasures.64
Nihilism rejects any authority's claims to knowledge and truth, and so explores the significance of existence without knowable truth. Rather than insisting that values are subjective, and might be warrantless, the nihilist says: Nothing is of value, morals are valueless, they only serve as society's false ideals. Despite tending towards defeatism or fatalism, one can find strength and reason in the varied, unique human relations nihilism explores.
Friedrich Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world, and especially human existence, of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, and essential value; succinctly, nihilism is the process of "the devaluing of the highest values".65 Seeing the nihilist as a natural result of the idea that God is dead, and insisting it was something to overcome, his questioning of the nihilist's life-negating values, returned meaning to the Earth.66
To Martin Heidegger, nihilism is the movement whereby "being" is forgotten, and is transformed into value, in other words, the reduction of being to exchange value.65 Heidegger, in accordance with Nietzsche, saw in the so-called "death of God" a potential source for nihilism:
If God, as the supra-sensory ground and goal, of all reality, is dead; if the supra-sensory world of the Ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory, and above it, its vitalizing and up-building power, then nothing more remains to which Man can cling, and by which he can orient himself.67
The Bahá'í Faith, founded by Bahá'u'lláh, emphasizes the unity of humanity.68 To Bahá'ís, the purpose of life is focused on spiritual growth and service to humanity. Human beings are viewed as intrinsically spiritual beings. Our lives in this material world provide extended opportunities to grow, and the prophets were sent by God to facilitate this.69
The current era has seen radical changes in conceptions of human nature. Modern science has effectively rewritten the relationship of humankind to the natural world, advances in medicine and technology have freed us from the limitations and ailments of previous eras, and philosophy —particularly following the linguistic turn— altered how the relationships people have with themselves and each other is conceived. Questions about the meaning of life have seen equally radical changes, from attempts to re-evaluate human existence in biological and scientific terms (as in pragmatism and logical positivism), to efforts to meta-theorize about meaning-making as an activity (existentialism, humanism), to a broad assortment of popular aphorisms and beliefs designed to give some small measure of meaning to existence.
Pragmatism, originated in the late-nineteenth-century U.S., to concern itself (mostly) with truth, positing that only in struggling with the environment do data, and derived theories, have meaning, and that consequences, like utility and practicality, also are components of truth. Moreover, pragmatism posits that anything useful and practical is not always true, arguing that what most contributes to the most human good in the long course is true. In practice, theoretical claims must be practically verifiable, i.e. one should be able to predict and test claims, and, that, ultimately, the needs of mankind should guide human intellectual inquiry.
Pragmatic philosophers suggest that the practical, useful understanding of life is more important than searching for an impractical abstract truth about life. William James argued that truth could be made, but not sought.7071 To a pragmatist, the meaning of life is discoverable only via experience.
Each man and each woman creates the essence (meaning) of his and her life; life is not determined by a supernatural god or an earthly authority, one is free. As such, one's ethical prime directives are action, freedom, and decision, thus, Existentialism counters rationalism and positivism. In seeking meaning to life, the existentialist looks to where people find meaning in life, in course of which using only reason as a source of meaning is insufficient; the insufficiency gives rise to the emotions of anxiety and dread, felt in facing one's radical freedom, and the concomitant awareness of death. To the existentialist, existence precedes essence; the (essence) of one's life arises only after one comes to existence.
Søren Kierkegaard coined the term "leap of faith", arguing that life is full of absurdity, and one must make his and her own values in an indifferent world. One can live meaningfully (free of despair and anxiety) in an unconditional commitment to something finite, and devotes that meaningful life to the commitment, despite the vulnerability inherent to doing so.72
Arthur Schopenhauer answered: "What is the meaning of life?" by determining that one's life reflects one's will, and that the will (life) is an aimless, irrational, and painful drive. Salvation, deliverance, and escape from suffering are in aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and asceticism.7374
For Nietzsche, life is worth living only if there are goals inspiring one to live. Accordingly, he saw Nihilism ("all that happens is meaningless") as without goals. He discredited asceticism, because it denies one's living in the world; denied that values are objective facts, that are rationally unnecessary, universally-binding commitments: Our evaluations are interpretations, and not reflections of the world, as it is, in itself, and, therefore, all ideations take place from a particular perspective.66
Per Humanism, the human race came to be by reproducing in a progression of unguided evolution as an integral part of nature, which is self-existing.7576 Knowledge does not come from supernatural sources, but from human observation, experimentation, and rational analysis (the scientific method): the nature of the universe is what people discern it to be.75 Like-wise, "values and realities" are determined "by means of intelligent inquiry"75 and "are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience", that is, by critical intelligence.7778 "As far as we know, the total personality is [a function] of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context."76
People determine human purpose, without supernatural influence; it is the human personality (general sense) that is the purpose of a human being's life; humanism seeks to develop and fulfill:75 "Humanism affirms our ability, and responsibility, to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity".77 Humanists promote enlightened self-interest and the common good for all people. The happiness of the individual person is inextricably linked to the well-being of humanity, as a whole, in part, because we are social animals, who find meaning in personal relations, and because cultural progress benefits everybody living in the culture.7677
The philosophical sub-genres posthumanism and transhumanism (sometimes used synonymously) are extensions of humanistic values. One should seek the advancement of humanity and of all life to the greatest degree feasible, to reconcile Renaissance humanism with the twenty-first century's technoscientific culture, thus, every living creature has the right to determine its personal and social "meaning of life".79
Logical positivists ask: What is the meaning of life? and What is the meaning in asking?8081 If there are no objective values, then, is life meaningless?82 Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logical positivists said: Expressed in language, the question is meaningless; because, in life the statement the "meaning of x", usually denotes the consequences of x, or the significance of x, or what is notable about x, et cetera, thus, when the meaning of life concept equals "x", in the statement the "meaning of x", the statement becomes recursive, and, therefore, nonsensical, or it might refer to the fact that biological life is essential to having a meaning in life.
The things (people, events) in the life of a person can have meaning (importance) as parts of a whole, but a discrete meaning of (the) life, itself, aside from those things, cannot be discerned. A person's life has meaning (for himself, others) as the life events resulting from his achievements, legacy, family, et cetera, but, to say that life, itself, has meaning, is a misuse of language, since any note of significance, or of consequence, is relevant only in life (to the living), so rendering the statement erroneous. Bertrand Russell wrote that although he found that his distaste for torture was like his distaste for broccoli, he found no satisfactory, empirical method of proving this:42
When we try to be definite, as to what we mean when we say that this or that is "the Good," we find ourselves involved in very great difficulties. Bentham's creed, that pleasure is the Good, roused furious opposition, and was said to be a pig's philosophy. Neither he nor his opponents could advance any argument. In a scientific question, evidence can be adduced on both sides, and, in the end, one side is seen to have the better case — or, if this does not happen, the question is left undecided. But in a question, as to whether this, or that, is the ultimate Good, there is no evidence, either way; each disputant can only appeal to his own emotions, and employ such rhetorical devices as shall rouse similar emotions in others . . . Questions as to "values" — that is to say, as to what is good or bad on its own account, independently of its effects — lie outside the domain of science, as the defenders of religion emphatically assert. I think that, in this, they are right, but, I draw the further conclusion, which they do not draw, that questions as to "values" lie wholly outside the domain of knowledge. That is to say, when we assert that this, or that, has "value", we are giving expression to our own emotions, not to a fact, which would still be true if our personal feelings were different.83
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Postmodernist thought - broadly speaking - sees human nature as constructed by language, or by structures and institutions of human society. Unlike other forms of philosophy, postmodernism rarely seeks out a priori or innate meanings in human existence, but instead focuses on analyzing or critiquing given meanings in order to rationalize or reconstruct them. Anything resembling a 'meaning of life', in postmodernist terms, can only be understood within a social and linguistic framework, and must be pursued as an escape from the power structures that are already embedded in all forms of speech and interaction. As a rule, postmodernists see awareness of the constraints of language as necessary to escaping those constraints, but different theorists take different views on the nature of this process: from radical reconstruction of meaning by individuals (as in deconstructionism) to theories in which individuals are primarily extensions of language and society, without real autonomy (as in poststructuralism). In general, postmodernism seeks meaning by looking at the underlying structures that create or impose meaning, rather than the epiphenomenal appearances of the world.
Claims that descriptive science can shed light on normative issues such as the meaning of life are highly disputed within the scientific and philosophy-of-science communities. Nevertheless, science may be able to provide some context and sets some parameters for conversations on related topics.
Science may or may not be able to tell us what is of essential value in life, but some studies bear on related questions: researchers in positive psychology (and, earlier and less rigorously, in humanistic psychology) study factors that lead to life satisfaction,84 full engagement in activities,85 making a fuller contribution by utilizing one's personal strengths,86 and meaning based on investing in something larger than the self.87 Social psychology examines factors that lead to infants thriving or failing to thrive, and in other areas of psychology questions of motivation, preference, and what people value. Economists have learned a great deal about what is valued in the marketplace; and sociology examines value at a social level using theoretical constructs such as value theory, norms, anomie, etc.
Neuroscience has produced theories of reward, pleasure and motivation in terms of physical entities such as neurotransmitter activity, especially in the limbic system and the ventral tegmental area in particular. If one believes that the meaning of life is to maximize pleasure, then these theories give normative predictions about how to act to achieve this.
The exact mechanisms of abiogenesis are unknown: notable theories include the RNA world hypothesis (RNA-based replicators) and the iron-sulfur world theory (metabolism without genetics). The theory of evolution explains the process by which different lifeforms have developed throughout history via genetic mutation and natural selection.88 At the end of the 20th century, based upon insight gleaned from the gene-centered view of evolution, biologists George C. Williams, Richard Dawkins, David Haig, among others, conclude that if there is a primary function to life, it is the replication of DNA and the survival of one's genes.8990
However, though scientists have intensively studied life on Earth, defining life in unequivocal terms is still a challenge.9192 Physically, one may say that life "feeds on negative entropy"9394 which refers to the process by which living entities decrease their internal entropy at the expense of some form of energy taken in from the environment.9596 Biologists generally agree that lifeforms are self-organizing systems which regulate the internal environment as to maintain this organized state, metabolism serves to provide energy, and reproduction allows life to continue over a span of multiple generations. Typically, organisms are responsive to stimuli and genetic information tends to change from generation to generation as to allow adaptation through evolution, these characteristics optimalizing the chances of survival for the individual organism and its descendants respectively.9798 Non-cellular replicating agents, notably viruses, are gene
