Christopher Bernal
Kanon – PHIL 3324
M-W 3:30
12/1/10
The Meaning and Value of A Life Without Appeal ; a Defense.
Those who are of the pessimistic persuasion claim that human life has no meaning. Because human life comes to an end and has no meaning, nihilists postulate that it would be better for human life to never have existed at all. In order to prove that human life does indeed have meaning, non-pessimists must “prove that in some arbitrary sense of the word “better,” the existence of life is better than its nonexistence.” (Edwards 133)
Paul Edwards, in The Meaning and Value of Life , deals with the question of whether or not human life can have any meaning. When trying to find a substantial meaning to life, one must first understand what meaning actually means. Edwards separates the human understanding of meaning into two separate camps: the cosmic and the terrestrial. A human life can be worthwhile objectively, or cosmically, in which that life is connected with general goals that can be attained and are goals that increase happiness, or pleasure. Subjectively, or terrestrially, a human life is worthwhile when it is attached to goals that the personality does not find trivial, and to goals that are also believed attainable to that personality.
In E.D. Klemke’s Living Without Appeal: An Affirmative Philosophy of Life, there is a chance that a person could not believe in the transcendent ultimate that is necessary for life to have meaning. In fact, that person would simply not have the ability to have faith in something that is not naturally found. Klemke argues that one should not expect more than that from anyone. In the end, Klemke offers an insight into his own personal opinions on the meaning of life, and there reveals that he himself has faith in his own personal transcendent ultimate. It is the literal application of imbuing life with meaning.

For as long as I am conscious, I shall have the capacity with which to endow events, objects, persons, and achievements with value… Yes, it is a vital and sensitive consciousness that counts. [Klemke 194]
This is Klemke’s transcendent ultimate, the act of faith that the speaker originally claims it cannot make. The speaker does not ask the reader to believe in his idea, but is simply sharing it.
That is the message of this piece, and it is the universal meaning to life.
Cosmically speaking, human life has no meaning; it does have meaning in a terrestrial sense.
Thus humans, “when ask[ed] whether a particular person’s life has or had any meaning,”
(Edwards 124) would want to know whether or not that person was attached to a cause of any sorts. Even if a person’s cause was harmful in the long run, it could still be said that they lived a life with meaning.
Thus the cosmic, or objective, view could correspond to an immortal point of view, such as the one appropriated with God. While God’s cosmic view provides no meaning for human life, humanity’s own terrestrial, subjective, view does.
Unfortunately, a subjective point of view is just that: subjective. It does not always hold up under careful reasonable scrutiny, and it is then that the pessimists declare that human life has no meaning.
A perfect example of the severe standards of the pessimistic point of view is in Tolstoy’s view of the weak way of life. The way of “weakness” (Edwards 119) is the way for those who lack the ambition to do what is rational: commit suicide. Yet the majority of modern society tends to look down upon those who kill themselves. For the most part, people are generally able to understand that death is inevitable and not need “”proof” that the existence of life is better than its nonexistence.” Many pessimists also “ignore what may be called the “short-term context” of much of our lives.” (Edwards 133) The short-term context includes things such as having goals that one does not hold trivial, having goals that are attainable, or having goals that

are attainable and hold positive value. These are again the objective and subjective meanings of
‘worthwhile’, at least when it comes to the meaning of human life.
Edwards concedes that under the definitions of worthwhile some human lives will not be worthwhile in any sense, or only worthwhile in one sense, or even in both. While he admits that this is “unexciting”, he also wonders whether or not it is a sufficient response to the pessimists.
“The pessimist is mistaken if he concludes… that life is not worthwhile by ordinary standards because it is not worthwhile by his standards.” (Edwards 128) Ordinary standards are what guide most humans in their every day choices of living, and most of the pessimists also live by those ordinary standards. Thus the burden of presenting justification should fall to the pessimists, and because it falls short of a reasonable justification, it is not “clear why anybody would embrace
[the pessimist’s] standards in place of those commonly adopted.” (Edwards 133)
Finally, Edwards points out that if the proper response to the pessimists is that of human worth, than it proves nothing. It cannot be proven that the existence of human life is better than its non-existence. In the same way, fortunately, the non-existence of human life cannot be proven better than its existence. The question does not have a clear answer, unless, Edwards stipulates,
“it is interpreted as a request for a statement of personal preference.” (Edwards 131) Most pessimists consider a ‘better’ world in terms of hedonism or utilitarianism. Thus ‘better’ comes from more amounts of happiness, or pleasure, and less amounts of unhappiness, or pain. Even philosophers such as Spinoza and Nietzche agreed that life is full suffering, but both taught that existence is preferable to nonexistence. So it follows that the pessimistic argument is simply an argument of values and personal preference. Edwards states that it is not irrational for human beings to prefer existence and life to nonexistence and death. In the final lines of his article he states his own personal preference:

There is perhaps something a trifle absurd and obsessive in the need for a “proof” that the existence of life is better than its nonexistence. It resembles the demand to have it “established by argument” that love is better than hate. (Edwards 133)
While human lives are indeed filled with more unhappiness than happiness, Edwards states that humans naturally and innately like happiness much more than unhappiness. Perhaps the absurdity comes from trying to convince humans to give up that happiness in order to get rid of the unhappiness. Fortunately, humanity’s terrestrial point of view proves that, while in at least a subjective sense, there is a potential meaning and worth for each human life.
For Klemke’s ideas on the transcendentalist, the first ideas that must be dealt with are: that a transcendent ultimate exists and that man can interact with it; that belief in the transcendent ultimate is necessary for life to have meaning; and that if life has no meaning, than it is not worth living. The article is split into three sections, and the second section is purely devoted to answering these three theses. Briefly said, the transcendent ultimate cannot be viewed or comprehended naturally, and if an act of faith is required to comprehend it, then the unwilling skeptic is simply not able to see meaning in that. In responding to the third transcendental thesis, the speaker steps into a more personal voice, and it could be conveyed that it is the more true voice of Klemke himself.
I, for one, am glad that the universe has no meaning, for thereby is man all the more glorious.
I willingly accept the fact that external meaning is non-existent… for this leaves me free to forge my own meaning.
(Klemke 193)
He goes on to explain how he finds meaning in the little things, a painting, a song, a philosophical debate. He is endowing these things with personal meaning, subjective meaning.
This is what man is meant to do, create his own meaning to life.
I'll take this time to ponder the issues of discovering the meaning of life that I've discovered this semester:

First off, that life is meaningless. This is a fact that I've understood for quite some time. I remember crying on the black top in elementary school, just sobbing. I cried about a lot of things on that blacktop. Life was meaningless. Why did it affect me so much? Just this simple truth that
I stumbled upon at 7 years old. It's just so unfair. But then I step back and think about it, and realize that it is only meaningless when viewed from the cosmic/destiny sense. In the grand scheme of it all, I am insignificant. But in my own personal life I am the most important thing.
To debunk any solipsist or narcissist thoughts, think of suicide and the emotional crater that's left behind. My life has meaning, because if I ended it people’s lives would be altered.
So that has to be it, right? The emotional connection between people. That is the meaning of life, right? The grad student who's in charge of my group project seems to think so. He's an undead warlock[Scorpio/Sagittarius cusp, naturally [Undead=Scorpio: Ice, cold, chthonian.
Warlock=Sagittarius: Fire, destructive, yet still philosophical/spiritual.]], and he talks a lot about how things exist simply to exist. I suppose it could be put as a 'fear' of nothing that makes us, everything, cling together. And then I think about Emerson and Thoreau, who I read for the first time this semester as well. Transcendentalism is exactly what I've been doing my entire life, and it makes perfect sense. Which isn't in and of itself a weird thing, but it is a weird thing when
I remember that I believe in reincarnation. And I wonder...
Except I'm a healer. I don't analyze things to be able to take them apart. Especially as a shaman, using the four elements to analyze everything, and make them whole. Isn't that what the first philosophers did? And I just did it naturally, before I ever knew that philosophy was a thing, a living breathing thing. I'm not saying that resto shamans are better than warlocks, lol, because those are two things that can't even be compared. They're both necessary for the group, and they do two completely different things.

Anyway, through taking a philosophy class about the meaning of life, my life is meaningful.
I've managed to make something meaningful to myself by comparing it to so many different things. Astrology/Literature/WorldofWarcraft/AncientPhilosophy. It's all about value, what one person values. Entirely subjective.

Works Cited:
Edwards, Paul. "The Meaning of Life." The Meaning and Value of Life . Third. NY, NY: Oxford
University Press, Inc., 2008. Print.
Klemke, E.D. "The Meaning of Life." Living Without Appeal: An Affirmative Philosophy of Life .
Third. NY, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2008. Print.