Abstract
Many philosophers have suggested that lives emerge as meaningless when considered within the context of the vastness of the cosmos and of time. Landau (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 89(4), 727–734, 2011, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 17(3), 457–468, 2014, 2017) has argued that considering a life within the context of the vastness of the cosmos and of time need not lead to this pessimistic conclusion. Three recent discussions, by Benatar (2017), Hanson (Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 23, 561–573, 2020), and Kügler (The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2021), offer criticisms of some of Landau’s arguments. The present paper continues to develop the topic by discussing these criticisms. Among other points, the paper rejects Nagel’s claim that standards are unavailable within the cosmic context. In reply to another criticism, it elaborates on reasons for preferring some standards over others. The paper also argues that Blackburn’s, Rescher’s, and Camus’s arguments differ from Nagel’s; that a disproof of the pessimistic argument does not require that we explain the argument’s popularity; and that Hanson’s account of the relation between the cosmic perspective and evaluations of meaningfulness is, at the end of the day, in fact quite similar to Landau’s, so that the difference between them is more terminological than material. Finally, the paper claims that the debate suffers from terminological untidiness and suggests the use of clearer, more precise terminology in future philosophical work on the topic.
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Notes
Henceforth I use “insufficiently meaningful” and “meaningless” interchangeably. Similarly, I use interchangeably “sufficiently meaningful” and “meaningful,” “sufficient meaningfulness” and “meaningfulness,” etc.
Although the forthcoming discussion is relevant for both cosmos and time, for the sake of conciseness I henceforth often mention only the former. This does not affect the argument.
Henceforth I use interchangeably “within the wide/cosmic context,” “from the wide/cosmic perspective,” and “sub specie aeternitatis” or “SSA.” Similarly, I use “within the narrow context,” “within the context of the here and now,” “from the narrow perspective,” “from the perspective of the here and now,” and sub specie humanitatis” or “SSH” interchangeably.
For an earlier critique, see Seachris (2013).
Kügler’s understanding the issue in a visual rather than an intellectual way is apparent also in some of his other comments, as when he asks whether “the meaning of my life can also be spotted sub specie aeternitatis” (emphasis added; 2021, 4).
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for pressing me to discuss this objection.
I think that Nagel’s example of the ant (1979, 15) is problematic, since the detachment may in fact not have anything to do with the huge context in which we are seeing the ant, but rather derives from the fact that it is an ant we are looking at, regardless of the context: that is, the ant is just an insect whose life most of us usually do not relate to meaningfulness. If we were to see instead of an ant a tiny person struggling on a heap of sand (or a huge mountain), our attitude would likely be different.
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for pressing me on this point.
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Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Marie Deer, Saul Smilansky, Daniel Statman, Michele L. Waldinger, and an anonymous referee for Philosophia for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Landau, I. Can Lives Be Seen as Meaningful Within the Cosmic Context?. Philosophia 51, 2085–2102 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00660-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-023-00660-x